What Failed?????

Thanks
scotty

The demise started with fast hitch and fast hitch was a far bigger factor in the demise of IH than any failure of the 560. Harry Ferguson had won the hitch war before IH sold its first fast hitch on the Super C in 1952. For 10 years IH continued to flog the fast hitch while customers buying 30 to 50 hp tractors and related equipment were leaving in droves, as they didn't want to be married to fast hitch. They wanted a universal hitch so if the mower or plow from MF, JD, Ford, etc was a better buy they had options. Many of these customers left IH never to return.

Yes the 560 rear end and transmission had problems in the first 3 years, but that was only aprox. 36,000 tractors. Close to that many more 560's were manufactured after that with no problems. I'd be willing to bet glow plugs in tractors, between 1958 and 1965 cost IH a whole lot more business than the 560 did.

In my opinion that 560 issue has been blown away out of proportion in the demise of IH. If you look at the number of owners that had two of them, probably somewhere in the order of 30,000 customers were affected by the 560 problem. That is peanuts across North America.

I quite agree it was 25 or 30 years of mismanagement that took IH down. My point is of the couple million farmers across North America at that time, roughly 30,000 of them would have had trouble with a 560. No question, 560 was part of it but only a small part.

Here in Canada dealers took a real hit from MF, Ford, Fiat, etc. in the 2-3 plow tractor business. Farmers wanted 3 point so IH started bringing in those 30-40 hp British diesels. That probably turned out to be a bigger disaster than fast hitch or 560 rear ends. In our cold climate we couldn't get the damn things going from Oct to May. I remember one farmer that bought two of these British diesels, saying it was good that he kept his Super C to use for a pup or tow start. The tow start was just to get them going in May, June, Sept. and Oct. July and August you could almost depend on them to start.

Even when they did start you couldn't stand the fumes from them. I think they were engineered for a different grade of fuel than we were used to in North America.

I don't think fast hitch was much of and issue to SMTA, 400, 450 and 560 tractor buyers. These guys had been trailer implement guys, and they never really budged from that until the semi-mount plow came along. As far as cultivators and disks went they never changed. I know on my own farm I had a used fast hitch corn planter that stayed around only two seasons. The fast hitches on my 300 and 560 were used almost entirely as drawbars, and they were damn poor drawbars. After I got the 656 I cut those two hitches up for scrap, and went to dealer and ordered two new Farmall H-M drawbars. The only 3 point equipment I ever had was a 200 gallon sprayer I used on 656 and a 5x16 semi-mount plow.

I had an IH dealer tell me 886 Farmall was the final straw for him. The first ones came with 360 American diesel. He had a lot of customers 50-60 cow dairy herds wanting that size tractor for forage harvester. His early sales of 886 sold a lot of tractors for him. When the customers found out how much less torque the 358 German diesel. What business he hadn't lost to MF, Ford and Fiat two decades before he now lost to Deere with the 886 engine change.

There is no CaseIH dealer in that town today, and my Farmall 560 was the only one ever around those parts, and it was an early 63 model, so no one there even knew of the 560 rear end failure. There were a few 460 gassers but those never worked well enough, long enough to damage a Volkswagon rear end.

The business blunders by IH were many, but probably the worst was arrogance, or was IH just ahead of its time. In my opinion the whole ag equipment industry operates that way today. I frequently go to dealers today for odds and ends. I can't believe my ears the way these guys talk down to farmers. I can tell you not many of them would be smart enough to sell this old bird anything.

The 560's were bought for big tillage. The gearboxes couldn't take it. The 806 cured the problem. The 504's were after the 560's and smaller. 50+ hp. We had two, and they were the all around workhorses and dependable as sunrise.

If someone told you Deere went from the 720 to the 4010 without changing the driveline components they are slighly mis-informed.

I don't believe you will find a single powertrain component fron the 720 that was carried over to the 4010. Futhermore, the 720 had a "bull gear" final drive, and the 4010 had HEAVY planetary final drives.

Yep, kinda wondered about that statement myself. Totally different rigs. :>)

Allan

The failures of the 460 and 560 drivelines really put a black eye on IHC despite their good faith effort to effect repairs in the field. In retrospect, I read that a lot of these failures occurred in areas of the country where the tractors were weighted to reduce wheel slippage to zero. More weight = more pull = more stress.

I was not aware of John Deere's similar problems--not updating drivelines for the higher HP engines attached to them, and not suffering the same black eye that IH experienced. It may be that buyers thought they had no where else to go. If the 4010s were failing, too, the IH alternative during that era was still the -60 series and their bad reputations.

I need to read Fay's article.