Oh it must be really raining in the valley JM calls home. (and cannot find emojis when I want them, so just guess what I would of used) I have never known a mechanic to say IH are harder to work on. Most cuss up a storm at all the tapered splines Cat used. Unless the part has had major failure you need to hunt up the proper pulling gear to get anything on a Cat apart. In most cases it calls for 10 tons as the minimum and on up to get the splines loss. Now IH used regular old splines that just slip together by hand. But from day one they wiggled and start waring. The cost was more to machine the tapered fit but a case of you get what you payed for. Because many of those parts are still going, but the IH part has been replaced many times.


As was stated some people had the ability to keep the gas start IH diesels together. But near impossible when any butt that comes along is put in a seat, and was used.

I have heard great things about some of the last IH TD 15's. But not many wanted to take chance by then.


So JM have fun driving each and everyone of all colors.

It's always interesting to here the comparisons of red verses yellow. Many years ago my Dad bought a TD14 to farm with based on advise from his cousin who ran all red. My father really did not want to buy the TD14 but his cousin said if you don't like it I'll buy if from you which never happened, plus at the time the D6 was more money. It wasn't to bad of tractor on the dozer. It came equipped with a hydraulic dozer built by Atco. At the time Cat only had a cable dozer. Long story short it was a great day when that old girl went down the road and we replaced it with a 9U D6. The 14 suffered from head cracking issues, plus it just wasn't very good in the field. The TD18 was a much better tractor than the 14 but once Cat came out with the latter model D7 it couldn't compete with the Cat.
Woody

I have never operated anything larger than the 62 series “pocket rockets” I call them. Our former old school land leveler man Elmer Smith ran several powershift TD20s and cable operated cans along with his fleet of D8 Caterpillars.
Glad to have gotten the red one out of Russell Turner’s old neighborhood before things got whiter than white out there. I took a big chance on a machine with non operable steering, no brakes and a starter that did not work. After a well deserved hot bath, I got everything working again. Scored some tools as well, pleased so far.
Happy about rain? Darn right! Worst year in history for agriculture around here; it’s scary when you can own trucks and do better. That wasn’t so rosy either, but we survived it. Hope like heck 2023 is better. It has to be. JM

JM, Ray54, OM, etc.-

I'm not at all familiar with the suffix '62' for the TD-6. My dad had a 1939 TD-6, I still have a Schram 105 compressor (1946) with a UD-6 engine (haven't had it running since ~1978) and acquired an early fifty's non op TD-6 several years ago from an estate sale (along with several Cats).

Apparently TD-6 62 is an improvement over the older engines. Just wondering what the differences are?

Thanks, Daron

Daron: These were a straight diesel unit with the D-282 engine which is a six cylinder with glow plugs. The last ones were made in 1969. This is the same engine used in a 560 and 656 wheel tractor. Some IH nuts will install a bolt on 560 turbocharger kit to theirs,but it already has plenty of power and if you could harness it to the ground, it would tear the guts out of the tractor. Geared faster than a Caterpillar as well. Maybe only 4800+/- ever built. JM

Hi, Juiceman.
Quote:
"Geared faster than a Caterpillar as well."
Unquote.

This was at the same time one of the bigger selling points and one of the biggest failings of IH crawlers. In their various sizes, they pretty much always out-performed Cats - faster and more power - but did not have the engineering to hold them together to keep on doing it, more so the bigger they got. A-C used pretty much the same approach - out-perform the opposition - but they could not keep it up either.

Did the lesson sink in????????????????

Apparently not as 'Kummagutsa' had developed a similar reputation last time I had anything to do with them - out perform the (more or less) equivalent Cats but with about 2/3 the working life to first rebuild and between subsequent rebuilds.

Wottz moor, I dunno about here in the U.S., but back home 'Kummgutsda' parts seemed to very often be "overnight - 14 days from Tokyo". Doesn't take long to leave a sour taste in a customer's mouth when he's trying to run a business.

Quote from trainzkid88 back on page 1:
"the french adn dozers were known to be weak in the arse end too but that was mainly due to people trying to work em on too hard if you were gentle they could do the work."
Unquote:

Funny thing is, doesn't seem to matter what make, model or type of machine it might be, the GREAT majority of owners and operators mostly seem to want it to do the work of the next model up the line - or 3 models up the line.

And HOW hard is "too hard" for a tractor?????? If the rest of the machine can't take the full power of the engine being sent to the ground under enough load to start it breaking traction REPEATEDLY, the machine is UNDER-engineered. PERIOD. At least in my humble opinion.

Just my 0.02.

Deas: I have a lot of farmer friends here choose a D6c SA over a D6c 76A , because they are so fast compared to the latter. Sadly, none of my mechanic friends care for the 17R for instance, even though its their bread and butter fixing broken iron. They said yes, 17R much much faster in the field and faster to come to the repair shop, as they would self destruct, while the older slower machine kept on chugging away.
As for the 62s here, I like the fact they are light enough to do the job with adequate traction. It is like our other land leveler man (retired) Park Everett, he purposely kept his wheel tractors lighter, so they would spin out before taking the gears out of the transmission or axles. Tires worn to 50% were liked better as well. That was on the JD units pulling ejectors and laser masts.
My 4U D2 could probably keep up with one of the IHs here, as it has had high idle set up slightly and does have the SP serial with obvious tall gears. Wish the others were the same, but I know when to leave some things alone.
If I get the 2 valve BeGe assembled, maybe I can invade SM with the 62 and a scraper. There was a time I wanted a powershift TD-7 to pair up with a #40 scraper, but I was gunshy about sourcing parts if we ever hurt it. JM

Hi, Juiceman.
I hear you about the parts situation. That's why I am very hesitant to buy anything but Cat for the ranch here.

Just my 0.02.

My first crawler was an older TD-9 (1955 with Bucyrus Blade) that I used for dozer work around the farm.  Only used it for a few years and had no trouble at all with it except one had to be a gymnast to get past all the mickey mouse rigging to get to the seat.  The only reason I got the TD-9 was because I had operated Super WD-9's for some time and was familiar with IH. 
Since then ran Cats and no problems with them either. 

deas, i know where ther is 3 of those adn's sadly they are worth nothing more than scrap. as trees have grown through and around them breaking stuff. the same people have a heap of vintage cars just sitting in the bush rustin away. at least thats a slow process here.
you say about komatsu, the cousin has a d41 and yes it was rebuilt twice under warranty before it was fixed properly. with modified oil gallerys and sump as it ended up starving for oil in the country he worked it on and the the oil couldnt drain back fast enough from the top end. they actually had engineers from japan out here to figure out what was wrong. she also kept popping the threads on the drive sprocket till a old machinist remade the shaft with a rope thread and new nuts. apparently he on of the jap blokes in the seat with him walking it to the work site he was told stop its too steep. the cousin replied with thats nothing.  well he working around the neumonta range