Patent ID: 8056202

Claim:
A method of replacing a tire system on a compact tractor, said tractor being designed for use selectively with standard industrial size tires on standard industrial size wheel rims, standard agricultural size tires on standard a agricultural size wheel rims and standard turf size tires on standard turf size wheel rims, at least some of said standard agricultural size wheel rims and said standard turf size wheel rims being different in size from said standard industrial size wheel rims, and at least some of said standard agricultural size tires and said standard turf size tires having rolling circumferences different from said standard industrial size tires, said method comprising: (a) providing a compact tractor equipped with a set of two front and two rear standard industrial size tires mounted on two front and two rear standard industrial size wheel rims; (b) providing a set of replacement tires sized to fit on standard industrial size wheel rims, said set of replacement tires selected from the group consisting of replacement agricultural tires and replacement turf tires, said replacement agricultural tires having rolling circumferences substantially equal to the rolling circumferences of the standard agricultural size tires, and said replacement turf tires having rolling circumferences substantially equal to the rolling circumferences of the standard turf size tires; (c) removing at least the two front standard industrial size tires from the two front standard industrial size wheel rims; and (d) mounting at least the two front replacement agricultural or turf tires on the two front standard industrial size wheel rims, thereby converting the tractor from industrial tires to agricultural or turf tires without replacing the two front standard industrial size wheel rims; wherein in step (a), the tractor has a frame size falling within an industry standard large or extra large frame category; and wherein in step (b), the set of replacement tires are agricultural replacement tires including two front tires of size 250/85D16.5.