What about MH Tractors?

I read with interest the JD vs IH Tractors post. I have experience with both, let's say back in the day they were all better than horses.

As I read, I wondered why no one mentioned MH tractors. We had 2 MH 44's and a MH 444 (creeper speeds, foot and hand clutch, live pto, 3 pt., etc.) standard, it was our big tractor for many years. I always felt these were great tractors. They seemed to run forever, they had great gear spacing, real easy on fuel, good power for their size, and live PTO, 3pt's and hydraulics showed up (don't know the year.).

So what is the perspective on the MH tractors? Good, not so good, not enough dealers, no experience? Frankly, I still can't figure out why an IH H or M were more popular than the MH 33/44 row crops. I also cannot figure out why MF pushed them aside.

I'd be interested in your comments.

Paul

The one big problem with them was that the PTO was mounted way too high on them.

Were I live (MT) there wasn't any Masseys around here until the 55 came out. Towards the end it lacked features that everyone else had. I have a diesel 55 Western Special. It has a hand clutch too. I have heard they were great pullers with the big 4 cylinder engine.

Yup, I remember that. The 444 corrected that. Thanks for your comment. Paul

They had 2 weaknesses, PTO to high and crankshaft wear issues. I have a 44, it is a great tractor, but they never have caught on in value.

If you can get your hands on a chart from the 1950s that list all the tractors and their % of market share, you will find the for years IH led the pack and JD was in second place nipping at the heels of IH. The other brands had different rankings of market share.
Some great tractors went by the wayside mostly from bad management, not inferior product.
If you study the last days of MM you will find out that it seems that the management was h bent on destroying the company.

In the early 50s. three of my neighbors all bought MH-22s at the same time. They were great little tractors, I put in a lot of seat time on one. But they had a channel iron frame and would flex badly when crossing a terrace, etc. Many of them eventually broke.

Neighbor had a 55 on 4-16 plow. It did not have a low enough gear. Every time he went though a low swale in this heavy gumbo ground we have here in So. Mn. he would have to pull the clutch and let the rpms. build up then go another 100 ft. and stop again.

I think the main issue was dealer network. There was not a dealer around me anywhere close. There where Five IH and four JD dealers in that same area. There where only two Ford dealers here as well and the tractors owned reflected that dealership level.

It also could have been the fact that Massey Harris was a Canadian Company. Where the JD ,IH and AC where mid-west companies. Remember travel, shipping and communications where nothing like today. So I think that limited the dealership network to the Northern states and areas.

I know MH had a full line of equipment and where world wide but I think it was widely spread too. Meaning there where areas that had lots of MH equipment and areas that had none.

The MH tractor line was pretty good but had some thing that did not work well with the other brands of equipment. The biggest was the PTO location was much higher from the drawbar than most of the other manufactures. It made the MH tractor not work well on some implements.

I think that the merger with Ferguson killed off the MH tractor line. They used some of MH ideas but mostly Ferguson's. The implement line carried through.

Growing up we had a AC WD and a MH 44 diesel that we used for a long time. When dad bought the 44 diesel was 16 cents a gallon and it was easy on fuel. The 44 would pull an IH 4x16 pull type plow all day long in 3 gear. I use to love plowing with it in the evening after being hot during the day and started getting cool and humid you could watch the temp gauge cool down and a frame start rising out of the stack till it was 6" tall. Man did she run good then and pull easer. Funny thing was it dynode out at 43 hp but yet pulled 4x16's a 13 ft disc and pulled a 14ft harrow gadder with no problem. It allways pulled more than it should have with zero problems.

My second tractor was a MH 44 special gas WF ps with a hand clutch for live power. They both worked great on the 72 and 90 AC pull type combines but the special was better because of the hand clutch. Like others have said the PTO being so high was a bad point a lot of times but could be worked around. Back in high school my AG teacher had an Oliver 88 pulling tractor and he beat everything but a MH 44 or 55 diesel. That old 44 diesel would be pulled down so hard it would sound like a 2 cyl JD putting along but it would never stop, It just kept going.

The MH 44 is on a short list of tractors that I want to have or have back. I would take a 44 over a H or M or any 2cyl JD but its a toss up on a 77 or 88 Oliver. Bandit

The one that preceded the 44 with the 6 cylinder Continental engine was a horse. Used one on my sawmill for years. Lots of power. It was a 1946 model 101 SR.
The manual said that the transmission had an oil pump in it to pump 90 wt up to the belt pulley gears. I think they went downhill when they made the 44 with the 4 cylinder.
Just my opinion.
Richard in NW SC

My dad always talked about the neighbors cutting silage with a 44 Massey and hauling with an M farmall because the 44 pulled the cutter better than the M could. My dad has a 44 Special diesel that he has tractor pulled for years. With the factory hydraulics removed (hydraulics were optional), he weighs in at 4400lbs and is competing against H farmalls and B John Deeres, and adds weight and moves up to the 6500 lbs class. He does very well with it. It put out 62 HP on the dyno the day he bought it and is completely stock.

I would never consider a 44 or a 33 due to the high PTO location, but would consider an alternative if the price is right on 333 or 444. That said it will never be as cheap to maintain as a Farmall h or M.

My comment is the tractor to be a user? Or something you gonna park in the barn for parade's and with the pipe dream hope that it significantly appreciates in some monetary value?

The other is price point investment and how much it is going to cost to keep running to do the jobs you need it to do.

If you are a struggling worker working a job and just barely making it each week and just had to drive a $750 dollar truck back and forth to work everyday cause that was all you could afford. If the truck breaks down or leaves you stranded you get fired by the boss and can not feed your family. Knowing this would you prefer to drive a 1975 Chevy, 1975 Ford, 1975 Dodge, or a 1975 International Pick up? Me I would bet on the 1975 Chevy or 1975 Ford to feed my family. Neither of these may have been the better truck when all 4 were brand new, but there is simply way more of them sold to scrounge for parts in junkyards and many parts also be available at night after work as discount part house so you can fix it quick and cheap.

Unless I am mistaken the 44 could be had with either a 6 cylinder or 4 cylinder engine.

Standard engine for the 44 was the 260 cu in 4 cylinder during the war they ran short and fitted some with flat head 6 cylinder 225 cu in continal engines. The 4 engine would out pull the 6 cylinder quit a bit.

Maybe I should pick up a 44 just to run the auger?

You are partly right jm,the 101 Supers had Chrysler until 1942 and the war effort created a shortage,so Massey went to the 226 Continental in 101 Senior mid-late 42 until 1946.In 1947 the 44s came out in either 44-4s or 44-6s until 1951 when the 6 was dropped due to lack of interest.I have 2 44-6s,ser.no 5 and 135 plus 4 buildings full of other MHs.The tractors were big sellers,but tools were Ho-Hum sellers.Deere was the biggest tool seller,but Massey and AC sold more tractors then JD.

Was he using first gear? If he was I'd say the load was to big if he had trouble. I have a 5 bottom JD I would like to try someday on the 55.

I will admit the 4 might out pull the 6 in the field, but on a sawmill, the 6 had more power.
Richard

Dealers were very scarce around me. Lots of Deere Dealers more so than IHC. IHC had more models than Deere did so that could make up for the higher total sales. Also if Deere had offered a gas version in all A, B & G models they would have sold more of them. Untill 47 to get same power in a Deere as the M then you had to go to a G that was a heavier tractor. If they would have started that gas engine from 1947 in the A in 41 as the standard engine then sales would have been more equal with the M.

I don't think not offering a gas engine in the 30s was detrimental to JD sales. If a farmer wanted a gas burning JD there were aftermarket kits available. Great grandpa farming with distillate burning W-9 post WW II all the way to 1952 before he bought a WD9. I checked our farm books and in 1950 gas was 18 cents a gallon and dist was still 6 cents a gallon. That probably wasn't nationwide but that's what it was here.

When the M was 36 HP and the 41 A was 29 HP that made the M a 3 plow tractor and the A only a 2 plow tractor. That same engine in the 41 A was kept thru 1952 with the 29 HP power, now the gas engine and the M had a gas engine also was brought out in 47 with 38 HP so that put it into the 3 plow size So if you needed a 3 plow tractor would you buy that 29 HP A or the 36 HP M or go with the G that was not styled and may not have had a starter or 6 speed untill the GM in 44 and at a thousand ? pounds heavier. Most were running gas at that time in all the all fuel tractors so price was not a consideration, only pulling power and if the A could not pull that 3 bottom plow then what did you do, went to the M. Now if you would put the gas pistons, manifold and head on that 41 A it would have been a 38 HP tractor as well so then it would have been the factor in deciding the make on what you liked, not on what it would do. The early B 39 to 46 was equal in work it would do to a Farmal B and the A was sold against the Farmall H for mid size power and the G against the M for larger power and the G was priced a lot higher than the M. Also Deere did not sell a tractor of the capabilities of the Farmal A untill several years later the Deere M was brought out so not having a tractor in that style-size also hurt Deere sales. Me I would rather drive a Deere but no problems with a Farmall either. The only thing Deere had in early 40's in size Farmall did not have was the H, L & LA. Then McCormick had bigger standard tractors than Deere did with the D. If it would have been made as gas also then it could have competed against the larger McCormicks as well pulling the 4 bottom plow instead of 3 bottom.

Thanks for you comments guys. Paul

Better check your numbers again Leroy.The A was 39HP per Neb. The B was 29.A 50 was 31.

Check your sertial numbers, those figures are from the start of the pressed frame models that started in 1947 and they had both the gas and all fuel models after that. Before with the angle frame models they just had the all fuel models and then the B was a 4 1/2" bore tractor so the HP figures for the 41-46 years were even less than 47 up B that was 4 11/16" bore. And those figures you are rounding them up as they were 38 and 28 not 39 and 29. You are correct on the model 50 @ 31.

Maby I should ask you, do you want the rated as well as the max figures down to the XX.00 figures, I can come up with all those if you need them. Belt is rated at 85% of max while drawbar is 75% of max. And the late AR is rated at 39 while the A is 38. I have had a 38 A, 46 B, 49 B, 50 AR & 51 A. The A tractors of up to 39 were one engine, then 40 was only year for that engine.

MH was never a big seller here. Had to be the dealer network. JD 8 miles. Ford 8. AC 10. IH 25. MF 60. That from about 1972. Later a JD dealer 25 miles away was a MF dealer for a while. Then after AC fail, became AGCO and acquired MF the old AC dealer sold MF. Brothers that owned that retired and the new owner is working hard a destroying the customer network.

You can argue all day about which one is/was the best. To me it will always be the same. The one, regardless of color, that's paid for and runs when needed.

Rick