Repowered Farmall Tractors

I recently hauled a H in from out of a farmers field, that has a stuck motor, with no real hope of getting free. Someone removed the heads long ago, and the pistons have been exposed for years. I read about someone who put a chevy 350 V8 motor in an H, and also a Oldsmoble diesel motor in an H.

I love using these older Farmalls. I have the equipment for them, and they serve my purpose. I can't see spending a ton of money to buy a new expensive tractor, when there are so many old tractors around that with a little updating, would work perfectly. I am not saying they are not good the way they are, I am just saying it would be interesting to me to see what I could do with one to update it.

All of you out there with any experience, I invite you to share your experiences and knowledge.

I"m trying to come up with enough parts to swap an IH 240-cubic-inch truck engine into Dad"s old H [which will put it, cubic-inch-wise, inbetween a 460 and a 560]. Using 450/560/706/806 parts, it should be an easy conversion...just trying to figure out what to use to get the 2:1 gear reduction myself [truck engine set to turn 3600 rpm vs. stock around 1800], that will fit inside the stock H clutch housing.

There are plenty of donor tractors left to keep the unit "original".

Car engines do not have governors to react to varying loads. They also turn two to three times as many RPMs as a tractor engine. The rated RPM on an H or M is only 1600 RPMs and car engines turn 5000 RPM. They also put out several times as much horsepower at those high RPMs that the tractor's drivetrain was not designed for.

In short, repowering a car engine is not very useful unless you can overcome those technical issues.

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