How to kill a Farmall MTA...

While searching for pictures of plowing here, I came across this one from 1969. It's my uncle on the family MTA, the last Farmall here. It ran this planting outfit 2 495 planters with a "double" hitch for a couple of years. A couple of days after this was taken, the final drive bearings failed for the second time, and the 4020 with cab pictured below in the no-till post was purchased.

You still don't ask my dad about MTA's!

Could the MTA handle it in 4th?

1st. When you got to a hill, you pulled back the TA and crawled over.

I'm surprised the hydraulics could lift it out of the ground.

That rig would have been better with a cultimulcher in front of the planter (not). It needed twice the tractor as it was set up. I feel for the SMTA's soul. Jim

IH wasn’t known for strong final drives in some tractors. I don’t know if the JD 70 would have pulled that setup any better but the rear end would have lasted longer.

Not sure. But Deere did market that hitch for 720s and 730s.

Can’t knock the tractor if it was pulling what a super wd9 would pull, only slower.

It's to bad IHC used them stupid ball bearing in the final drive!!

8 rows wouldn’t be bad, but if full of granular it’s a pretty fair load, adding all that liquid was a little over the top......

Paul

All you guys can blame the tractor,but it's pretty obvious it was severely overloaded,and green or red,something is gonna break.Just for the record it was only the 60 series with weak final drives,and it wasn't so much weak final drives as it was IH putting too much power in front of them.

Rock

I'm not disputing the tractor is overloaded. And don't think Coonie is either. I'm just saying JD had stronger components in the rear end to start with. If that Super MTA lasted only a couple of years being overloaded how long would a 560 lasted since it had the same rear end but more power. And it appeared the rear end was maxed out in the MTA anyway. Ever been around a JD G and a Farmall M. Park them next to each other and you can tell which one is beefier. Now it didn't matter in those two tractors but each company continued to increase the horsepower cumulating in the 720 and 560, which one had the problems?

1966 3020 diesel powershift and d1000 New Holland the baler weighs 9800 pounds

(quoted from post at 21:48:00 11/20/20) 1966 3020 diesel powershift and d1000 New Holland the baler weighs 9800 pounds
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Do you actually bale with it? That must be quite the load!

Yes

You think IH has wheel brg problems in the 60's, you should try working on the pos 9R series mother deere thinks is a 4WD. Last month our shop had 2 of them getting axles brgs. Must have done 8 set myself in the last 4 years. Not sure what rest of the shop has done, but its common to see an axle out for repair. I would take that Super MTA in a heart beat.

Didn't the 560 have roller bearings on in the axle housings? or are you talking about deeper in the transmission? We installed 560 axle housings on our 450 years ago because they are heavier. Many many farmall super m tractors and 450s were worked hard in our area with no final drive issues

I was under the understanding the ball bearings were in the tractor and the roller bearings were the up grade or up date after they found out the ball bearings were a problem. We never had a 60 series tractor. Went from the H to an 830 case to an 806 then more and bigger from there.

I am talking about on the rear axels,the bearing goes out, the bull gear drop down and eats a trough in the rear end housing! Our's went out when we turning with a digger in the ground while we were turning, on a troubled field we had!

I know what your talking about red turbo, i got a neighbor who had two of those big Deere's,one got traded off for a Cat rubber track!

Have to love those Deere tractors. Never have a problem . Wait, I worked at Deere dealer. Took plenty rears apart. One came off the truck and rear wheel with axle came rolling across the shop.

Took more than one axle to machine shop to fit new undersized axle bearing due to chewing up axle.

I had the privledge of a Deere model B break in half while plowing.

I don't think it would be possible to think of all the work that tractor has done in its lifetime and it's still working!

IH has certainly had its share of rear-end problems. Most notably the 560s but did you know that the rear end on a 340 failed while being tested at Nebraska? Here were the comments by the test team: "Soon after starting Test H the differential casting failed, damaging the right and left differential bearings and right bull gear. The complete differential and all damaged parts were replaced and test completed."
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My grandad bought two WD-9's new, the district man for IH had turned the pumps up a bit so they would pull the bottom three Oliver plows they bought new from the other dealer in town compared to the WD-45 with a three bottom mounted plow that was demo'ed the same day, with the extra fuel they decided the bigger heavier WD-9's were the way to go and they were dsl compared to the gas WD-45,, 10 days of plowing took out both WD-9's transmission bearings,, the dealer took them back and replaced the failed bearings,, 10 more days and both were out again,, so back they went when they came back they would not pull the plow in the same gear and smoked considerably less but did stop taking out the trans bearings then,, the dealer mechanic a life time neighbor and friend told Grandad what the deal was,, I guess he was not happy about being duped but did keep the WD-9's until they put the farm in the soil bank in 1959, those style IH dsl were prone to cracking the blocks and allowing coolant in the oil, both did that and had the copper line repair done to them one it sealed it the other still leaked some and had to have the oil changed very often, also if they were started and shut off incorrectly those paper thin heads would crack,, I myself seen dozens of them replaced around here,, if start/shutdown was followed like the neighbor mechanic taught me in the 60's they lasted though, I will not go into the proper way I was taught as I have been told here I am wrong,, even though I ran blades and crawlers as well as tractors for many years and never once broke a head,, the first 560's here was far worse about rear end failures as they used the same basic "M" rear end in them, under heavy load they would fail in hours, that was the main reason the long time IH dealer here dropped tractor sales the next year after the 560 intro, that unit all but killed his sales, the CASE dealer here then was also at the filed day demo, he brought a new LA and 4 bottom CASE plow,, it plowed circles around teh WD-9's and WD-45 but LA's Loved their gasoline, so grandad decided one bottom less plowing and the smaller amount of dsl they used over the LA was worth it, he always said he should have bought the LA's after they had the problems and for no more hp than they had after being returned to stock factory hp settings,, I seen that same thing repeated here for many IH tracor Series after that,, they e flat out made them too light in the transmission and rear end, axles areas,, I rebuilt lots and lots of them,, good shop income with them around though
cnt

Dad bought a 340 new and used it for all small farm light work. One day, a rear bearing ball fell out and got stuck under the bull gear. Pushed it out through the bottom of the rear housing. Had to buy a new bull gear, and have the welder patch the housing. They could have built a bit more clearance between the gear and housing so this wouldn't happen. That gear lay beside the shed for several years as a reminder. The 340 was traded in on a new 4020.
Up till then, the heavy work was done with the 444 diesel. No particular problems with that.
As a teenager, I really liked running that little tractor.

Are you meaning Wyoming soil when you speak of 3 bottom plows as a load for a WD-9? That must be very heavy soil as in North Dakota where I grew up, 4 bottom plows were common with WD-9s. How deep were the 3 bottoms going to make a heavy load for the WD-9s?

I study the Nebraska tests pretty regularly and I have always glossed over the "Repairs and Adjustments" section because I assume by the 50s tractors were engineered will enough to not fail right out of the box. Looking at tractors from the 20s I'm kinda surprised the Lab passed some of the tractors with the repairs they needed. But maybe since considering tractor technology and build quality was still somewhat primitive, maybe the standards were lower too.

Why would you severely overload a tractor like that?

they plowed up about 2500 acres of sod,, 400-500 was virgin sod, that was why they wanted the bigger tractors, later years when the ground was more mellow they could go in a faster gear sometimes but three was always plenty for them on this place,, they also bent the plows up plowing the rocks on some of the fields I am sure that made them pull harder also, I still have one of the plows here today

It was called making do with what you have. Or trying to. It was two guys trying to get ahead by farming a lot of land without a lot of equipment. And as I mentioned, the hitch pictured was marketed for contemporary tractors in the same class, or thereabouts. Deere's literature shows it on 720s and 730s, so somebody got an idea... It was a time period of tandem hitches of tractors hooked together, turbo kits, aftermarket pistons, etc.

It could certainly have been argued to use one planter and pull it faster. But keep in mind planter technology back then worked better if you went slow or very slow...

A super mta was the same age as the John Deere 60 and 70 not the 720/730. Sounds like the tractor was beaten to death and your blaming the tractor and not the owner. We ran several Ms 400s and 450s with no problems like that

Can you do an end of the row "wheelie" with weights on the front of a tricycle? I could with my Super A without weights.

I did wheelies with my Allis WD with an RCR2572" mower on the 3 point every time I started out with the mower raised. When the tail wheel on the mower touched down the tractor front end would start down. Instead of buying weights for the tractor front end, I sold the tractor and bought a tractor that doesn't do that. In spite of flying taildraggers, I prefer to keep my tractors under 10000 feet. (;>))

ran 400's and 450's some planting corn,, both dsl models I feel they were the best unit ever offered by IH,, low rpms engine with good torque, my neighbor has them and a 4 row fast hitch planter, if they had continued on the path they was on with them it may have been far different today

If they would have used a 450 which was made during the same time frame of the 720, the result still would have been the same since the rear end is the same. So you have no argument

Brother in law converted the Deere D to gasoline. About a 48 model and broke the drive chain and pushed a big hole in the bottom. Then the 53 G did the Deere thing and ruined the splines on crankshaft. Transmission had shelled out before that but he repaired it.

I went along with him some years before that to salvage yard for a flywheel for the G. Tractor was not very old at that time. Guy says they used to have those flywheels stacked up like cord wood but were running low .

As many different ideas on how to properly tighten those flywheel bolts as there was flywheels. Taper lock saved a lot of them for a few years.

As for the ball bearings in IH, yup, saw a lot of them fail. Most were after many years of hard work. Not all , but most. Wasn't just the inner axle bearing as the brake shaft was actually the biggest offender.

Hard to convince sales department they needed changes. Engineers did what were told by higher up's. A ball bearing rolls easier so you gain a bit on rolling resistance. One of their excuses I heard from time to time.

The Hutterite colony were putting the flat bower roller bearings in inside rear axle years before IH did.

We worked two 450s very hard and never had issues. They are not the same exact rear end. Usually what happens is they are run low on oil and the brake shaft bearings fail letting the balls fall into the rear end, they get run between the bull gears snd housing. Any tractor worker as hard as that mta would have failures