Agricultural Tractors
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There was no "Standard Worldwide Tractor design", but the design has evolved to suit market conditions. Now in the 21st Century with the globalisation of manufacturing and consolidation of companies designs are standardising more, but still require specials for some markets and sectors. The Universal tractor is not here yet.
Yet in the past a lot of tractors were very similar, even though built by hundreds of independent manufactures. Various attempts have been made to redesign the Tractor. But is main purpose remains the same; to transfer tractive effort from an engine into forward pulling motion to move or pull an implement along or through the ground, as was done by horses 100 years ago.
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[edit] introduction
The basic tractor is 4 wheels, the two rear ones being driven and the front two steering. A Engine is mounted in between on a gear box connected to a Rear axle. Over time this set up evolved such that the Front axle mount, Engine, gearbox and axle looked like one unit to the casual observer, with Hydraulic arms mounted on the back. This basic layout has survived for 80+ years as the predominant layout.
Agricultural tractors have evolved to be a multi tasking power source, and implement carrier for a wide range of tasks.
The First real attempt at a Universal tractor was the Agreement by Henry Ford snr and Harry Ferguson to design a new tractor to replace the Horse on farms. The new design was to Incorporate Fergusons 3 Point linkage system which would allow the use of interchangeable implements. This was to eliminate the problem of every tractor having to have its own set of implements.
Early implements were just pulled along and were adapted horse drawn implements. A lot of these needed two men to operate, as one still walked behind like with the horse drawn version, this being very inefficient.
[edit] The Early Major Makes (UK)
- Various Smaller manufactures existed prior to WWII
[edit] Post War (1940,50,60's) Makes
Post war boom in mechanisation.
[edit] Late 20th Century (1970,80,90's)
Consolidation and rising HP, with 4-wd taking off.
- Case
- Cat
- Claas
- Fiat
- Ford
- International Harvester
- Leyland & Marshall
- Massey Ferguson
- Renault
- Same
- Zetor
[edit] 21st century and the future
- Main article: List of Tractor Manufacturers
The Ultra high hp tractor, Quad trac, and Computer control takes off.
- AGCO
- John Deere
- New Holland
- Continental makes rise
[edit] The Future
Robotic driverless tractors running on Bio diesel, or fuel cells, controlled by GPS/satellite navigation system, from the farm office. (Experimental systems are under development at research establishments around the world.)
[edit] See also
- List of Tractor Manufacturers - Index
- List of Tractor Dealers
- Industrial Tractors
- Special Purpose Tractors
- List of Steam Machinery Manufacturers & Steam Tractors
- List of Construction Plant Manufacturers
- Agricultural Machinery Inc Self Propelled Equipment
- Implements for Fitting to Tractors
- Collecting related
[edit] Reference
Various tractor magazines
[edit] Web links
Add relevant (suitable) web links here
