LONG TERM TEST: Wanting to get more power on the ground, Claas used its track know-how to come up with the Axion TT. We catch up with one of he early 327kW/445hp 960 TTs, which has now clocked over 2,700 hours … to see what it’s like to live with.
The challenge of moving a big tractor on dual wheels along narrow village roads prompted our long-term test owner to purchase the Axion 960 TT. Arriving on the arable farm in spring 2021, the main jobs included pulling a Horsch Terrano and a Bednar Terraland subsoiler.
For shallow cultivations, the Terrano is used to its full working width of 6.50m, but then for any deeper work down to 25cm, the wing extensions are removed from the machine making it 4.80m. The original plan was also to have the tracked tractor pull the fertiliser spreader and sprayer as well as the chaser bin whenever conditions required a large footprint.
And the Axion Terra Trac certainly has plenty of contact area: the 735mm wide tracks and 710/60 R34 front wheels combine to cover a whopping 3.8m². Despite its kerb weight of almost 17.7t, the ground pressure is less than 0.5kg/cm² — very good! In fact, this is almost impossible to achieve even when operating a much lighter tractor on duals all round. When ballasted to a gross weight of 22t, the tractor’s large contact patch ensures excellent traction. Indeed, it’s easy to bring the almost 450hp engine to its knees when pulling the 4.0m wide subsoiler at just 4km/hr with less than 5% slip!
Engine: Strong core, vulnerable peripherals
The power is generated by the FPT Cursor 9, a six-cylinder motor with a displacement of 8.7 litres. The operators praised its very good accessibility with easy to clean radiators and air filter. They also liked amenities such as the compressed air connection in front of the cab and the external battery terminals near the steps. There is also a drawer down by the bottom step that can accommodate a standard toolbox — another good idea. But sadly the whole thing is not dust-tight and your fingers can get pinched in the drawer when pulling it out.
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