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Shifting into 5th Gear on a Farmall

B

Bucky

New User
For years I had a Farmall H. Now I have a Farmall Super M. Both shift the same, except the Super M has a lot more power. Still, there is the question about the 5th gear. I dont use it often, but when I do, unless I was rolling downhill when I shifted into 5th gear, the engine would kill. On my Super M, the engine dont kill, but it really has to work hard to take off from a dead stop.

When driving most other standard transmission vehicles, a person starts in a low gear and works upward. But these Farmalls so not have the synchronized gears, thus they grind if I shift from 4th to 5th while moving. Even if I wait a few seconds after pushing the clutch.

What is the recommended procedure (from the factory) for shifting into 5th gear? Do you just let the gears grind, or is there some trick I never learned?
(I hate grinding gears).

Thanks

Bucky
 
cant findem, grindem. rubber gears next year. it probably needs a tune up then, any of these tractorss will take off easily from a stand still.drive it like an old truck without syncros.i take off in 4th , giver full throttle, step on clutch, idle throttle and shift to 5th and giver. even works good on the 560 as those trans dont shift as good. get good at it and you wont need a clutch.
 
The trick is there is too much space between 4th and 5th. unless you are rolling downgrade you will likely never be able to dbl clutch and shift without gear clash. Just do the best you can.
 
Bucky: If you grind shifting into 5th all the time, you will eventually have a tractor that pops out of 5th gear. Not fun to fix.
I start off in 5th and there are two things that will help when doing that. 1) Don't use a lot of throttle; believe it or not, the tractor will take off in 5th better with less throttle than with a lot of throttle. 2) If necessary, I let the clutch out enough for the tractor to start slowly rolling, then quickly depress it, and let it out again. Perhaps a little harder on the clutch, but a clutch is much easier to replace than 5th gear. And, frankly, I don't think I'm being that hard on the clutch. I'm not really abusing the clutch the way I do it.
If I am going up a hill or pulling a load, then I have no choice but to start in 4th. (This is about the only time I wish I had a SMTA.) Even then, I look for opportunities to start rolling on level ground in 5th before taking on the hill.
mike
 
my ole 49 H will start off in fifth unless im pulling somethine fairly heavy i have live hydro from a 300, power steering, 3 pt. hitch plus a front loader
 
Well ya have to do as the old truckers do , when ya go to make the shift from forth to fifth wind her out in forth shove the clutch down and slid her into N then let the clutch up and throttel back to and idle then shove the clutch down and ease it into fifth then let the clutch out and throttle up . It is called double clutchen . When ya live in the hill country ya learn if fast or ya get hung on a hill . Learned how to do it way back when i was a kid working on my uncles farm . Come fall every year it was the same thing dig taters haul taters to the storage and he had some real fine equipment (Yea Wright) old Cheve and Dodge two ton trucks with wore out 6 cylinder with wore out four and five speeds vac. shift two speeds along with 3 and 4 speed browniees . and 8 to 10 ton of taters per load in our hills . So ya learned to double clutch or ya found yourself stuck on a hill and tryen to find a low enough gear that would get ya off the hill.
 
I personally prefer to double cluth my W-4 when I am going for 5th gear. Bucky ..I was wondering if you knew the correct procedure of double clutching ..as many do not these days. It is a bit tricky but can be done. You need to be going full throttle in 4th and then shove the clutch in,drop the rpm to idle,let the clutch out,shove it in again and go for fifth. The principle of the procedure is to get the input shaft on the tranny in sync with the gear you are going for at a given ground speed. I also double clutch when I am going for 4th from 5th while pulling a hill, but this requires speeding up the input shaft. There's more to double clutching than just pushing the clutch twice and it confuses alot of people. Just remember if you are going for a higher gear you have to slow the input down,and vice versa when going for a lower gear.
I learned the hard way. My Dad didn"t explain double clutching to me when he put me in a 1967 International dump truck. It had two transmissions and neither one of them were syncronized. That was in 1978. It took a while but eventually I was able to get gears without any grinding and I could up-shift without using the clutch. Good luck ..Iron
 
I have the same damned problem with my Super A....just can"t get it to go into 5th. I finally just quit trying:).
 
It tain't the same as the raised numbers, but if ya get ya some of them number stamps, ya can stamp a "5" on there and it'll slip right inta fifth for ya. Just be sure ya stamp it in right side up.
 
My 1943 H is kind of the same way, it needs to go slightly down hill to get going in 5th, but once it is going, it goes fine. When my H is warmed up where the temp gauge needle points towards "RUN" position, it goes into 5th okay when not going down hill. It can also be that your carburetor needs adjustment if you can't get into 5th.
 

Same deal on a W-4, exactly like others describe. I hauled loads of hay with ours until it was retired last year.

You basically have to "gain speed" when double clutching from 4th to 5th to get a clean shift. Usually plan my haul route with that in mind, if empty I'll start in 5th rather than attempt a 4th-5th shift up grade.

I actually find it easier to get from 4th to 5th with a load behind as the extra weight seems to give a "push"

Always wondered how the later tractors with the higher speed 4th gear did, i.e. if they shifted into 5th easier because of less gap between 4th and 5th.

I always can make the 5th to 4th shift on the fly, just have to juggle the hand throttle while steering and shifting.
 
I am a little out of practice but when I drove Hs and Ms regularly I could go from 4th to 5th without a scratch and I never used the double clutch method it is just a matter of throttle setting and timing. I have driven a lot of heavy trucks and never used double clutch shifting method I and everyone else I know shift without using clutch except for starting and stopping. Many late model trucks have manual transmissions with autoshift after you get under way computer does shifting without clutch.
 
Go on ahead. I'll just warn ya about 7th, if ya should decide to go that far, by sayin' that 6th was plenty breathtakin' fer me and not for the timid.
 
my h the same(spit sputter going into 5) put the old dog away for winter, but going to try that(taking off in 5th) next spring!
 
Bucky: Driving a H or M and shifting from 4th to 5th is much like picking up speed with a 500hp truck grossing 150,000 lbs., You achive it on down grade. I once drove a truck like this with B-trains hauling the weight I just mentioned. Boss asked me how I got the best fuel milage in a fleet of 35 trucks. I said, "I never try to gain big speed increases unless I'm on level or down grade.

Quite a few of your respondents put forth the merrits of double clutching and some no clutching. Well, my friend, I can do both with the best of them on a truck, but I can't do it with a A, C, H or M between 4th and 5th. My guess is these guys hit it once in ten times, and that once happens on down grade.

I farmed for a good number of years, rarely had my 7 tractors in road gear. We used trucks for hauling on roads. Quite regularly loaded tractors on a loboy for moving field to field. There is no money to be made running tractors on the road in road gear.
 
My 47 M has a heisler 9 speed. Very easy to shift from 4th hi to fifth. No scrape at all. Usually double clutch it.. Bernie Steffen
 
Iearned long time ago. I usually get flat out in 4th, clutch, reduce throttle to about one thiord, shift easily, let clutch ot and increase throttle. Work about 9 out of 10 times on flat or down hill, never shifted from 4th to 5th going up hill. Henry
 
What works best for me is full speed in 4th, then clutch, push throttle to idle and pull gear lever into neutral all in one motion...double clutch with throttle at idle then drop into 5th. Let the clutch out and advance the throttle. Doing this will usually allow it to drop right into 5th without clash. Engaging the clutch with engine at idle will allow you to use the engine to pickup speed rather then slipping the clutch.
 

I doubt any one gets a clean 4th to 5th upshift going uphill either on a regular H or W-4. I can do it on level ground or down grade only. I will often keep it in 4th going upgrade until I can make a clean 4th to 5th shift. Always double clutch it, I can do the 5th to 4th shift without the clutch.

I'd have a hard time getting an A or C into 5th as well :)

Most of my field work involves road travel to and from the field excepting the fields right beside the farm not requiring actual use of pavement to get to them.
 

5th gear being road gear, generally without any load other than the tractor I've always just left from a dead stop in 5th.... Have to really ease that clutch out otherwise you'll be dead in the water... err middle of the road...
 
(quoted from post at 13:09:54 10/11/08) I am a little out of practice but when I drove Hs and Ms regularly I could go from 4th to 5th without a scratch and I never used the double clutch method it is just a matter of throttle setting and timing. I have driven a lot of heavy trucks and never used double clutch shifting method I and everyone else I know shift without using clutch except for starting and stopping. Many late model trucks have manual transmissions with autoshift after you get under way computer does shifting without clutch.
Click to expand...
NDS: I tried your method today on my Super M. Worked great. In the past, I had not been revving up enough in 4th and not chopping the throttle enough in 5th. It went in slick as a pin without double clutching.
mike
 
Hummm...I wonder.
I was brought up on H and M tractors and was always told...ya can't double clutch them. They are not syncro or even semi-syncro transmissions.
Ya gotta bring it to a complet stop, shift the gears and start all over again. If you try anything else...you will grind gears and just tear things up.
I tried shoving in the clutch on a Super M once to go faster down a hill...darn thing wrecked a thrust washer...Granddad sure got hot over that.
Be safe. Stop the machine, put it the gear you want and go on. Anything else just adds more wear.
My 2 cents....
 
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