Why do you like your SOS?

Ultradog MN

Well-known Member
Location
Twin Cities
So I spent a couple more hours on my 3 cyl
4000 SOS on Saturday. We had some high winds
this summer that blew down a lot of trees
(mostly poplar) and I was pulling them into
an out of the way area where they can be cut
up and burned.
This puts me at about 10 hours of actual
work time on this thing - discing, back
blading, pulling logs and stumps, etc. Aside
from putzing around on a couple of SOS
tractors Kemny's had that is the sum total
of my experience on one of these.
To be honest I'm having a bit of trouble
getting used to it. I mostly just putterd
around on it. Running at mid throttle -
13/1400 rpms or so and still the thing jerks
and lurches like a bronco when you up or
downshift.
Do you guys who use them all the time like
that? Do you get used to It? Do you just not
shift It when in motion?
What about backing up to an Implement? You
need to back up another inch to hook the
pins but this thing will lurch backward 2
inches when you ease off on the inching
pedal. On a crash box tranny I can slip the
clutch and move the tractor 1/4" if I want.
It seems there's no doing precise movements
with this thing.
When I was using it on the back blade a
couple weeks ago, pulling gravel back up the
hill where the rains washed it down I was
doing a lot of back and forth with it.
Jeeze, that was an unpleasant, jerking
business.
I'm trying to like this thing but as hard as
it pounds itself into gear I'm afraid of
busting an axle or the rivits in the ring
gear - or my neck for that matter.
No I don't have a manual yet (aside from
the owner/operator manual - which I've read
a couple of times)and no, I haven't tried
adjusting it yet. Is there a way to soften
the shifts?
Maybe this sounds like I'm whining.
I'm trying to give this thing a fair shake.
Why do you guys like these things?
Why in the heck do I need to shift on the
fly?
How do you get used to the jerking?
Why such a clumsy inching pedal, ie, no
inching.
What advantages do you find for this tranny
over an 8 speed?
I'm trying to like this thing but having a
hard time of it.
Thanks for any advice.
 
My first Ford was a 4000, 4 cyl SOS. I really wanted a 6 or 8 manual shift but this SOS came along and I couldn't pass it up; but the want stayed with me. Other than the tach cable breaking and the band adjustment screws being all but bottomed out, and creeping in N in the winter when the oil was thick, it was a solid dependable tractor. On the jerking, I just dropped the rpms momentarily when shifting. I liked th 10 speeds and I didn't but for one wanting to till their garden with a 3 pt tiller, you couldn't ask for better.

I used it for several years (till I could get an 8 speed 3000) and gave it to my son who used it for a couple of years and moved to town, giving it back to me. So I gave it to a friend and he's had it for 5 or so. Tranny still hanging in there.
 
Ratio selection and power shifting.

You likely do not need to shift on the fly for what you were doing but if is quite handy for heavy mowing, plowing, discing, etc.

You can use the inching pedal to shift if you like but it is not necessary.

The downside is inching to hitch up.

Dean
 
I helped an old man hook up to his plow one day years ago,
He said stand back as I back this thing up to the plow as I can only get within 10" of where I want to be,

We finally got it hooked up but it took us a while,

However transmission may have been on the way out, only one I was ever around,
 
I can back up my '73 4000 S-O-S to within an inch or so of where I want it to be, which is completely fine for hitching up implements because it has the extendable links on the ends of the arms. I can truly inch it using the inching pedal in R1 and 1st (forward).

The Operators Manual says to start out in whatever gear you want to be in up to 6th, I believe, and for anything above 6th, start in 6th and then upshift once you're moving. Also, you can upshift and down shift across one or two gears at a time, so you can avoid the really jerky transitions. Like on mine downshifting 6th to 4th is less jerky than 5th to 4th, so I don't do 6th to 5th and then 5th to 4th, I just do 6th to 4th in one shift, plus I do use the inching pedal at the same time so it's pretty smooth comparatively speaking.

I use mine mostly for loader work and brush hogging, so I'm generally not in any gear much higher than 4th gear of the time anyway. I only had it all the way up to 10th once, and that was just to test it to make sure all of the gears were working, way to fast for anything but driving down the road.
 

My 871 is quite predictable for shifting one gear at a time around 1,200 rpm or less. Inching pedal works fine too at around 600 rpm in R1 or 1st. I have my shuttle screws set for R1 and 5th gear, and that also works great below 1,200 rpm. Of course, i adjust the bands every hundred hours or so.

Sure would like to put a Dowden foot throttle on it though.Just haven't had time to engineer it.
 

I grew up on SOS from age 7 forward. Perhaps that disqualifies me! But I'll challenge anyone with any transmission to back up and attach implements any more smoothly and/or precisely than I can with an SOS.

If you want a powershift, you'll need to get use to some jerking. That said, I don't believe it's that bad on the SOS . . . and it's a whole lot easier to shuttle than most . . . save maybe the 3-R of the 5 speed shin bangin' monkey shift.
 
Fellas,
I'm listening and welcome more opinions.
One thing I will say is this thing was in a barn fire and it melted some of the plastic on it.
One piece that is bad is the little window on the shifter. I have another complete shifter but that window was painted over. Grrr.
Knowing what gear I'm in might help though I can count the clicks - P, R2, R1, N, 1st, etc.
Is that little window available somewhere?
Larry, I would take that challenge. I don't consider myself anything special as an operator but give me my 8 speed 3000 in low R and I can/will hook the pins from the seat.
Sean, yes this one has the flex links too. Those and an 8' 2x6 to bar it around and you can get an implement hooked.
I wonder why Ford didn't put a torque converter in front of this tranny. I think that's what JD did on the 4020 didn't they?
 
I would have to think yours is unique based on your description and there's some adjusting needing to be done. I am however, no more knowledgeable about that then you or the average owner of one.

The reason I say this is that I grew up on a '64 4000 S-O-S. We did everything with it on this farm. Cut rake and baled hay, many many hours mowing with a rotary mower, snow plowing, some moldboard plowing and disc harrow work. Manure spreader, towing a few logs, just about anything you can think of. I can recall going down the state road here with it, 10th gear... just a tad bit fast, but it was a NYS thruway mowing tractor in its former life. I never could figure out why we never had a thousand series given we had a full line dealership. We did often use and or test trade-ins for field work, I can remember baling with a 5000.

Sure, it jerked a little, shifting and or starting off, but not like you describe and not enough for a young tractor operator to ever be concerned. That tractor was the easiest operating tractor I had ever been on. Though that is not really saying a heck of a lot because the others I could compare it to were limited to a small variety, IH 460 JD 2010 narrow and wide front, JD B and a few others,one a small farmall as I recall but not the model. I never had much trouble with hooking up implements, or up/downshifting. Sure you will notice each shift, but down shifting with a load on was relatively smooth with a small but noticeable transition but you did not lose momentum. This tractor is what demonstrated to me what torque is, just by downshifting and getting the rpms back in the range where you had the most torque, all with a load on. Independent PTO was awesome for thick burdock patches, bogs down, just push down the inching pedal, it catches up, then you can get moving again. Same with the baler, need to catch up, do the same thing.

I spent a ton of hours on this one which worked as it should, was not excessively "jerky" or otherwise noticeably rough to handle. I was a kid 10-11 years old running this tractor. My wore out 850 could not compare to what the 4000 S-0-S could do, it had a gear for everything.

My 4630's PTO does not engage as smooth as that 4000 S-0-S did. I can't say enough in favor of it and I'd be the first to state otherwise if it was not the case.

I'd really like to learn more about these and what is causing yours to buck like you describe. They would not have been very popular if they all did this. NYS thruway authority was apparently very good on maintenance, it was often said their surplus auctions were great places to get good used equipment. It had gone through our shop when we first got it. This tractor had thousands of hours put on it. My father had made a deal to allow a friend run a show at our place, and he was allowed to use that tractor. He thought he was doing something good by changing the transmission oil, NOT! I was the last person to run that tractor, it stopped, would not move, right in the middle of another show, in the riding ring. Was a sad day for me, as that was it, only tractor afterwards, was borrowed and the old man was not around this place that much. The farmer did not use the fields for several years, the place got overgrown and today I am harvesting some timber off it. When I graduated from high school, the old dealership was lost in a bitter divorce, and the tractor was still in the building. We gave it to a long time good friend, who passed in '96, he never got around to it, and should have, he was only 56 years old. I did not know a heck of a lot about these and the old time mechanics we had in our shop for 30+ years were very old I believe and likely convalescing. No one knew how to repair it. Our friend, (my fathers and mine)was an extremely talented mechanic, who was in the excavation business and one of the finest people I have had the pleasure of knowing in this life. He just was one of the best the human race had to offer, loved kids and his family, so much so in his mid 40's had another complete family, like 4 kids! They were devastated when he passed away. He sure liked old caterpillar tractors and certainly would have enjoyed a site like this to no end. We had that in common, boy I can remember him running our old D7 like it was yesterday. 20 years he's been gone and missed every one of those years.If there was a person that could have figure out the repair, given a correct manual, he would have breezed through it, cripes he's fixed, repaired, rebuilt and so on just about anything you could think of.

The 4000 was last parked in a fence row until who knows where it went. The numbskull friend of my fathers put the wrong fluid in it is as best I can figure as what caused it, or that tractor would still be running today.
 
I have to disagree with you on this one Larry. Most, if not every SOS trans I have ever operated had very poor feathering qualities as far as the inching pedal was concerned. Lining up drawbar pins, etc. was always a dangerous proposition for anyone who might be behind the thing. I finally resorted to disconnecting the driveline and pushing it back manually to hook up 3-point attachments.

Other than that, I think it's a great trans.
 

It takes practice to be able to inch back and forth with a SOS, main thing is to do it at low rpm's, idle to 1000 is best, the more rpm's the jerkier it gets, they'll all jerk between 4th-5th or 5th-4th shifts.
A throttle pedal from a industrial model is your friend when using a SOS.
 
I have a 66 2110 gas. I use it for everything, blade,mow,till,plow,act. A lot of work in small areas like driveways and yards. I don't know if i could use anything but an sos. Had an 871 before this . 2110 has a foot throttle. Enjoy! Lowell
 
UD, I gave my Jerk-O-Matic 8 years to grow on me and it never did. If anything I got more annoyed with it over the years. It did have advantages, and always worked reliably, but the drawbacks outweighed the good points. I swapped it out for a 4 speed 2 years ago and couldn't be happier. The SOS just wasn't for me.
 
I've been running 5 speed" monkey shift" trannys for 41 years and have never hit my shin with the shifter . How do you ride a tractor? Side saddle? I can take my 5 speed and ease back to hook up to any implement and get within a quarter inch on center of the pins . What experience I've had with SOS trannys was loading a tractor on a trailer to return it to its owner. A little spooky as it did not want to stop and lock in park. Probably needed something fixed or adjusted. I'm sure there are perfect working examples out there. But I know what a 5 speed will and won't do. And when I put it in 1st gear and cut it off, it ain't gonna roll off. 3rd and rev are great mowing and rear blading gears . I'll admit you have to pay attention when you shift and the dual clutch on the *60s and *61s can be touchy at higher rpms. But you have to get used to it just like anything else. My 2 cents worth about half..
 
No sir. Planetary gears and a conventional clutch disc merely as a convenient (used in standard manual shift trannys and available at the factory) coupler between the engine's flywheel and the tranny input shaft. Inching pedal bleeds hyd pressure, doesn't move clutch disc pressure plate; it has no external connection.
 
I agree with Larry. My 881 can crawl up to an implement in reverse by feathering the inching pedal no problem. I could about tip a wine glass on edge with the drawbar and hold it if I wanted to. Just takes some practice and feel for when the clutches begin to engage. The only thing I don't like is it usually won't engage in 'park' exactly where I want it to stay, so I have to lock the brakes or stay on level ground, which is normal I guess.
It can be jerky, especially when downshifting, depending on travel speed and engine rpms and gears selected when shifting. I have the earlier SOS with over-running clutch, which I find useful to smoothly slow down when downshifting. Otherwise, simply disengaging using the inching pedal before downshifting on the fly will avoid jerking when you expect it. I hear using the inching pedal too much for that purpose though will cause it to wear, so I try to avoid doing it as much as possible. It can be jerky upshifting depending on conditions, but after doing a band adjustment a couple weeks ago it seems to be smoother. Overall, to me, the convenience and range of gear ratios is well worth any occasional jolt I might get from shifting.
 
Do not understand your response.

UD asked why Ford did not use a torque converter with the S-O-S.

The reasons are cost and fuel economy.

Dean
 
(quoted from post at 19:11:38 09/19/16) I've been running 5 speed" monkey shift" trannys for 41 years and have never hit my shin with the shifter . How do you ride a tractor? Side saddle?

Don't be so naïve! If I have to tell you it's the clutch pedal that bangs shins, you've never driven a 5 speed!
 
(quoted from post at 20:51:39 09/19/16)
It takes practice to be able to inch back and forth with a SOS, main thing is to do it at low rpm's, idle to 1000 is best, the more rpm's the jerkier it gets, they'll all jerk between 4th-5th or 5th-4th shifts.
A throttle pedal from a industrial model is your friend when using a SOS.

You really got my attention with the industrial model throttle pedal. Would this work on a power steering model? That seems to be the problem - getting the linkage around the power steering cylinders.

Yeah, 5th gear is the one gear (on my 871) that I experience hard shifting with. It's OK if I go directly into it from R1, but shifting from 6th to 5th, or 4th to 5th makes for a jerk. I do like you do, go directly from 6th to 4th to avoid that.

Some one here said that using the inching pedal too much could be bad for the transmission. That'd be true in a way. Right after I got this tractor around 1978 or 1979, I had the inching pedal suddenly go down to the running board all on it's own. Upon removal of the top cover, discovered that the spring that holds inching pedal up had worn through where it hooks to a bracket. New spring fixed that, but I spent several hours fishing around in the bottom of the transmission with a magnet after draining it to find the missing part of the spring. I was not amused.
 
You said the "monkey shift". Didn't say anything about the clutch. Not all 5 speeds have the higher standing two dual
clutch pedal . If you were bumping your shin on the (I'll assume dual clutch ) pedal. It's probably due to inexperience
with dual clutches or manual transmission equipped tractors in general. Operator Error.....
 
(quoted from post at 06:32:17 09/20/16) You said the "monkey shift". Didn't say anything about the clutch. Not all 5 speeds have the higher standing two dual
clutch pedal . If you were bumping your shin on the (I'll assume dual clutch ) pedal. It's probably due to inexperience
with dual clutches or manual transmission equipped tractors in general. Operator Error.....

I'll change my answer to incredibly, incredibly naïve!
 
(quoted from post at 04:16:45 09/20/16)
(quoted from post at 20:51:39 09/19/16)
It takes practice to be able to inch back and forth with a SOS, main thing is to do it at low rpm's, idle to 1000 is best, the more rpm's the jerkier it gets, they'll all jerk between 4th-5th or 5th-4th shifts.
A throttle pedal from a industrial model is your friend when using a SOS.

You really got my attention with the industrial model throttle pedal. Would this work on a power steering model? That seems to be the problem - getting the linkage around the power steering cylinders.

I got the pedal assembly off of a 4500 to use on my three cyl 4000, my brother has a four cyl 4000 ind with the pedal, I'll have to look at how it's set up but, I think the linkage goes up the side of the trans behind the radius arms and ps lines.
You need the pedal assembly with linkage and the hand throttle assembly as it has a pivot linkage that works with the foot pedal.

The one thing I've found that a SOS doesn't work well with is a large round baler where stopping , starting and reversing at pto rpm just doesn't work well without a lot of jerking and spinning tires. I had taken the ballast out of the tires to lessen the shock load on the SOS.
After a major pump and component failure I converted the tractor to a eight speed trans and put the foot pedal back on my 4500.
 
Ok. I misread the intent of the question. So I can't add to what you said under the "Cost" heading. Agree that cost would have been prohibited when compared to the route they took. When I tore into mine, I didn't know what to expect for the coupling and was pleasantly surprised to see the simplicity of what I saw.
 
I guess I can throw my $.02 in, too.
My first experience with an SOS was in the fall of '79 (I was 6 then). Grandpa was looking to upgrade one of the Farmall SH's, so our dealer was letting him try a late model 5100 SOS. Up to then, I had only been allowed to drive the Jubilee. What I was allowed to do on the 5000 was very limited, but I did get to drive it some. I was NOT allowed to back it up to anything. The Commander 6000 must have been too fresh in Grandpa's mind, because he sent it back. (bought the 4600 the next summer) Didn't drive another one until I bought my 971 in '93. Liked it,except for being hard to feather, especially backing up. But it was short on power for a lot of what I wanted to use it for, so I sold it a little over a year later to help pay for the 7600. Then I had a 5100 that I repowered with a combine engine. Again, hard to feather backing up, but not as bad as the 971. Very nice on the flail chopper - hit heavier grass, no problem, just drop a gear. Back to lighter grass, just pop it back up a gear. I also drove a neighbor's 5100 somewhere along in there, but again, just a very limited amount.
Why do I like them? Independent PTO. Wide range of gear ratios. Ability to up/down shift without clutching or stopping. Would I pick one vs. a 4 or 5 speed? Probably. I DON'T like the clutch on a 5-speed/LPTO. But the jobs I do with tractors that size are limited. Vs. an 8-speed/LPTO? Maybe. Again, the h.p. limits what I'd be doing with the tractor, so non-live/live/independent pto isn't a big issue. Price would be a big deciding point on these, for me. Vs. an 8-speed/IPTO? Would probably go with the 8-speed, all else being equal. Vs. an 8-speed w/ Dual Power? Not a chance. I love my DP! You're limited to powershifting only between direct and under drive, but otherwise has all the advantages of the SOS (and MORE ratios), plus can be inched into position like any other clutch model.
Since I have several with the 8-speed, I look at SOS models as a nice 'extra' tractor to have around. Really good for certain uses, not ideal for others.
I agree with the other poster who thinks yours may need an adjustment... it sounds as if those shifts are harsher than they should be.
 
My Dad had a 7700 with dual power. That worked great with plowing and discing. My 4610 has a synchro mesh with independent PTO . Clutch is smoother than my 5 sp dual clutches. A lot heavier duty too . I guess once you get used to any of them they do good.
 
Mine was free, has some issues with the SOS such that I am the only one who operates it, and refuses to die (but then I will not let it either). For mowing the SOS is perfect, for fine movement not so much. But the independent PTO has absolutely spoiled me over the years.

To wit, I am working on a friend's JD 650 with FEL and bush hogging with it and its non-live PTO is annoying. Granted, it is light and only 20HP or so but having everything behind you stop when you hit the clutch takes some getting used to.

I mowed a 5-6 acre field that grew up for 3 years and never had to hit the inching pedal after I opened the gate, just geared up or down depending on load on PTO. Dragging logs up out of the river bottom where the skidders had run was easy as I could gear down for the water drops and never lose momentum and then gear up on the easy slopes and across the top of the ridge.

Just wish I had a locking differential and power steering on mine.
 

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