Oliver 80

T-bird · Nov 6, 2016

Why were there not many 80 olivers around and the dealers around where I grew up in Ohio never sold any either. Just 60s and 70s.

NY 986 · Nov 6, 2016

80's and JD G and so forth were a little large for the market outside of the corn belt of Iowa, Illinois, and indiana. Two plow tractors were the norm here in NY until the 1950's which is why there were quite a few more Farmall H's sold versus M's here. A few hundred dollar difference in price between a 70 and 80 or H and M was a very big deal back in those times and farmers had sons that stuck around the area even if they worked in town so it was no problem to run a smallish tractor the extra hours to get work done.

rrlund · Nov 6, 2016

I never even knew there was such a thing as an 80 until I was probably pushing 40. A guy over west of me actually has one. I've never seen it. He says every time he gets it out and runs it,it breaks a valve spring.

KenL · Nov 6, 2016

I agree with NY 986. Here in East Central Wi. It was just too big. Lots of 60s & 70s around here but never knew there was an 80 row crop until I bought my first one ten years ago.

Mike(NEOhio) · Nov 6, 2016

986, I agree. I didn't grow up with farming but my father in law worked 125 ac and some off-site land with two E3s, a JD A and four sons. The A was the big tractor and he later got an E4 mainly for belt power when filling silo. He never thought he needed anything larger.

NY 986 · Nov 6, 2016

I want to say somebody told me years ago that H's outsold M's 4 to 1 in this area at least until 1950. Hard to make an assessment off of what you see now as the jockey's have been bringing tractors back from the Midwest for decades now.

oliver90owner · Nov 7, 2016

Weelll, I've got five of them, we used two on the farm in the 1950's. Never had a valve spring break.

The one problem was that of valve heads departing company with the stem, usually leading to scrapping the tractor. My 90 dropped a valve, too, but it has survived with some major surgery to the head, bore and piston.

No starter possibility (for the row crops) may have been yet another reason and the standards were likely a minority production for the US market. They were very welcome in the UK during the WWII era. I have two standards, one each narrow and wide front RC's, and an industrial.

I would guess a (significant?) Percentage of production resides at the bottom of the Atlantic!

RAB

Oliver 80

T-bird

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NY 986

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rrlund

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KenL

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Mike(NEOhio)

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NY 986

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oliver90owner

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