Thnings you can learn on a message board...

Reminds me of MANY years back when I was at a neighbor's place repairing his grain dryer.

All he could do was grumble about his (functioning) 4020 and say he needed to get rid if it while praising the 7060 Allis a few yards away with a completely ventilated engine waiting to go to Pete's Salvage and the 86 series IH waiting to go to the shop with rear end problems!
 
I get some absolutely worn out old 4020's in here for minor repair, clutches mostly,and oil leaks and they go back out on the front line of work, hard to tell how many hours has been put on them, a lot of them have the tread worn off the clutch and brake peddles, telling that they have done a lot of work..an amazing amount of power shifts that have never had anything done to the transmission..a lot of them with over 20,000 hours on them,,yes go ahead and tell me how bad they are...
 
I think everyone gets a third now and then and some think all of what they had problems with are the same? Just my ignorance.
 
Bob;
You can drop one at my place anytime. Too big for my needs or I would already have one. Used to work on a bunch of them. Usually clutches or leaks with an occasional major repair to the engine. There were quite a few dairy tractors that were worn out decades earlier that got a clutch job and went right back to work. I might be wrong but I think that 4020 was the most abusable tractor ever built. Timex don't have nothing on a 4020.
 
Yeah. If an update kit can be found on the internet, then it's true the world over.

Not too many folks overhauled a 4010 with stock parts from what I've known when another 10 plus HP could be added with a 4020 OH kit.

Yes I'm partial to JD because it's what I've always known the best. In way I'd be jealous of TA since JD didn't have them in the 1970's or earlier. But the quad range in the 30 & 40 series was quite an improvement over any other setup on the market at that time.

Personally I sort of hate that JD wasn't the first to market with many tractor innovations over the years. Other brand fans often point this out to me...yes they have a point, but it's also a keen strategy on the part of JD to wait and see how others fare in new technology and let them work out a few of the kinks before jumping right in with their own tractors. This strategy probably saved JD more in the long run versus being in a position of having rushed a new design/concept to market only to have a mess of half-wit fixes and patches to try and rectify design flaws and inadequate testing before going to market.

While JD didn't have a T/A or intermediate gearbox/transmission for as many speed range options as many of their competitors, the synchro range transmission was extremely well built with few issues. The lack of overall change in the synchro range design over the lifespan of it being offered is a real testament to the quality engineering design.
Ford was the first to offer a power shift transmission...they had some issues and this offered many opportunities for improvement and refinements for their design.
Deere was very keen to have chosen direct inject diesel engines when others were fooling around with pre-combustion chambers and the like. Yes there were the Dubuque engines (too bad they didn't take note from the 435 / 440 Detroit-Diesel system, but after the 10 series they too used direct injection.

At the end of the day, I'd say that market values of vintage Deere tractors yet today versus their competitors of the same time say all we need to know in terms of overall value to the user. That value speaks for itself.

Now that I've gotten about 25 cents worth of opinion out in the open...

Tyler in IL
 
If comparing Deere and IH, they weren't first on much.

Deere had hydraulics before IH. And live PTO. And live hydraulics. And then factory power steering.
 
When it comes to Live PTO, I believe it was Oliver that won the race. Once again JD wasn't first on the scene...but when they arrived to market with their own, it was much improved being that it was a wet multi-disk clutch design that held up quite well.

I can't say for sure on live hydraulics or factory power steering. Ford / Ferguson was really the first to market with a reliable and usable hydraulic system (at least in terms of the 3pt hitch).

One thing for sure is that the JD power steering setup on the Waterloo lineup wasn't like anything else ever put into production and worked better than many of the other steering systems which looked more like an afterthought than a true unique factory design.

Obviously the hydraulic system on the JD new generation tractors is what really put them on the map. I've run a few Oliver and IH tractors of the 1960's vintage and their hydraulic systems weren't even comparable to the JD Closed Center systems. When on a 1600 Oliver loading some 4 bottom semi-mounted plows on my trailer a few years back I kept thinking that it was like the hydraulic system on my 720 but it might as well not even had power steering because with any weight on the front axle steering wasn't possible. Even my 720 with 'outdated' design had steering that worked even with the most extreme weight upon the front axle.

Anyway...another 10 cents worth of rambling.
Tyler in IL
 
I think Cockshutt beat Oliver by a year or two on the live pto. Unless I am mistaken JD had the first factory hydraulic lift back in 1934 on the A.
 
I'm multi-tractoral, and generally don't like to "diss" one brand over the other, but the Deere 4020 engine haters need to look no farther than the screaming "American" D282 diesel engines that Binder used in that era, cold-blooded, need glow plugs to start (even on a 70º summer day) head-cracking boat anchors.

WHAT "updates" are available for those???

New heads, perhaps?
 
We farmed with IH back in the 50s and the biggest issue for IH around here was the cracked heads. Local diesel shop had a pile of IH heads in the corner of the shop. Course the binderiods like to blame it on operator error which is bogus IMO for two reasons. No other brand had near the head problems from that era. And our TD 14A cracked its head twice despite following proper cool down procedures.
 
And JD developed the TA sometime around 33 or 34. They didn't think it worthwhile, so never put it into production.
WJ
 
First row crop was 50 and 60, fall 52. (considered 53 models)

IH Mta 54 model year. H series didn't come along till at least 55 as the 300.

It is true cockshutt had the first live PTO, but between Deere and IH, Deere was the leader there.
 
Only a Case guy would say things like that. I don't believe they were a contender at all. Deere was the first to get the shift lever out from between your legs and was first to have great power steering and closed center hydraulics. Not to mention synchronized transmissions. As far as the updated engines the only way to update a Case engine is to trade the thing off for a JD.
 
My dad had 2 4010's and a 3010 when I was a kid. One had 4020 sleeves and pistons and the other was stock. The stock one was good. The only engine work we did was to have the head done because the guides were shot and it would break a rocker arm occasionally. The one with the 4020 pistons couldn't go more than a couple seasons without tearing into it for something. The 3010 we never touched, but it didn't get worked as hard as the 4010's did. I have run oliver, case, ih, and Deere and lets face it, they all have their good and bad. I still think an 856 with that D407 was a great tractor... but the 706 with the D282 were crap. The 3020 and 4020 were good but the 1010 and 2010 were terrible. The 1850 Ollie with the 354 perkins was a great tractor, and I still have my soft spot for a 930 Case. Mostly because they were simple and easy to work on.... and now because I can buy 4 of them for what a decent 4020 costs.. Face it. they have all worked 50 years and are all still capable of doing a good days work and then some. Who will be able to say that about their new tractor?
 
Just so you don't have to deal with the bad motors, you can drop them both off at my place. Heck, I can even come and get them if you want:) It seems in this region now matter how diehard the ih guys were they still had a 4020 that did all the chores and such.
 
Willie - would you care to share the details of this "TA" Deere developed back in the 1930's with the rest of the class?
 

In regard to Willie and the Deere TA, JR Hobbs used to tell me that he was told by someone Deere had developed a TA system centered around the Deere hand clutch. Supposedly the clutch hand two detents and after you went past the first one to engage it you could shove it farther forward and you were in under drive (or whatever you call it) position. I said, "Well let's research this." but he told me that it was really just anecdotal information and had no idea where to start. At that point it was probably third, fourth, fifth hand information.
I do have some written quotes from a Deere sales manager calling the TA and all the brands of over/under drives "whoop-de-doo" levers and saying Deere doesn't need them because the torque amplifier is built in to the engine.
 
It will take a while, don't remember which of my history books covers it. When I find it I will post with book title, author's name, even page number.
Willie
 
It would be interesting to see all the different ideas that "didn't" make it....and a look at the re-search and development things that were tried...
 
Richard - I have a book on early ag tractors that
credits JD's CEO with making a statement that the
two cylinder engine torque took the place of those
shift-on-the-go gear reductions every other tractor
company was using. I got the impression he and
everybody who worked for him had never spent a
second on a farm tractor doing fieldwork on the
hilly ground around Moline.

Another question! What was the name of the engineer
JD hired who had designed the Select-O-Speed trans
for Ford and got fired after the S-O-S was such a
problematic transmission? I've seen his name on a
forum before but can't remember it. The PowerShift
was released about a year after he started at JD.
 
Sorry for jumping in here, but wanted to say a few things about Harold Brock. As Richard mentioned below, Harold is the person you're thinking of, but those details are a little off.

Although he was the Chief Engineer of the Ford Tractor division, he knew the S-O-S was a "P-O-S" and wanted more time to make it right. According to Harold, "I was holding it up, wouldn't approve it and finally they came to me and said, we want to put it in production and I said, well, you better get yourself a new chief engineer and they did. When I went to Deere [with] a new generation of tractors, they said well Ford is going to come out with a power shift transmission and we won't have one on our tractor. I said, well don't worry about it, it won't work and so I said, we'll design a power shift transmission that really works." (quote from the link below)

The picture above was taken in 2008 when Harold was 93 years old and graciously gave a talk at our local club. Harold was still sharp as a pin and had amazing recall of his experiences with Henry Ford. Although very small in stature, he was a giant in the tractor design field.
a183122.jpg

Harold Brock
 
And I doubt Moline caused JD to loose any sleep. Pretty sure that TA comment was aimed mostly at IH since they were the ones to beat back then and made the most headlines with the TA.
 
Here is one source. "Farm Tractor Milestones" by Randy Leffingwell. This is text straight out of the book on page 111 which is the story about IH and the Super M.

By early April 1931, John Liggett, an engineer with John Deere Tractor Company at Waterloo, Iowa, had perfected a system that essentially provided half gears. This was a method, as he described in his patent application, "to provide a gear reduction mechanism by means which the tractor speeds are somewhat reduced to produce a corresponding increase in drawbar pull of the tractor."

More text on page 112

"Liggett received his patent in May 1934, but Deere & Co. chose not to develop this idea further. The terms of the patent expired in 1948."
 
I meant Moline, Ill, the town Deere moved into when the blacksmith shop in Grand Detour burned down.
Minneapolis-Moline did have a planetary shift on the fly unit similar to IH's T/A, called Ampli-Torc. Catchy name right? Not sure when they first offered it but would guess early-mid 1960's. The neightbor's G-1000 had it. Same operating instructions as the T/A but a higher reduction ratio, about 45%.

The Allis Power Director was able to shift on the fly, but the neutral between lo and hi was not good. Neighbor Dad traded help with had a series 4 D-17 then traded for a late model series 2? D-19. I was running behind him in a different land plowing one spring and that break in power was REALLY hard on that D-19! No matter how hard you tried, that 4 bottom plow stopped you before you could engage the lo side. Not the smooth transition in speed and pull power the T/A made.

IH's T/A always gets bad mouthed by people who have never used one or never maintained or used them correctly. If you farm hills or just ground with varying draft conditions the T/A is a great productivity improver.
 
(quoted from post at 06:50:28 02/17/15)
IH's T/A always gets bad mouthed by people who have never used one or never maintained or used them correctly. If you farm hills or just ground with varying draft conditions the T/A is a great productivity improver.

I think what you meant to say was the T/A was a death trap in hills. If you had it in the wrong position while going down a hill with a big load of manure, the only thing stopping you was the bottom of the hill or a tree. We had a 1086 on the farm for years. Dad bought it because it was cheap HP. We sure found out why. NO ONE wanted to drive that tractor. It spent the summer on the blower. I, being the youngest, was stuck with it in the fall and spring for tillage. The Elwood MFWD made it a monster that'd outpull anything green we had, but everyone still hated driving it.
 
Other than the Ford 6000, I wonder if there is any other case where a tractor model's transmission was causing problems, so instead of strengthening the transmission they detuned the engine. That's what Ford did. The red 6000s had about 5 more horse than the blue ones.
 
Our family 4020 didn't know about all the trouble, it still has the original pistons and for years had the dog crude worked out of it pulling a 6 bottom fh345 plow. It was the only "large" tractor on a 75 cow +all the young stock farm. 400 acres were farmed with it. Many neighbors also had 4020's and non of those broke pistons or blew head gaskets. Its amazing that a tractor guru largely familiar with Case is such an expert on 4020s.
 
I think that about any one farming with Deere's have done time on a 4020, we farmed 1500 acres with 2 4020's and a 720D back in the early 70's pulled 5X16 145's with them in hill country, every day we asked them to do way more than they were meant to do,,and they did it...
 
If the TA on your 1086 was freewheeling going down hill something was wrong as the large frame IH tractors hold back when lever is pulled back. Had it been properly adjusted over the years or was it just ran and grumbled about? Seems from the sounds of it "No ONE wanted to drive that tractor" don't think the proper procedure was followed in it's operation.
 
(quoted from post at 13:43:30 02/17/15)
Its amazing that a tractor guru largely familiar with Case is such an expert on 4020s.

Larry
I think what the JI Case guru you mentioned had ENVY not Expert in his vocabulary when it came to a 4020.
 

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