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First big tractor you ran???

J

JDseller

Well-known Member
The first 200 hp plus tractor I ever owned and ran was a hopped up JD 5020. It was a wheat land model with the big fenders and all. It had 24.5 x 32 axle duals. I put a M&W turbo kit on it with a homemade inter-cooler. I turned the injection pump up about 50%. I installed a pyrometer, to watch the exhaust temperature.
I also just had a straight stack on it.

I had a JD 230 24 foot disk with the cone blades. I could pull it in 5 th gear at 6.5 MPH with the wheels up cutting 6-8 inches. You had to watch the pyrometer like a hawk. If you hit a soft spot that let the disk go over the spools it would shoot the exhaust temperature up in seconds. 1000 plus degrees after the turbo in seconds. I would just feather the disk up a little until the disk was back on solid ground.

At night the whole exhaust system would be cherry red to the top of the exhaust stack. Hit a hard pulling spot an flames would shoot a foot out the top of the stack.

Wow what a beast!!! You could do 20 acres an hour in longer fields.

No cab, loud with the straight stack, and hot and dirty to run. The big rear fenders just seemed to funnel the dust back on you. Your ears would ring for hours after you ran it hard. Man did I think that was a cool tractor. LOL

I did put an muffler on it and turn the pump down a whole lot. It actually did not hurt the total pulling power that much. It would lung and not over heat the exhaust so easily. That tractor was my main tillage tractor for about ten years. After I put the clutch out of a JD 6030 in it I did not have many problems with it.

My boys raised cane when I sold it and got a JD 4840 to replace it. JD 4840 was not as cool to them. LOL The JD 4840 did not have quite as much HP but a whole lot nicer to run. Ran that until about 7-8 years ago when I found a JD 4960 to replace the JD 4848. Big jump there plus gained the MFWD.

It is funny the JD 4960 would eat the JD 5020 in just pure pulling force but that JD 5020 seemed a meaner tractor. I guess the JD 4960 is just too quiet and comfortable to be cool. LMAO.

So what beast tractors have you guys ran or owned???
 
Case model D .. I was 7 years old..Seemed like a bruiser of a tractor at the time.. Nikula Farm on Munson Road in Ovid, New York...
 
1950 "88" Oliver when I was about 8 or 9 yrs old with a 10 MM tandem disc. or a 3X16 Case plow with rope trip.
 
Well had my story planned when I saw the subject line, but if 200hp is the cutoff, I'm still waiting I guess, haven't gotten there yet! :)

--->Paul
 
Steiger, don't remember the model. Just like sittin' in an easy chair, that big Cummins just purring. It occurred to me at the time that I could definitely get used to something like that.
 
When I was 9, my dad turned me loose with our TO30 Ferguson to cultipack a new seeding. I felt like a king.
We had a 4020 and a 4320 that I spent many hours on a few years later. They were as big as anybody had in our neighborhood in the 70s until a 200 cow dairy nearby bought a 4840.
 
farmall 806, nf, no fenders. dad bought it when it was 1 yr old. we moved up from a farmall 300 as the big tractor. what a horse! my brother still has the 806.
 
Farm tractor--Oliver 2255, not over 200 though.
Road tractor--Freightliner witht eh Cummins at 430 horse.
 
The two biggest tractors on the Island we lived was a 4020 and an 806. I drove both of them at one time or the other. I just remember how cool those 6 cylinder engines sounded.
Ron
 
As a young boy, a IHC 22-36 on full steel, pulled a JD 3-14 plow on steel, or a 10 ft. IHC tandem disc with a 2 section drag on the back. My ears are still ringing as they didn't have a muffler either!!! Still have the tractor. Harold
 
As 7 year old kid the Case 800 seemed like an awful big machine.
And years later coming home on leave, the 1030 was like a dream. Might not have left the farm if we'd had one when I was a kid.
 
Massey Harris 22
Massey Harris 30
Massey Ferguson 165 (gas)
Massey Ferguson 1080
Case 830 Comfort King
John Deere 2010 (narrow)
Ford Golden Jubilee
Massey Ferguson 1130
Massey Ferguson 2805
Massey Ferguson 2745
Allis Chalmers WD

Which one is considered "big"?
 
I"m with you paul. Been farming for 36 years and haven"t gotten to the 200 HP range yet. Getting close though. My MX200 has 185hp.

Oh forgot the 1086 meter valve in the pump went bad. When we put it on the dyno to get the pump reset it was turning 300 plus HP before the new valve was installed.

I had to replace the head gasket about 6 months later. I guess 300 hp was to much for the gasket.

Gary
 
Not over 200hp
7 or 8 years old. Ford 860
JD 4440 as a teen ager
Not a tractor but close was a big Trojan wheel loader with what seemed like a 7 -8 yard bucket, plowed snow with it, no heat, and a door missing....getting cold just thinking about that
:D
 
Long way from 200hp, but i ran a 1940 RD-7 Cat clearing dead elm back in the early 60's. It was a whole lot bigger than Dad's Allis.
 
Dad bought a D21 Allis, when I was about 10. Straight pipe, and turned up over 150 horse. In 85, I moved to Colorado, and ran a 895 Versatile, a Stieger Puma, and then a Big Bud. The Buds were the coolest.
 
Not 200 hp, but clutivating corn with Dad's 1935 WC Allis was a rush for me. Not sure what age I was, but Dad had to put a block on the clutch for me to reach it. Learned to hate the WC for cultivating corn. Hard to drive and the hand crank had a tendency to snag pasture fence posts while turning at the end of the row when dad planted corn to close to the fence. loved plowing with the WC at night when we had enough moon light. RED hot exhaust and flames shooting out the exhaust.
 
I ran a brand new 1256 open station for a custom operator in 1970 and I felt like the king of the world. Climbing off a 2 banger Deere and onto this thing was sensory overload for me.

First time I drove a four wheel drive was when the people I was working for told me to take the old loose jointed 8630 Deere pulling a small wagon and catch that combine out there that was combining corn at 6 MPH. I was weaving around approaching the combine from the rear and the unloading auger wasn't all that long so I had to stay pretty close to the end of the cornhead while we unloaded on the go. Everything survived unharmed but it was trial by fire for sure. Jim
 
well, "big" and "tractor" are relitive, the first big farm tractor i ran was granpa's farmall M, back in the mid '60's, which was big for that day, the biggest "tractor" i run now is a d-8 R cat not sure, but i think its around 475 hp, weighs 98,000 lbs and has a 12'6" inch wide blade, it will move a little dirt...
 
First BIG tractor for me was the S/MTA that was out on Demo and it was the first wheel tractor that i was allowed to drive . Huge step from and oliver OC 3 .
 
Never owned or ran anything over 200 h.p., or articulated. Grandpa's Ford 7000 seemed big to me at 8 years old, when I started driving it baling hay. First 100+ h.p. tractor was a '72 Ford 9600. Bought that when I was about 3 years out of school. At 1 1/2 times the power of the 7000, it seemed huge. Replaced it with a '89 TW35 with FWA. That's more power than I really need.
 
Neighbor's JD articulated. What a disappointment! If the engine pulled down 100 RPM's, it took it a half mile to recover those 100 RPM's.

Got on my Cousin's Case a few days later, chisel plowed down through a deep drainage, coming up the other side the engine dropped RPM;s dropped off 400 RPM's - as soon as the rig got on level ground, the engine picked up those lost RPM's in 100 ft.

Brother's Versatile turbo Cummins had very fast response - our nephew bought it after he retired.
 
Paul tell us what tractor seems real big to you. That is what is important. I was just telling you that this was the first one that seemed like a monster to me. I grew up on JD 4020, 4010 and such. So the mid sized row crop tractors where "normal".

I remember a older friend that was not a farmer talking about how he got to drive a brand new JD "M" with a mounted plow from the dealership into town where the Dealership owner lived. HE talked about how when he pulled up to the stop light it seemed like he was ten foot tall. He was only 11-12 years old but it stuck in his memory.
 
I loved my dad's Massey 44 when I was a kid. In the early 80's I worked for a cash crop farmer that had a Case 4490 (210 hp) and a 1370 (150 hp). They were fun to drive but I was sure glad I didn't have to put fuel in them. One day when I was plowing with the 4490 the heater in the cab started to leak antifreeze. It dripped onto the steering controls and locked the steering into crab position so I could only turn right. Now my biggest tractor is a JD 2550 with 4wd and a sound guard cab, and I feel like a king when I drive it. I would love to drive bigger ones, but I don't need them or have a way to pay for them.
 
Case 900 with 5 bottom plow. I was a in high school when dad bought the tractor. went from driving a F-20 with cable brakes to the 900 without a cab.
 
1030 Case Comfort King. Had the big wide tires on the back, I think they called it a western special or some thing like that. I've never seen another one around here, and not too many pics either, of one with the big wide tires. Then we had one of those articulated IHs, but I don't recall the number on it.
 
I was about 9 when I ran my uncles 4020 with a cab,duals and a turbo all day on the field cultivator. Sure cut a bigger swath than the 2 bottom plow behind our Oliver 66.
 
How about a ten year old on a steel wheeled McCormick Deering 10-20. What a handfull, but thought I could move the world with it. Joe
 
(quoted from post at 06:48:59 10/22/12) Paul tell us what tractor seems real big to you. That is what is important. I was just telling you that this was the first one that seemed like a monster to me. I grew up on JD 4020, 4010 and such. So the mid sized row crop tractors where "normal".

I remember a older friend that was not a farmer talking about how he got to drive a brand new JD "M" with a mounted plow from the dealership into town where the Dealership owner lived. HE talked about how when he pulled up to the stop light it seemed like he was ten foot tall. He was only 11-12 years old but it stuck in his memory.
Click to expand...

JD a lot of you guys grew up in farm country. I grew up outside of Ft Monmouth NJ while dad was in the Army. Dad talked about growing up on a farm that was lost in the great depression. And I remember him talking about retiring from the Army and getting a farm from a very young age. In fact he planned to retire when I was 5 or 6 and at that age I was very excited about the idea of living on a farm. Then dad made Sgt Major and had to stay a couple of years and decided to go for 30. So with 31 years he retires when I was 16. At the time I had driven a Cub Cadet, Wheel Horse and a Tiger garden tractor. My first real tractors where a Super C IH and MM U, followed by a JD B and R. So those were big, and more important real tractors to me! If I were going to collect tractors a Super C and an R would be on the list of have to have, didn't care much for the MM U or the JD B.

Rick
 
When the McCormick-Deering W-6 came to the farm in 1950 it seemed kinda big after the Farmall H's we had used for years although my Grand-dad had a 30-60 Oil Pull (that I helped start but never got to drive) that was used for threshing and sawmilling. The first really big tractor I ever got to run was my cousins' 8630 John Deere pulling a 23 foot Krause Plowing Disk in the early 1980's. Used to do an easy 80-100 acres a day punchin' corn stalks with that rig. Now a farmer friend has a Magnum MFWD 7140 that I have run a little bit. Really though I like the old open station 3-4 plow tractors to run the best...except in bad weather.
 
(quoted from post at 08:23:12 10/22/12) Really though I like the old open station 3-4 plow tractors to run the best...except in bad weather.
Click to expand...

LOL now thats funny. My BIL (sisters hubby) and his dad got a new IH 826 in the spring of 72. His dad was real tight with money so my BIL paid for a cab. His dad thought it was a waste of money. That fall old Williard was plowing with it when a rain shower passed through on a cold day. The next spring he was buying really bad nastey cabs trying to fit them on every thing they owned and because he and the BIL had gone 1/2s of the 826 he paid the BIL 1/2 of the cost of the cab.

Rick
 
AC7000 with 18.4 x 38 duals, loaded with chloride, and 1200 lbs of wheel weights. On front 1000 lb rack of weights. Use to pull a ripper with it. You can see the ripper in the left part of the picture.

Amazing nothing ever broke, especially the way the tractor would load down in heavy soil. I dont think the 7000 was known to be an overly built tractor.

Rick
a86787.jpg
 
If tracks and fudging is ok, an M88 Tank Recovery Vehicle, 1790cid, twin cam, air cooled, Roots supercharger plus twin turbos IIRC, 2550ft/lbs, 1,050HP, V12, fuel injected (gas in stateside, converted to diesel powerpack in Viet Nam before deployment), with a 90T main winch filled with 1 1/2" cable. They have a hitch on the back and with tow bars will pull 2 52T dead M60a1 tanks in flat and gently rolling terrain. If you don"t put the exhaust deflector up, it will burn the paint off of the first 2 or 3 feet of the vehicle you are towing!! Drop the recovery blade (proper nomenclature escapes me at the moment) and it will roll a lot of dirt!! IIRC, fuel consumption on gas was 4 gallons per mile!!
 
Grew up on Ferguson 30's and F40's. Thought I'd seen it all when I got to run a 4020 in 1966. Biggest I own is a 4440 Deere and a 1066 IH. (Take the Deere over the binder in a heartbeat BTW) Biggest farm tractor I've ever got to drive was a Steiger Panther. Biggest track machine was a few minutes on a new D11. Nothing else quite stacks up against that big Cat!
 
First tractor I drove was a Ford 960, still have it. Probably seemed big to a 7 year old.

Not sure any of mine along the way have ever seemed 'big' to me, TW-20 is the big fella on the place. Kinda come from a small farm, dad ran it with an Oliver 88 gas, I guess getting the Ford 7700 on trade for the 88 was a 'big' step because it was the first cab tractor on the place. I've only added a few acres and gotten to the 150 hp mark.

Neat theread and stories.

--->Paul
 
Drove a lot of Cat 7s and 8s after working on then but for farm work I guess the IH1066. When was in my early 20 got play with Cat 5 or 6 can't remember which almost got a job working for he owner he I had a natural talent for operating the tractor, but I had a good job at the time. Sometimes think I should went for the operators job.
Walt
 
I started on a 9N then a LA case, RD-4 Cat,R John Deere, TD 14 IH, 930 Case, 1500 Mf, then to a 2470 Case, still use it about a 100 hours a year.
Few hours on a 8 T Cat just enough to get comfortable.
Bill
 
Yep, spent quite a bit of time in an 88 myself @ Ft. Hood 2/67 Armor. Drove one all over Germany on Reforger 74. The fuel tanks are a good place to sleep on a cold night after you've been hounding one all day, right next to the motor and warm. Brought back a lot of memories. Keith
 
Drove one at Ft Hood in 70-71 while in 123th maintenance 2nd armor Div. Used to love to stand inside of the towbar and hook up to a M60. Also drove a folding bridge at the same place. Pulled and replaced many power packs fron tanks at fort hood with M543 wrecked. Hot dirty work.
 
All I ever drove was the ATV as a kid, until I got to rake hay with the Oliver Super 77 diesel and the NH 256 rake making double windrows. That felt like a real accomplishment as a 12-year old in the hill country, shifting back and forth from 3rd (for the windrow ends) to 4th (normal rake speed). But the big step up was a year or so later, getting to drive the Oliver 1755 on the way to the fair for the farm stock pull.
 
Ford 641, pulled 5 gang, reel type mower, side mtd.cycle, scrape blade on everything from gravel to snow. Ford 555 backhoe, cleaning ditches and moving stumps. Then another 641 doing odd jobs around the place, finish mower, blade. Now Oliver Super 55, bush hog and scrape blade. No BIG tractors, never had them on the place.
 
1800 MF 4 wheel drive is the biggest I have operated. Sure felt like a dream when the 1105 MF showed up on the farm, up until then a 180 was the big tractor. The tractor I farm with now is an 1135 MF, feels big with the duals on.
 
new 1951 Ford 8N, Massey Harris 44, John Deere A
Massey 65, Nuffield 465, Ford 7600,
John Deere2520, Cockshutt 50 Oliver 1950,
John Deere 4850,, JD 4650, John Deere 8650 ,
Ford TW20 Then started going down in power again
Oliver 88 CO-OP E3 up again JD4960 JD 8430 JD 4455
Now all I own are garden tractors but they
are big ones 3 Power Kings 14Hp and a 12 HP
 
(quoted from post at 08:46:16 10/22/12) If tracks and fudging is ok, an M88 Tank Recovery Vehicle, 1790cid, twin cam, air cooled, Roots supercharger plus twin turbos IIRC, 2550ft/lbs, 1,050HP, V12, fuel injected (gas in stateside, converted to diesel powerpack in Viet Nam before deployment), with a 90T main winch filled with 1 1/2" cable. They have a hitch on the back and with tow bars will pull 2 52T dead M60a1 tanks in flat and gently rolling terrain. If you don"t put the exhaust deflector up, it will burn the paint off of the first 2 or 3 feet of the vehicle you are towing!! Drop the recovery blade (proper nomenclature escapes me at the moment) and it will roll a lot of dirt!! IIRC, fuel consumption on gas was 4 gallons per mile!!
Click to expand...

Mel they were still running gasser M88's until the mod 80's when they were all converted to diesel. The front blade was called a spade and was supposed to be used to stablize the 88 when lifting or whinching out a mired tank. I really embarrassed out motor SGT in Germany when his 88 blew an engine going to the motor pool from the rail head. I was 2nd to last in the convoy, he was last. I towed him the last couple of miles with my tank. He's just lucky it was before the day of digi cams.

Rick
 
Beast is literally what I called the big old fixer-upper Steiger I had. "Turbo Tiger II"- aka ST 320. Cummins VT903 engine.
Bought it cheap when I decided chisel plowing in the fall was what I needed to do.
Put all new "uniball" joints in it the first year. New tires the second year(4-cheap 24.5x32 bias). I continued to fix whatever I thought necessary over the ten years I had it. Dropped a valve- replaced a piston. Had both heads rebuilt. Turbo leak fixed. New hyd. pump. New wheel seals. I never did fix the AC. I'd run with both doors open, and try to choose when I ran. But there were times when I baked in there.
I was so delighted when it left.
I was going to replace it with a 4960. While shopping and trying tractors I found a much better deal on a Magnum. It is as much of a pleasure to run as the Steiger was a beast!
 
Ummm... Let's see:

Allis Chalmers WD -- First Tractor
John Deere 4430 -- Next "biggest" tractor
John Deere 8530 -- Biggest tractor I've driven
 
Oliver 60---Was 10 years old at the time--Granddad cranked the old diesel for me--and I'd like to think I did an honest days work that day, I do know that I'll never forget it.
 
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