Cheap front end weights

Unless you are a pretty fair welder and fabricator, you will be pretty much limited to the OEM front weights unless you can fabricate some front weights out of some channel iron and bolt some plated together to the front weight bracket holder. That is what my friend Jim did with his B2400.

 

Well if looks are not a concern, fab up some kind of box, and toss a few junkyeard V8 cilinder heads in it. That can add a lot of weight quick, and if you have the scrap, probably free.

 

Ballast weights are one item that really gripes my a$$ as to the ptrices they charge for such a simple item......There is no way in he double elll that weights should cost anywhere near as much as you have to pay for them......Sure they are heavy but in all reality they are just "as cast" castings, no finish machining etc are done to them, they are ramed up in a mold, poured, and shook out and painted.........its a straight forward simple easy process........Even those that are blow formed plastic filled with concrete......nothing hi tech about it. Blow molded forms or shapes are a dime a dozen, and concrete is dirt cheap...so why the high price for a hollow shell of plastic filled with concrete.......Simple........you pay decent money for a machine, and can't utilize the machine unless you have "XXX" to make it functional, so they have you by the gonads, so they can charge the high price....After I found out what JD wanted for my wheel weights, and Ford wanted for the suitcase weights for the front of my 1720, was when I went the home brew method...........


For years and years I used simple slabs of lead bolted together for weights on my 1720.........I have since made a front bumper / brush guard, comprised mainly of channels, which I filled with lead.......NOw I have front weights on my 1720, that do not take up any space, are placed well out front, and are concealed in the bumpers channell, and I have hardly any $$ into it at all. I figure a fraction of just what one suitcase weight would have cost me is what I have in the entire bumper assembly including the lead. (Free from various tire dealers) Its easy and cheap to make a suitable propane burner to melt lead with out of common plumbing fittings, or even if you had to spend $15.00 for a HF weedburner, you come out ahead..........

Weights are not rocket science......Same for my rear wheel weights for my JD GX335,,,,,absurd price...........but some steel pipe and lead once again produced a set of wheel weights that IMHO are head and shoulders above factory weights...........Sure I am capable of casting materials, but anyone can melt and pour lead in a simple form........Use your imagination........look around.......you can find all kinds of forms suitable for making weights out of lead with........Lead is better than chuncks of steel, as the density is higher........so you do not need as much material for the same amount of steel to accomplish the same weight addition...and the lead does not rust, and will hold paiant fine....once installed unless you use a magnet, no one is gonna tell they are lead instead of cast iron.....

Check out scrap yards.........lots of equipment that requires counter balances or weights are scraped every day. LOts have huge cast weights, but lots have laminated sectional pieces which may be suitable.........In this area cast iron sells for ten cents a pound used........lead goes for 31 cents ap pound used.......Just no way in He double ell I was or wold ever pay the prices they want for factory weights.......I would hang a big old boulder on it, or fill my tires with rocks before paying those highly inflated prices.:smoking:

 

You can pick up bar-bell weights at yard sales pretty cheap (like an idiot, I sold mine and can now use them). The big hole in the middle allows pretty easy mounting, and just put the collar on the end to keep them on.

 

Walmart sells some nice looking Gold's Gym 45 lb. plates for about $27 IRCC.

 

Check out some stores that sell exercise equipment, or Goodwill or other thrift stores..........and "Think out of the box" when you looking for weights. A lot of todays exercise machines use rectangular weights, which interlock and stack nice.....I just got a aweight machine today and also 2 treadmills from the fitness store, Free. I bet there is at least 400 pounds of cast iron weights on the machine. I haul off all their old trade in equipment and scrap machines (free of charge) saves them having to pay to have the stuff hauled away. To me its a gold mine of useable parts and steel......to them its money saved.........so we are both happy. And since they only deal with me on getting rid of used equipment (and also new damaged items, like a hot tub that was dropped), I bought a hot tub from them in return....one good turn deserves another.......Goodwill had weight machines from $25 to $75 bucks each all equipped with rectangular cast iron weights, which would work fine with a simple bracket and through bar or all thread rod to hold them together....Not quite free but certainly worth the price

 

There is an older gentleman that lives behind me that made wheel weights for his jd A out of concrete. I thought they were actually cast ones but nope just painted concrete.
Ryan

 

Another option you may be able to look at that I did and you may be able to as well is that I was able to "dispose" of about 1,000 lbs. of fired bullets that were dug up and removed from a bullet stop birm at a weapons range. They were only too happy to have me take it away. It took a long time but we kept spooning fired bullets into the lead melting pot and skimmed off the copper jackets and trash. When we got a full pot of molten lead; we pour the lead into bar ingot molds. Just the other day I installed a ballast weight box in my pickup bed because the rear end was so light and always slipping. About 200 lead bars filled the bottom 2 inches of the box which is about 24"x12". It came to about 400 lbs. I no longer have the tire slippage problem and I have a nice, neat, small pickup bed box that I can put stuff in and I rachet strapped it to the tie down pioints in the bed.

You could do something similar by pour much larger bars of lead and bolting them to a bracket fabricated to work with your tractor.

 

take a garbage can, punch 2 3/4 inch holes through the center..... stick a steel rod through it.... pour ready mix concrete to it......... with water of course..... and you have a 700 lb, counter weight. you can hitch up to

 

Tractor Weights Cheap!!

The best, most practical and certainly cheapest are old car , truck, or tractor batteries. I simply have two car batteries strapped to the back of my husqvarna and it gives me 100lbs of no cost weight. Ask around and you can find these batteries. Lots of people discard them without returning them for the $10-15 core charge. If your concerned about looks spray paint them black!! Cheap and effective LEAD!