m wont turn over.

One of my worst experiences was overfilling a belly pump on an M. It had a pipe cap instead of the factory fill cap which is vented. I always left the pipe cap a little loose to provide some venting. Just after I'd filled it, I hooked up to a cultipacker which is a heavy implement. I dropped the cultipacker in the garden before heading to the field. Heard a loud snap and had hydraulic oil running out the bottom of the tractor. The extra hydraulic pressure had fractured the belly pump reservoir forcing it into the pressure plate, shearing all the lugs off. The side load on the flywheel snapped the crank in two right in the rear main. This had been a good running, strong M.

For instance, tray failure in a fractionation tower results in lost revenue but shell failure may result in explosion, loss of life, and plant shutdown. So you can take a chance that a corroded tray will make the next run but not a chance that the shell will fail.

So I don't split a tractor to change a ring gear if a Bendix will fix the problem. also, I have lots of tractors and try to keep them in ACCEPTABLE operating shape for a minimum of cost. The average collector would cringe at my collection but I try real hard to preserve the originality of the equipment.

The old engineers are very impressive in their designs and there are not many improvements can be made to the old IH's. The improvements in new tractors are mostly to make them cheaper to produce and more conveniences.

Of course this is hard if you have an implement on the ground.