Otis looked at the churned ground behind the tires, which matched what the numbers already showed. “Makes sense as a lead. Bigger disc means more load pulling back. Front weights came off. Question is whether that’s actually a ballast problem or something else, like the tires themselves.”
They checked the current ballast on the tractor. They checked tire inflation against the tractor and tire manufacturer’s chart for that load, since pressure set wrong in either direction could distort a traction test or damage the tire. Not simply that low is worse or high is worse, but wrong for what the tire was carrying. The tires checked out fine.
Then they pulled Grady’s tractor model and horsepower and matched it against the manufacturer’s ballast guidance Malik had copied down, which gave a suggested weight range for that configuration and implement load, not an exact figure. From the pile of eighty weights, they found a front suitcase set that put the tractor’s total ballast, front to rear, back within that suggested range. They bolted it on, checked the total against the chart again to make sure they were not overloading it, and ran the same two-part test.
The gap between the no-load distance and the loaded distance shrank considerably, down into the range the guidance suggested for that tractor and disc. Over the following days, Grady kept his own fuel log on that same field. His numbers moved back toward what his historical records showed for that kind of work. Nobody could say for certain that every gallon of the original twelve percent had come from slip alone. Soil moisture and depth shift day to day, and a field is not a lab. But the measured slip had dropped, the fuel numbers had moved the right direction, and the ballast change was the one thing that connected both.
Grady paid for the parts and the time. On his way out, he looked back at the stack of weights along the wall. “Three tons of doorstops,” he said. “Didn’t figure they’d be worth much.” “Depends what the tractor needs,” Malik said.
Word got around. Malik did not reopen his old sales pitch. Instead, he and Otis set up a small field-measurement service through Bell Farm Equipment Repair, with Otis handling the invoicing and Malik doing the field work. The service worked the same way it had with Grady’s tractor. Measure the no-load rolling distance over a set number of wheel turns. Measure it again under the implement’s normal working load. Check tire inflation against the manufacturer’s chart for the load being carried. Check the tractor’s current ballast against manufacturer and extension guidance for that configuration and work.
They wrote up a before-and-after sheet. Tractor and implement. Tire setup. Starting ballast. Measured slip. Any change made. And the slip measured again afterward. If a farmer’s fuel or field records were available, those went on the sheet too, noted as supporting evidence, not proof by themselves. Only if the numbers pointed to a ballast shortfall did Malik reach for the pile behind the shop.