Fall fun!

A couple more photos of last week’s plow day.

Member Mel L. from Kingsburg, CA came up and we THINK he was having a blast. He is a natural! Hopped on many of the machines and was right at home. I failed him by not bringing a D4E for him, maybe next time. JM

An off color machine. I was actually impressed by its performance.

Looks like fun times !

The old IH's would get some work done back in there day........................until they didn't. The gas start diesels all had a weak head. Baby them with a warm up at the start and a cool down at the end they lasted a while. All shafts and gears where square cut splines, just slide them apart at repair time. None of the costly to make tapered splines Cat used. That you needed special tools and puller to take apart. But the shafts in an IH all had only so many hours until it was worn out. One well used IH TD 14 in the neighborhood it took almost a minute from pulling the clutch in until it would move. Had to take all the slack out of every spline and gear in the drive train.

Once IH got away from the gas start diesel they had some very good engines. But by then very few would take a chance on their crawlers.

Ray: This one had a bit of a "huff"/miss when it is cold. This is the first time it has been put to "work" since it was rescued from a farm by La Selva Beach (Watsonville/Santa Cruz CA). Considering how close to the ocean it was, the tin isn't rotted away from the salt air. Starts immediately on gas, and only a moment before switching over to diesel. I have heard plenty about cracked IH heads, so this thing gets a proper warm up or cool down. I will hook a larger disk to it next time. Say, 10'or 12' and see how it grunts then. It ran away with the 7' in fourth gear. I will be content if it handles the bigger disk in 3rd. Adjust the steering and replace the fuel bowl on the gas tank, and I will be okay. There might be another original "Speer" seat cushion I can swap over to, but the old one with the hole in it works just fine.

There is an upcoming IH Chapter meeting coming up in Los Banos, CA. It might feel more welcomed there!

For the keen observers; I purposely paired it with an IH wheel disk. No mixing of apples and oranges here when possible. JM

In the Halfmoon Bay area IH was popular because Cat had pulled out early on. As I recall they were known for going through pins and bushings a little sooner. The gas start was pretty well received and not known for giving problems. In the long run Cat was known for durability. IH had an edge on performance.

Hi, 8C 361.

That "edge in performance" was the downfall of both IH and A-C. Their 'comparative' models would always outperform the more-or-less equivalent Cats - - - - until they didn't. Both manufacturers seemed intent on beating their opposition in the 'performance' stakes at the expense of durability due to insufficient engineering and design.

'Kummagutsa' also seems headed down that same road. The reports that I am hearing and have been hearing for well over 30 years indicate that, in the same work, 'Kummagutsa' machines have about 2/3 the working life to first rebuild and between subsequent rebuilds that equivalent Cat machines commonly have. And 'Kummagutsa' parts-n-service are harder to come by too.

Cat pretty much always seemed content to put durability and service-n-parts back-up ahead of performance, not that they neglected performance as such but concentrated more on PROLONGED performance and LONGEVITY.

Just my 0.02.