IHC Newby question

Hello, I'm new to the IHC board, but I'll probably have many questions in the future. I have always had Ford tractors, but I bought a 1944 H yesterday at a farm sale. It's pretty straight, sounds good, decent tires and a drop bucket loader for $1,200.00. The only things that I have seen wrong with it so far is that it has a cracked intake manifold, faded paint and the clutch seems a little grabby. I also got an extra set of wheel weights with it. The wheels aren't rotted and the radiator looks ok.

Now for my first question, the serial # is
FBH-168090XI . There were some guys at the auction that were a whole lot more familiar with IHCs than I am and they were questioning the FB at the first of the #. Also the final large X and what appear like a capitol I on the end of it were.

Like I have stated I'm fairly uninformed on IHC stuff, but I,m not to bashful to ask questions. Thanks, Scott

Unless I'm much mistaken FBH was the standard prefix for an 'H' and X1 was the suffix for reg-altitude gasoline engine. Sam

Sam is right.

FB is the standard prefix, and the X1 code just means gasoline engine.

Glad to hear you got a nice machine. Feel free to ask any questions you have, folks here are glad to help.

That said, go grab an operators manual for your tractor from the IH dealer, eBay, or this site. (www.caseih.com also has a link for them) It will help answer many of your basic questions, and will let you take care of most of the maintenance items on your machine.

Thanks Guys, I will get a service manual. I just glanced through the parts for sale and saw the price of a new manifold, $140.40, ARRRGH I think the one for my 8N was about $50.00. I may have to learn how to improvise and scrounge.

Hi sounds like a good purchase. If you havn't already done so it might be a good idea to check and see if the engine and rear end #no's match. then you will know if it is mostly as original. No big thing eather way. MTF

Now for my first question, the serial # is
FBH-168090XI . [b:34da933da6][color=blue:34da933da6]There were some guys at the auction that were a whole lot more familiar with IHCs than I am and they were questioning the FB at the first of the #[/color:34da933da6][/b:34da933da6]. Also the final large X and what appear like a capitol I on the end of it were.

Click to expand...

It appears to be that they did not know that much more than you !

If'in they had, they would not have been questioning the FBH. :lol:

A wholly unhelpful comment:
I "graduated" from an F-20, a 10-20 and an F-12 to an H when my father bought a used H about 1951. The H was touted in IHC literature as "full two-plow," and I guess it was, IF you didn't expect it to have the kind of torque the old girls had (F-20 and 10-20 both designed for steel, which wasted a lot of power, so the engines put out a lot more power than what arrived at the drawbar). The difference in comfort was astonishing. I can't prove this in any way, but I am pretty well convinced that the H and M were the first tractors that provided a really comfortable environment for the driver: flat platform, well-placed pedals, steering wheel up at the right level, a seat that could be raised to allow standing, and, with a muffler, decently-low noise levels. I wasn't too wild about location of the shifter, which allowed you to bump your arm if you tried a quick shift into R, 2 or 4, and I found the throttle a bit of a reach if you were sitting sideways watching for clumps of grain getting ready to clog up the combine (I don't think the design engineers spent much time on farms seeing how their ideas would work out).
The F-20 is a clumsy thing for light work-- hauling, raking, mowing and the like. The H is great for this--much more like an F-14 in its ease of handling as well as in its relatively-small but high-revving engine (high back then, anyway; a dealer once told my father that those engines "ran too fast, and they won't last"--but they did). I used to grumble that the H didn't have the torque of the F-20, to pull through a hard-spot in the ground, for example, but I always loved it anyway. There is still no tractor that equals Raymond Loewy's design--the lines and the colors are perfect, perfect, perfect, and overall, it is a delight to drive, even today. I knew a farmer a few years ago who had developed a huge fruit-and-vegetable farm, and he used nearly 40 of the letter-series tractors in very specialized ways. He left the cultivators, mowers, and other equipment on certain tractors, and never had to spent time switching stuff. The entire collection of "old stuff," which he had had brought up to snuff and repainted to perfection, actually cost him less than buying one new tractor of the larger variety. The poor fellow died very suddenly in his late 40s. The family couldn't continue, so sold the farm and the machines. The auction lineup of these old beauties--almost all red--was something to behold.
I am sure this isn't much help in the practical sense, but I do hope you really enjoy driving this still very-useful machine.