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Cliff: I bought 16 new or very near new Farmalls in my day. By near new I'm talking less than 2000 hours. Of those 16 the only poor engine I got was a C-153 in a 504. Believe me it was junk, at 1,500 hours it wouldn't hold a candle to my 35 hp Farmall 300. When I bought the 504 with a farm, it was at the IH dealers having it's first engine rebuild. They sent it home all tested out on dyno, telling us it was A-1. The vendor wanted to operate it couple of days, just to satisfy himself, he got value for money. After 2 days on NH 460 haybine he advised me not to keep the 504 tractor very long. He said, "It has never measured up since new, and they have not corrected the problem." He had traded a 300U on that 504. To satisfy myself I took both 504 and 300 to the field and used both on a 3x16 trailer plow. I plowed for a couple hours with each tractor. In the end it was back to 300 to finish the days plowing. By the way, at that time 300 probably had 15,000 hours on it, and was probably 2,500 hours into it's 4th set of pistons and sleeves. I've heard countless other stories about C-153 engines, and none of them good. I'd have to vote it IH's all time poorest engine. Now, just maybe you tractor pullers get along fine with it, but remember you clock damn few hours. I thought the 504 was great the first few rounds with the plow, but once it got a couple hours working heat, it wasn't worth a damn. I've probably seen a 125,000 hours of tractor time up and down my fields, yet noting as poor as that C-153.
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