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al: Having farmed with a 1066, 560D and 656D 25+ years ago, I'd never look at a 100hp+ tractor for doing hay in round bales. Unless you have heavy tillage or forage harvester work, those big tractors will just add to your expences. I round baled hay, 5x6 bales and can tell you the 1066 remained parked or out on custom work during hay making. We did all our baling with 560D cranking out 90 hp. I found it was actually faster than the 1066 and burned about half the fuel baling hay. I once had a couple of jobs going where all tractors were busy. I rented a 766 from the IH dealer to pull a liquid tanker 3,000 IMP gallons, on hard ground, relatively level so it handled the job just as well as the 1066. Having said all of this, I also owned a John Deere 540A forestry skidder, 100hp, 8 speed power shift and articulated. On tillage work, it would give the 1066 a hard run even though the 1066 was cranking 150 hp. I vowed in 1978, if I ever bought another tractor over 100 hp it would be articulated. Two wheels will not put 100+hp on the ground, if you dual it, it will beat the crap out of the front end, If you add front drive, you have one heck of a cumbersome expencive tractor to operate. This spring I had the oportunity to operate both NH and Deere 350 hp articulateds. They both have as short turning radius on a headland as a 2 wheel drive 1066, and they will do it at 4 mph without jumping on a brake pedal. To me 100hp+ two wheel drive tractors of the 60s, 70s and 80s are little more than scrap metal, and if you pay more than scrap metal price for them your out to lunch. Doesn't matter whether they are IH, JD, Oliver, Case, etc.
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