Hi. Here is probably a foolish question. What are the main differences between an OC-3-31 and an OC-3-42? Aside from the obvious difference in width. I saw a few pictures in old HPOCA magazines that show the 31 inch with the final drives rolled back. This makes it seem shorter than the 42. What else is there? I flipped quickly through the parts book and saw the steering levers and hood (?) were different too.
Oh yeah. How stable is the 31 inch on the side hills? We do not have many flat spots here.
Kevin
I believe the indexing of the finals was dependent on what the tractor was intended to be used for and where the working load was normally expected to be. A pulling tractor would have the finals rotated to the rear where as a loader would have the finals rotated toward the front in order to get the right weight bias for counter balance of the load for traction purposes and safety.
As far as the stability of a 31 on hillsides, of course a 42 would be more stable but a 31 crawler would still have a much lower center of gravity than a comparably weighted wheeled tractor.
The two 31s I have were made to be municipal sidewalk plows. Yes, the final drives are rotated 'forward' sending the bulk of the final drives rearwards, adding more stability and lowering the back end quite a bit. The drawbar is not far above the ground and the end of it is in the recess at the back of the tractor between the tracks/fenders which can cause snagging problems when turning and pulling at the same time. There are other small differences related to the thinner frame, wiring differences, but no much more except for the distributor that has been noted elsewhere. One of my 31s came with a distributor mounted where the mag would be.