F-20, F-30 Road Gear

Did the later F-20's and F-30's on rubber tires come equipped with a fifth gear similar to that on an H and M (with a max speed of 16 to 17 mph)?

If not, what was the top speed of their high gear?

Also did the F-12 and F-14 have high gear similar to the A or B ?

Thanks, Ross.

Just 4 gaers.Approx.5mph top speed.5th "gear"was just an aftermarket gearbox

F-12 and F-14's had 3 speeds, slow, slower, and slowest.

According to my info, they did have several different choices of gears. The speed also depended on the size of tire. On the F20 I have that the fastest speed is 9.04, with 9.00-36 tires.The gear part number is 27853-D. The F30 fastest speed is 8.57 with 11.25-36 tires. Gear part number 27630-D. These speeds were also calculated at about 1200 rpm. Hope this helps.

according to my book on the f-series f-20s had 2 different 4th gears.if 4th is at the top right of your shift pattern,you have the faster 4th approx. 7 mph.i have a book by todd markle,sold through red power magizne. jim iowa.

Both my F20's have the "fast" 4th gear. I hardly ever use them.

The German built F-12 and the last post-war version the Farmall DF-25 (diesel version of the engine with increased bore of 3 1/4 inches) had 4 speed gear boxes. Until I find a parts book I do not know how they modified the gear box to do it.

Ross,my first F12 that I restored has a 7 MPH rear-end,There is a book thats out{I cant remember the name}that has Information on all F series tractors,F 12 and I think F14 has a code leter stamped on the rear indicating the ratio,I think there was 3 different speeds

jimmy

Here is a direct quote from an original "Farmall" brochure published in 1938 or 1939 (I am guessing date by inclusion of F-14 among the Farmalls): "Special transmissions available for rubber-tired Farmalls give traveling speeds of upwards of nine miles per hour in high gear."
Note that these are not EXTRA gears--they are substitutes for the original gears. In the case of the F-20, as one writer here mentions, third- and fourth-gear positions were exchanged (the old fourth position becomes third, and vice-versa). In the F-12, as far as I know, the gears remained in the same position. I must say that I think these would have made these tractors much more useful for hauling crops on roads. In "my day" (the 1940s), roads were often rough or washboardy, and 6-8 mph would have been about all you'd want to do with a steel-tired wagon. I remember many hours dragging a wagon down our country roads at 4 mph with the engine roaring full-blast. This is a fast walk, or about a 15-minute mile. Seven mph would have been great. I am pretty sure this "road gear" could have been used, engine throttled back, for light jobs like raking hay. As somebody else said here, the original F-12 had three speeds, slow, slower and slowest. But don't forget that this tractor was designed for steel wheels, and 4 mph on steel is right on the edge of intolerable on hard surfaces like gravel roads. My (bleep) still has the indentations made by my father's 10-20 when I drove it on the road 65 years ago. Incidentally,despite the slow speeds, the F-12 was a wonderful tractor--durable, reasonably comfortable, agile, and quite capable on rubber tires of pulling a load beyond what it was originally designed for. We plowed with a 2-12 Little Genius and disked with a double 7-foot harrow that came with my father's 1929 10-20.
It had what was, for its day, a good attachment system that made it fairly simple and fairly quick to attach implements like cultivators and mowers by simply flipping a few toggle bolts and tightening them with a long-handled socket wrench that came with the tractor. If the mower had been properly blocked up when it was last unhooked, it could be put back on in about 5 minutes (after removing the drawbar by flipping the four toggle bolts). The front and back parts of the cultivators could probably be put on in about 10 minutes, again if the outfit had been properly blocked up and had not sunk into the ground (this happened sometimes between seasons if you didn't take enough time to put some good solid wood planks under the implements). My father used to say that the IHC drawbar was a great selling point. You could carry a "passenger" or two on it, and you could put planks across it to carry a couple of bags of feed, some firewood or what-have-you.
Traction from the big 40" tires was very good, especially if the tractor had the beautiful cast-iron wheels that were available late in production. In all the fifteen or twenty years that my father's F-12 was in almost-daily use, it never required any repairs other than a new fuel pump diaphragm. Even in the winter, it carried several loads of manure to the fields every day.
Don't know how I got from gears to all that palaver, but back to subject:
Will and Markle's "Farmall Regular and F-Series" book says a 7.07 mph high-speed was available for the F-20, and 6.6 mph for the F-12. The higher number given in the IHC brochure might be accounted for by the tractor's being driven at high-idle instead of at full-load governed speed. Just a guess. Will and Markle state simply that "Other gear sets were also offered," without stating what they were.

will this make everyone feel better???

The chart is just great! Did it come from an IHC publication?
When I was about 12, I often used a relative's
F-20 on 36" rubber. I knew that 36" tires would make the tractor much faster than the original 40" wheels. The big wheels were needed to clear the brake drums. Whenever this tractor was equipped with smaller tires, the wheels had to be turned out, making for a very wide tractor.There was no easy way to measure the speed, so I compared it in my head to tractors which had speeds I knew from their specifications. The F-12 was supposed to do about 3 mph in second, and that was about what the F-20 did in first. The F-12 was supposed to do about 4 in third, and one time, I had my brother drive the -12 while I went side-by-side in second on the F-20 (very similar speeds).

One of the really obvious results of this increase in speed on 36" rubber was that even in low gear, the F-20 was sometimes too fast for the PTO-driven 42R combine we used, if there was a sudden increase in the volume of grain going in.
It is fascinating to see these numbers, because during those years, when I was pretty nuts about tractors (well, more than now, anyway), I made up my own estimate of F-20 speeds on 36" rubber: 1st 3 mph, 2nd almost 4, 3rd about 4-1/4 and 4th a little over 5. These turned out to be fairly close to the numbers in this chart. We can assume that the ground speed would vary a little bit when the tractor was under load or running free at high-idle speed.

so does anyone have any more questions?? ive got tons more literature from IHC

Thanks Old F-20 for scanning the great chart tnot the forum and thanks to all you others for the reply to my question.

My Grandpa, Dad and Uncle had a 1944 H and a 1951 M and so I was very familiar with their high 5th gear speeds as well as the field speeds of 1st through 4th gears. BUT I always wondered about the earlier "F" family tractors speeds; and now I got my answers !!

Thanks again !!, Ross.