Fabbing a new front axle, I decided to go with standard 18X8.5-8 golf cart tires due to their high flotation characteristics. I figure if you're going to have a lot of weight hanging out front, you need to not sink your front wheels in the mud if you can help it.
Standard 4 ply GC tires are rated for around 900 lbs. Some state 870, some state 940. The set I bought I thought were 940 until I got them, where they clearly say 870.
So that means my front axle tires are rated for 1740lbs. Now if I pick up 1000 lbs in the bucket and have just enough counterweight that the back end JUST lifts off the ground, then I have 1000 in the front, 1000 in the rear, plus the normal weight of the tractor something like 2700 lbs all riding the front axle.
I suspect that tires will routinely exceed their rating without blowing out, so it's not necessarily a major problem. But if I could get heavier ply tires up there, I'd much rather. I looked for them a year ago when I was making design decisions and didn't find any that were any kind of normal price.
But I got looking again last week and found these:
https://www.prioritytire.com/duro-excel ... ason-tire/
They're 6 ply tires rated for 1250 lbs each. That uprates my front wheels to be rated for 2500 lbs, which is not too far from reality. With these tires I'll seldom if ever exceed their rating
I've changed several types of tires using this tire changer. 14", 15", 16", and 17" radials, and LT tires off my 4x4, and it's surprising how relatively easy it is with this non-powered tool. You don't actually have to stretch the inner bead ring very much getting it over the rim. You just put one side of the ring down in the wheel's center deep groove, and tug/stretch the bead ring to a little bit oval shaped to get it to pop on. Hook the duck's head tool in the bead and spin it around, it's like magic.
But golf cart tires are awful!. They're built as strong and tough as regular car tires, but because the rim's base size is only 8" across, and because they're actually wider than the rim hole size, they have a tiny margin of stretch compared to larger tires.
You have to stretch their inner bead ring A LOT to get it oval enough to get over the wheel rim. And since the hole is so little, the duck's head tool doesn't even fit in there. And you can hardly get your hands and tools in there to do anything. And every time you DO start to get some stretch happening, the bead just slides back off the rim and you have to start over. It was very frustrating, but I eventually won the bitter battle.
If I never change another golf cart tire it'll be too soon.
End of rant.
