Loaders Are Hard on Tractors!

John Q. Cattleman, I mean. The guy who used to own this tractor.

I knew the front-end was knocked out of it from it's being under that front-hanger loader.

Found it odd that the shift cup/cover, front platform cover, tool box, battery trays, all the metal parts around the steering tower were gone and the batteries had been moved to the rear of the platform.

Fast forward, searching for slop in the range lever. Found it. John Q had replaced that very bottom roll pin with a length of welding rod bent 90 degrees at each end. :>(

Just wish that he would have used a bigger size rod that fit the hole. Now, she's all gotta come back off there.

Bless his heart. :>(

Allan

Then the farmer public wanted 4x4 for their loader tractor, just so they could beat the crap out of the lighter front end. It still had 3 point and pto doing nothing. The new breed of farmer in the 80s and 90s pushed this fact until the best damn field work tractor we ever knew became obsolete.

If these birds want to do loader work why not buy a real loader with no pto or 3point hitch. Put the engine on the opposite end from loader, it becomes the natural counter weight. Add a shuttle transmission and you have loader machine.

It should have been a criminal offence to put a loader on a Farmall. (least 10 years)

I guess I'm still stuck back in the old days when a 9, 10 or 14 was considered a "big" tractor.

Guys now look at 'em like a left over toys and think what a great little loader tractor they would make 'cause they have that leftover cab to keep one outta the cold.

I didn't like those front hangers when they first came out and I like 'em even less now after I've had to clean up after two of the rascals.

Loader work is usually "slam-bang" and the poor ol' tractor suffers for it. They were never made for such abuse and quite honestly, I think hired men are the culprits. Somebody that wrote the check on one of these old heifers wouldn never treat 'em this way, IMHO.

Anyway, left over repairs are comin' along pretty darned good and I think I'll almost have 'er whipped by tomorrow night. Then, I'm done with tractors and on to other things.

Like a NH851 to NH855 "chainer" baler I'd sure like to find lying asleep in the bushes somewhere. :>)

Allan

We then added the Farmall 560D no loader, which gave us 3 good Farmalls for field work. By 1970 the old Cockshutt was playing out, I bought a farm that had a IH 2000 loader in shed. Farmalls 656 and 504 came with that farm also. I decided to mount that 2000 loader on 560. It had been on the 504, and I thought it a bit heavy for that tractor. In 1971 I built a new free stall dairy barn for 100 milk cows and added a Case skid steer loader for use in that barn. I would use the 560 at other farm for feeding replacment heifers. The interesting part is within two years I added a second Case skid steer. Within 3 months the 2000 loader was once again packed away in shed for good.

In those days a new 40 hp skid steer was about half the cost of a 75 hp tractor with loader, and would do three times the loader work per hour. With the skid steer you didn't have a 3 point hitch and IPTO, worth 75% of the cost of a new skid steer, doing nothing. I had 2 Farmalls, never saw a loader and in 10,000 hours each, neither ever had a replacment clutch or replacment gear shift linkages. Loaders on gear drive Farmalls caused a lot of added repair bills, not as result of rough loader use, but rather just loader use. Skid loaders actually saved me money, but remember one of them had to go 365 days per year. Milk cow herd was on confined feeding, replacment heifers went to pasture, and that loader did field loading needed.

What always annoyed me being around the IH dealer's a bit, and I'm talking about 60s and 70s. Farmers wanted a new Farmall for loader work, then they growled about the transmission, should have power shift like Deere and the like. As a result, today gone is that old 8 and 4 transmission with TA, and with the torque of a Farmall engine, it was all we ever needed for field work. Did you ever stop to think how much less a new 966 or 1066 would cost in 2005 than what CaseIH is currently building? Those 06, 56, 66 and 86 series tractors were economical tractors for field work. My point is, in my neck of the woods at least, the smallest of farms had three tractors and one did nothing but loader work, so why not buy a loader tractor.

Now, the neighbor down the road has a huge JD skid loader with glassed cab and a JD 6310 MFWD with loader that never comes off for feeding hay and moving manure. Then he uses his "real" tractors in the field.

I have a loader for my "H" but rarely mount it because I leave the loader on my 560 full-time. H has 3 point, works great with back blade, mower, etc.. Use the 560 to haul dirt/snow and lift big bales. Couldn"t beat that combo.

Well, I'd say almost everybody used the straight tractor for a loader. Very, very few of us could justify the outlay for a payloader which was only assigned one job on the farm.

Lots of feedlots around here did and do things that way; not many farmers.

My beef is with the front hangers; not the loaders themselves. Couldn't go thru a day without a loader. :>)

Plus, for us, after equipment got about 12' in width and above two bottoms, the old Hs and Ms just couldn't cut it anymore. So, they got the loader duty.

I saw a 560 last fall in here at the dealers. Had a F-25 on it, and I just think that is the perfect loader/tractor combination.

Allan

Reg wondered that evening what his engineer friend had up his sleeve. He had 3 quick tach buckets with him for loader, one of them a 6' snow bucket. In the morning he went to colliseum. Engineer had parking lot devided in two equal halves, and said, "Now if your can clear your half as fast as the city Hough 90 does the other half, we will buy two of your Bobcats." Reg left the city that day with an order for two new Bobcats. I've seen Reg operate a Bobcat, he is one HE## of a good operator.

Tractor sat for 5 years so I 'spose the statute of limitations has run out. :>(

Allan