Hydro vs Reverser

Spudm

Member
Question: Which would be best for a small utility farm tractor that occasionally does some loader work, a hydro transmission or a gear transmission with a reverser?
 
It depends entirely upon the intended purpose.

Hydrostats are wonderful for jobs needing constant speed changes and/or direction reversals but are inefficient, expensive and not well suited to tillage tasks.

Hydraulic shuttle transmissions are more efficient and less expensive but do not offer infinite speed control.

Dean
 
Hydro gets my vote when loading dirt in bucket. I have to push forward, lift and curl at the same time to get the bucket full. It's another story if you plan to do some other things that require hard pulling or want to go faster.

Like Mike said, what do you plan to do with it?

As for me, I've found that it takes more than one tractor. Each tractor does one thing well. Some people want a tractor to be an all in one tractor, like the shop smith too.
 
I love our JD 4600 with 12-12 power reverser, but I don't do a lot of loader work. I can see one advantage of a hydro is being able to go forward slow while filling and then backing away faster. I have to shift gears to do that, but it's syncromesh. Hydrostatic drives rob hp. and are noisy.
 
I agree with the shuttle shift. I have it on my man sized backhoe (sorry Geo, couldn't resist) that I've used for such task as feeding bales plus digging. While hydro is nice as others have said not very efficient compared to gear.

On the other side of the coin there was a guy here who lost a leg in farm accident and went to a hydro tractor. He got about 7 or 8,000 hours out of the hydro before a rebuild and he used that for his tillage tractor.

Rick
 
I don't know where you get the idea that CVT is a good option on a work vehicle. Local experience around here is that they are very prone to failure and extremely expensive to fix - or more commonly replace. There are several transmission repair shops around here that simply will not deal with them.
While it may be a great idea on paper, in practice, they have a reputation as being unreliable and expensive. They work good in snowmobiles, but they are just not up to the task of doing any real work.
 
All depends on what you do with the tractor. If you are primarily plowing, tilling, pulling or a lot of roading go with the gear transmission. If you are primarily doing chores around the house, moving round bales, pto work like mowing or baling or loader work, go with the hydro. Even snaking logs out of the woods would be better with a hydro in my opinion.
 
Usage is about 50/50. Other than loading compost, I would be using it for brush hogging, and a little plowing & disking. About a 32-40 horsepower tractor.
 
Hi jimg
I'm guessing from your comment that Fendt and Massey have got that transmission way wrong in their big tractors and JD aren't that smart either as I'm sure our neighbor has one in his big loader tractor. I'm wondering from your comment about "local transmission shop" if they are talking about automotive transmissions. Tractor manufacturers generally won't let just any goof in a shop have the info to repair them these days with computer technology involved so much. there was somebody local had one in some type of SUV about 8 or so years ago maybe they are junk if it pulls a trailer. Any tractor transmissions expensive to fix on modern equipment these days no matter how it works.
Regards Robert
 
(quoted from post at 11:48:07 06/29/16) All depends on what you do with the tractor. If you are primarily plowing, tilling, pulling or a lot of roading go with the gear transmission. If you are primarily doing chores around the house, moving round bales, pto work like mowing or baling or loader work, go with the hydro. Even snaking logs out of the woods would be better with a hydro in my opinion.

Exactly! , You nailed it! :)
 

24 speed gear tranny with shuttle for large tractor; straight gear for small. Lawnmowers are hydros and half are ZTs. That's what I figured I needed to do what I do and so far so good.
 

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