I"m not saying the 560 wasn't a trouble maker. In my opinion these failures were an insignificant chapter in the history of International Harvester. The TD-24 was dogged with final drive problems for most of it's life; for what it cost to repair TD-24 finals, you could practically buy a new 560. There weren't any alligator master links or hydraulic track adjusters back then. It was all bull work. The TD-24 was built for 12 years, with only minor changes, and had the horsepower turned up twice during it"s production run. No significant changes were made in the final drive design thru '59. I know this personally, because we used parts from a TD-25 to repair the finals on our '53 TD-24. The head cracking is another thing. The TD-24 had to be carefully shut down by a competent operator, or you lost two heads. That problem also wasn't solved until late in life. The cost of two heads and the labor was probably directly equivalent to installing a ring and pinion in a 560 Yet, the 560, made about 4 years, is repeatedly blamed for the failure of International Harvester, whom some people think is out of business. Why?

Think about it for a minute. How many people farmed with TD 24s or how many farmers even knew IH made a TD 24? The 560 was IH"s top of the line rowcrop tractor back then and that market segment was hot back in the day. What I am getting at is the 560 had way more exposure to the public then the TD 24 ever did and that is why any problem the 560 had was blown up in the public eye. Just a perfect example there were a few TD 24s around here and I have a relative that ran one for a summer. But this is the first time I"ve heard of the TD 24 have chronic final drive problems.

Got to blame it on something never mind the fat cats making big money and not doing anything to help the company survive. Rock Island RR had 50 people in Chicago making big bucks and not realy helping the RR Judge wasnt happyduring the bankrupct procedings you can get too big the left hand doesent know where the right hand is
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A lot of it is perception. We had a lot of 560's doing the heavy work around here for many years. I installed the final drive packages in the same shop we repaired all other tractors. John Deere shop took the first 4010 diesel they got in , out to their storage facility on the other side of town to replace the leaking head gasket. I never found that out until I worked for them many years later. I actually think the 660 was far worse on IH's reputation. It really hurt them up in wheat, big farm country. Also, the co. returned a high dividend to the stock holders instead of research and development in those years I am told. I certainly never had any stock being a mechanic.

Richard, they built 65, 982 560's over 4 years and really hyped em only to have major teething problems. They built 7,500 TD24's over 12 years. Most of the construction industery was buying D8 cats so not very many people knew about the TD24. Almost every farmer in the country knew about the 560. Now IH lasted another 25 years after the first 560's were sold so I don't think that you can blame the 560. I do think you can blame management that failed to meet the demands of the customer.......failed to see where the market was going.......failed to dump divisions that should have been dumped......and failed the stock holders. After the 560 was fixed a lot of guys farmed with them. I knew some guys farming with them into the 80's.

Rick

In 1984 IH posted a (negative) 440,000 million net worth. IH was never a conservative company.
Too many cigar puffing executives strolling around at the many meetings. JD more conservative
and lasted thru all the failures of the '80's.
My 2 cents. Chuck

Nothing really wrong with IH tractors but just like the IH trucks they were always about 10 years out of date when they were built.Plus overly complicated hydraulics and the sticking with the fast hitch hurt them.

The biggest problem was that they where mis-managed. It was not any one product that "killed" the company.

One of the first big mistakes on the direction they should be going was the two point hitch. They tried to close the market to the two point. They would rarely license it to anybody. Plus they mis-read the market going to three point implements. They did not have a good three point system for many years. It did not work well with the other companies implements. They should have given the two point design to anyone that wanted to use it on their equipment. This would have greated a larger market.

Then the 86 series tractor really drove customers away. So the death spiral was to far gone for them to recover.

I've heard JD wanted to license it but IH refused.It doesn't help to have the odd ball hitch in the market place, even if was considered a better hitch at the time.

The 560 gets blamed because it was a big public failure and they didn't respond to it quick enough, they had tractors broken across the country and no idea how to fix them. The year the 560 came out also happened to be the first year John Deere sold more tractors than IH. If Deere hadn't had the new generation tractors waiting in the wing ready to deliver a 1-2 punch to IH it might not of been so bad. But Deere had the new generation out and all IH had to compete was a tractor with a sullied reputation. IH suffered from management problems and the GM syndrome- we're the biggest and we can do no wrong. During this time the company was lead by Fowler McCormick, we could have an intelligent discussion how maybe his name and the stock his family held allowed some one to lead the company that shouldn't of. IH also had a case of post war exuberance combined with a need to find new markets to grow into to absorb production capability they gained during the war and what became available after the war and they seemed to find going into new markets mare attractive than fighting for market share where they already were big. They never regained what they had after the 560 fiasco, loyal customers left them in droves and the new follow on tractors (806 & 706) were late to the market and playing catch-up to Deere. There is a list of IH dealer from the late 40's available on line via the Wisconsin Historical society, it appears to be documentation from an anti-trust class action suit. They might of felt they couldn't expand in the AG market without further scrutiny from congress. I have participated in conversations claiming the IH 2 point system was superior to the 3 point, Case Eagle claw or AC snap coupler. I have read that Deere wanted to license it and use it on their tractors but IH refused, either hoping to prop up their aging tractor line or not wanting to help improve the competitor's equipment. This weakened them long term and then a perfect storm of poor equipment, a diminishing farm economy a long and costly strike that ended just in time for another round of depressed prices in agriculture left them with little alternatives. We can talk about the divisions they should of closed or sold but their were also a few that they seemed to leave just before a boom (light trucks, lawn equipment).

I think IH did 3 huge things wrong (maybe more) after the mid 1950's that burned them bad. They tried taking the H and M tractors and make them into something that many people thought were not as good of a tractor instead of a new design, they under estimated what John Deere did when they dropped the 2 cylinder engines and they gave away the farm in the late 70's or early 80's (dont'recall exactly when) on a union contract. The result is one of the greatest companies ever is now gone and like a lot of other great companies usually comes back to bad management.

There is a book out titled "A Corporate Tragedy".It is about IHC from the very beginning,to the very end.A long read,but worth it.

My line of thinking is they had management and stockholders that as early as the 1960's really wanted to be divorced from the agricultural equipment line. So the events of 1984-85 were really a dream come true for those individuals.
The other issue was IH really had more than its fair share of unremarkable products during the 1960s and 70's. At the same time IH's competitors had some very good products depending on the machine in question. There were a lot of guys who had IH tractors but had either NH or JD balers and mower-conditioners then. The 15 series combines were not bad but Gleaner and Deere had a large part of the combine market here.
The 400 series planters were not as bad as some made them out to be but they could not match the Deere 7000 released in 1974 or the White 5100 released a few years later. I could go on.
No, the 560 alone did not sink IH but the timing was bad as its competitors were getting ready to release tractors on the market that were far more advanced.

I remember reading a farm magazine back in'84 or '85 that the 2+2 single handedly did them in.

I worked for IH.You can blame the products if you want to.The unions went on strike and would not give a cent.IH told the union if would not go back to work they would have close.Guess what.

That is what I was talking about. If they had let JD, Case, Oliver or whomever use the hitch it might have become the dominate hitch in the market. You have to remember at that time many tractors where just getting lift type hitches for the first time. Once everyone else had the three point hitch then that left IH with the odd hitch out. That is just one of the bad management decisions that IH made.

(quoted from post at 19:38:31 07/29/12) I remember reading a farm magazine back in'84 or '85 that the 2+2 single handedly did them in.

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I don't think that true but it didn't help as MFW was starting to get popular and IH came out with that instead of just going over to MFW. Don't want to know what the cost of developement was. Saw a lot of them on dealers lots when they fisrt came out but did not see many in the fields.

Rick

If that were true about the truck division, Navistar International would not be a self-owned company today. The International MXT? 10 years behind?

I did not wish to portray the final drive failures as 'chronic'. In rocky conditions they failed more often than a D-8. I actually love TD-24s, I just chose them as a side-by-side comparison to repair costs, to dispel the notion of the 560 being the grim reaper. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the damage claims for the TD-24 were slightly exaggerated (possibly perpetuated by competitors salesmen),otherwise how could you build them and sell them, while constantly cranking up the HP, for so many years? I believe the 560 may be part of the same myth.

Other companies has embarassing new product recalls like the 560 rear end problems too: Deere has the 2010 and 8010, Ford had the 6000, Oliver had 880 transmission problems to name a few.

The 1980's farm recession probably did more to close the ag division than the 560 did.

The 560 was one of many failures for IH. I had never heard that it was the main one that did them in though.

I would guess the reason you don't hear about the TD24 is production numbers. How many total TD24's were made compared to 560's and how many of them went to owners that ran them?

As to IH's death I think the 06 might have had a bigger finger partially due to the JD 4010 coming out at the same time. Stories I heard at plowing demo's had the 4010 halfway down the field before the 806 got in gear. Then there were the many many issues with the TA. TA's were a decent design in the begining then IH tried to cram more and more horsepower through it resulting in a unit that was only dependable in how often it was in the shop.

Add all this to the world passing IH by. While they did have a multi speed power shift in the works it was to little to late including the farm crisis of the 80's, it was just to much.

Yes IH had some good stuff going for it. Axial flow, DT466 etc they just didn't have what was needed to make it.

JM2CW

jt

Another problem that IH had was an over-abundance of heavy drinkers in their sales force. Each district had 3 guys on the road doing the same work that I did alone when I worked for AC.

Their expense accounts were tremendous compared with AC, which would not allow any liquor charges on their expense accounts. JD would not allow liquor on their expense accounts in those years either, but IH and Case sales department personnel were notorious for drinking in those days.

Whole different company today than when IH was building trucks they're IH in name only now.

I agree with everything you said but the true killer for IH was the strike in 1979 and how management handled production afterwards. With biggest economic slowdown since the depression cash poor IH went to balls to the wall production thinking that 1980 and beyond would be repeats of 1979 (their best year ever and the last time they out sold John Deere). IH borrowed money at 22% interest to produce equipment that sat in dealers lots for years and ate away at "new" sales for years. You couldn't have drawn up a business plan to destroy a company (legally) any better than they did.

IH did a lot of things right and did some stupid things too. The 86 series should never have been produced. They were good tractors but the "50" series introduced in 1981 should have been the replacement for the 66 series. Their Axial Flow combines were a decade or more ahead of everyone else's, the "air planters" were another step ahead of everyone else.

IH made some misteps but what killed them was front office and their mentality that we're big and we'll always be here because we've always been here mentality - just like GM (Government Motors).

Sorry for a dumb mistake (440 million)not
440,000 million, Chuck

The 06 series IH's sure didnt do IH in..The 806's and 1206's were highly respected in my area..More than one 806 around me pulled 6x16's while a 4010 struggled with 5x16's..I never thought the shifting was all that great on a JD and I own a 6030..

The strike of 1979 did IH in..

IH had MFWD but it was not very good as it came off the left hand side of the transmission case to the front axle. Terrible turning radius. IH never had the money from the late 1960's to build a new line of tractors from scratch till the early 1980's. At that point the ag recession had set in and it was too late.
Also, IH lost too much time getting the Axial Flow combines out as early designs had patent issues with existing NH designs. The Axial Flow during the early 1970's would have given farmers something to get excited about before the 1980's set in.