Today I was looking at old photographs of various kinds of 19th century old west wagons, covered and uncovered, along with stage coaches, and I was struck by the fact that some of them had equal sized front and back wagon wheels, while others had much larger real wheels. I assumed that was because of having more weight toward the back of the wagon,or for better shock absorption, but in some cases it appeared there was more weight in the front and yet larger wheels in the back. I didn’t see any instances where the front wheels were larger than the back wheels.
So what’s the straight dope? If having larger rear wheels than front wheels gave some kind of advantage why didn’t everyone use that design?
IANAH, but it seems to me that if you have all wheels the same, a single spare will work for all four wheels.
As for the advantage of larger wheels in the back, maybe they would have been better in the front, too, but would have created unrelated problems, like interfering with steering, or harnessing horses, or something.
Just a guess, but the steering mechanism in the front needs some room. If you look at this, notice that there is a bar above the axle and springs to allow them to pivot. Imagine it had larger wheels, large enough that the axle was where that upper bar is. Now there’s no room for the pivot mechanism (assuming you want to design a level wagon, of course). Here is a real wagon that illustrates it.
I guess it depends on how you design it though, because many do have the same size wheels. You could just add space between the rear wheels and body to make it match the front.
