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Lynch: To start with IH only ever used one diesel that was not their own manufacture, that being the Continental used in the Farmall and Utility 350. The earliest IH diesels were the 4 cylinder gas starts used starting in the mid 1930s with the WD40 and ending with the 450, W450 and 650 in 1958. IH in Europe began building direct start diesels in the mid 1950s both in Britian and Germany. In the mid 1950s as well IH started a line of American built direct start 6 cylinder diesels. The first ones were used in the 460, 560, 660, early 706 606 and 656. These were all glow plug type engines, with pre combustion chambers. About mid 1960s they started using German built IH in all 4 cylinder tractors and the smaller 6 cylinder tractors. The large 6 cylinder diesels continued to come from American plants. Generally speaking the German diesel were noted for their long wearing ability. There were some over lap in sizes of 6 cylinder engines. The American engines were noted for their torque. If you ever drive a good working American built IH diesel you would call your Perkins a Mickey Mouse affair. I have never had much experience with 4 cylinder IH diesels. I can tell you all the 6 cylinder both German and American built IH diesels are capable of going 10,000 hours plus to their first rebuild, with good maintainence. Probably the best of them all was the 361 and 407 used in the 06 and 56 series tractors. Some of those have 25,000 to 30,000 hours on them today. There were also some Japaneese diesels used in under 25 hp tractors near the end. Those may be another exception as I am not sure who built them. That is a general rundown, I'm sure you will hear more specifics as day goes on.
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