Farmall M-TA: Increase Road Speed?

[carmine@1945]

Don't even think about changing anything but maybe your mind.  If that tractor started to go sideways, you stand little to no chance of getting it straight again.  That tractor probably weighs 4 to 5,000 pounds.  Just about any car trailer will carry that without breaking a sweat.  

[nomorejohndeere]

Would it be more feasible to change a transmission gear to obtain a low rpm road gear?

 

[hillman]

27 minutes ago, nomorejohndeere said:

Would it be more feasible to change a transmission gear to obtain a low rpm road gear?

 

no. 5th is direct drive, it just couples the input and pinion shaft

[Farmall Doctor]

Just be glad that you are an IHC collector and not another S-L-O-W tractor brand like the ones that are green with yellow wheels or Oliver. I love my Super 77, but road speed is boring. 

[LipRipper3006]

4 hours ago, Farmall Doctor said:

Just be glad that you are an IHC collector and not another S-L-O-W tractor brand like the ones that are green with yellow wheels or Oliver. I love my Super 77, but road speed is boring. 

I actually have as many JDs as I do IH's. This may make some eyes burn but I just finished this one last month. Busy in the shop now cleaning up M-TA parts and getting ready to paint a 8N.

Road gear on the late B's are 10mph wide open so It's definitely a few steps below a Super series M. Just about any letter series John Deere will fit on my trailer at 82" but a M Farmall is just too wide.

[Jacka]

4 minutes ago, LipRipper3006 said:

I actually have as many JDs as I do IH's. This may make some eyes burn but I just finished this one last month. Busy in the shop now cleaning up M-TA parts and getting ready to paint a 8N.

Road gear on the late B's are 10mph wide open so It's definitely a few steps below a Super series M. Just about any letter series John Deere will fit on my trailer at 82" but a M Farmall is just too wide.

Don't want to be mean but I ran to many of those 2 bangers to be impressed when I was a kid.They WERE ALWAYS inferior to Farmalls and a MTA was light years in front of them.I was at a sale not that long ago, bunch of IH's and Farmalls running just sitting there at idle, smooth as silk. They had one two banger JDR diesel I think.It was at idle and just seemed to labor the whole time.Maybe that's how they supposed to sound but sure was pitiful.

You did a nice restoration on that green tractor though.

[Dave Shepard]

You want fast? Get a Minneapolis-Moline. We had a 335 and never got it out of second gear. Felt like fourth, or faster, on an H.

[DWV]

12 hours ago, hillman said:

^ best advice right there. before overdrives every car run 1800 rpm or higher on the road. 

 Not piling on the OP but there's lots of ppl think they need to run a tractor at less than full throttle. I don't get it. other than a baler, haybine. etc which I run at PTO speed everything else is WOT ( they are governed for a reason unlike a car ). How would your lawn mower or combine work 1/2 throttle? 

 

still struggling with the gear ratios.🤓without the final drive ratios it's hard to get a perspective on if I am right or not. My last calculation came out to 3 mph increase based on an initial speed of 16 mph. I am going off percentage differences due to the lack of final drive ratio. I believe 3 mph sounds more realistic. I give up at this point while I have some hair left

 

 

Think you were close the first time. I figured a SW6TA R&P would give 1.1 MPH over the standard R&P with the same size 13.6 tires. 14.9 would give another 0.5 to 0.6 MPH. R&P counts are in my other post and bull gears are pinion 13 teeth and bull gear 73 if you would double check me. That's the only two gear reductions in fifth speed. 

[hillman]

^ I overheated my brain already

[Vanstractors]

Getting off topic i know look at Silver King top speed .Think you be up front on race day !!

[barkerwc4362]

Dad's SMT-A had 15.5x38s.  I drove it a lot of miles between the various farms we rented growing up.  It was the fastest tractor until the 706 showed up.  Definitely faster than the 52 John Deere B.  God knows how many miles I put on it cultivating the two summers I cultivated every bit of the corn and beans on the over 300 acres we farmed then.

[Dave Shepard]

One of our 656's would do 25 mph with 18.4s. After the TD-9B engine transplant, not so much. 

[Farmall Doctor]

15 hours ago, LipRipper3006 said:

Just about any letter series John Deere will fit on my trailer at 82" but a M Farmall is just too wide.

If you really want it on your trailer, switch wheels side to side and narrow it up as tight as you want. I don’t like the looks of them like that, put it solves this issue.

[Matt Kirsch]

21 hours ago, carmine@1945 said:

That tractor probably weighs 4 to 5,000 pounds.

Even the lightest weight given by tractordata is 5500lbs. Realistically the tractor will weigh at least 6000lbs unless it's stripped down.

I agree with Dr. Evil. The best bang for your buck will be 16.9x38 tires. We had a 560 with that size tire on it, and it was FAST. It would run circles around anything else on the farm. 

16.9's will give you a 25MPH top end but you can back off the throttle a bit and run at 20MPH. 

One thing I don't think has been taken into consideration is that the engine may not have enough power to pull hills loping along at 1000RPM. Maybe pulling the TA will be enough, but if it isn't you're down in 4th chugging up the hill at what seems like a snail's pace compared to what you were doing before.

[DT Fan]

On 11/13/2022 at 8:57 AM, DR.EVIL said:

   I'd suggest up-sizing to a 16.9x38 rear tire,  they're a couple inches taller than a 14.9x38, and would most definitely need a wider rim,  could squeeze them onto a 14x38, but should be on a 15x38, and putting one on a 16x38 probably the easiest to find, but there's no "DW" style rims in a 15 or 16 inch rim, just double bevel, which would require 450/560/656/686 8-spoke cast wheels to put on an SM-TA.  But compared to the 12x38 tires M's came with it would be a nice bump in speed.

      So many of the similar vintage tractors to an M or Super M, even the SM-TA just creeped along.  For instance, the Deere R we owned "briefly" ran 11 mph top speed in road gear, 5th speed, same speed as the SM-TA we had ran in the low side of 5th. Allis-Chalmers were also rather slow, WD-45 was 14 mph.

      You increase your road speed too much and CRAZY unexpected stuff happens,  think it was Here a couple years ago somebody posted about a tractor accident, guy had his M out for some reason, parking equipment in the shed maybe,  decided to go for a cruise around the block, nice sunny fall day, I've done it more times than I care to confess to, a neighbor on the road a mile across the block comes by later that day, an M is laying on it's side about 8 rows into the field across from a wooded area.  It's a while before they find the guy who had been driving the M, he had signs of having been smacked in the face, couple cracked ribs, plus more severe bodily injury in his midsection, like the tractor ran over him.

      The Sheriff and ambulance crew determined a deer had darted across the road, startled by the tractor, the deer leaped but too late, hit the farmer, knocked him out of the seat onto the rear tire which tossed him down ahead of the rear wheel which then ran over him just before the tractor ran down into the ditch and eventually tipped onto it's side a ways down the road. Fenders or a cab would have probably saved his life. Having the tractor chained to a trailer would have TOTALLY defeated the purpose of the drive.  I have gone around the block a couple times since I read about that accident, but honestly, the REAL deterent to any and all tractor rides is the amount of WORK it is to remove and reinstall the tire chains on my #1 snow mover. Running on bare roads wears the cross chains at an unbelievable rate, and they are EXPENSIVE!

 

As Doctor Evil mentions, a WD 45 was no speed demon. A set of 16.9x28's and a D-17 governor spring and mine runs 18 mph. Checked with hand-held gps. Runs about 6.0 in second gear, dropping the plow in the ground brought that down to 4.3. The Allis 185 with a tall set of 18.4x30's does 19 if memory serves. After adjusting the governor to combine speed, the 756 will do 26, if you can stay in the seat! 856 checked in at 23.7. 

[hillman]

8 hours ago, Matt Kirsch said:

Even the lightest weight given by tractordata is 5500lbs. Realistically the tractor will weigh at least 6000lbs unless it's stripped down.

 

I agree the Super M ta is considerably heavier than a Super M and really needs a trailer with 5000# axles. but the guy was bang on with his post otherwise 

[LipRipper3006]

11 hours ago, Farmall Doctor said:

If you really want it on your trailer, switch wheels side to side and narrow it up as tight as you want. I don’t like the looks of them like that, put it solves this issue.

I have seen people do that however it is ugly and it's a little too narrow to run around where I live. There are hills and holes all around that I feel uncomfortable on with the wheels out let alone narrowed all the way in. I usually set my tractor around 80" where I have a little wiggle room on the trailer but also having enough width for stability.

[Farmall Doctor]

I think that you should take up a hobby less stressful for yourself like basket weaving.  hahaha

[801486]

There are metric sized tires out there that correspond to 14.9x38 and fit M rims well.

[GaryK]

In a conversation last year with one of my older brothers who spent a lot of time on an M. I haven't.

He said when M first came out the were very sslow in 4th gear for like raking hay compared to JD.

From that conversation I do believe a different 4th and 5th gear where introductored to sped the Ms up.

I don't have the paper catalog with me but I did find different 4th and 5th gears in the catalog.

Online not having any such luck.

 

[801486]

42 minutes ago, GaryK said:

In a conversation last year with one of my older brothers who spent a lot of time on an M. I haven't.

He said when M first came out the were very sslow in 4th gear for like raking hay compared to JD.

From that conversation I do believe a different 4th and 5th gear where introductored to sped the Ms up.

I don't have the paper catalog with me but I did find different 4th and 5th gears in the catalog.

Online not having any such luck.

 

My Dad always said some had what he called plowing 4th gear.

[snoshoe]

Yes there are different fourth gear ratios but fifth is still direct. With the overdrives fifth is still direct.

[nepoweshiekfarmalls]

The Super M's had a higher speed 4th in them from the factory.

[DWV]

3 hours ago, GaryK said:

In a conversation last year with one of my older brothers who spent a lot of time on an M. I haven't.

He said when M first came out the were very sslow in 4th gear for like raking hay compared to JD.

From that conversation I do believe a different 4th and 5th gear where introductored to sped the Ms up.

I don't have the paper catalog with me but I did find different 4th and 5th gears in the catalog.

Online not having any such luck.

 

 Depending on tire size the standard fourth gear speed in a M was around 5-1/4 MPH at 1450 RPM. High speed fourth attachment give up close to 7 mph.  Some early M gears have different part numbers but were the same ratio for standard speed gears. Also a lower speed first gear attachment was offered. Since the 3 and 4 gear on countershaft is made in one piece that part also had a different part number when the 4th and 5th slider was changed to high speed.  Low speed required the reverse idle, and a one piece second gear on counter shaft because first was made on the shaft. Since first was made on shaft two different countershafts were sold, one for notched pto drive and other for splined pto drive.  Big tires and RPm bumped up a little will move a M fast enough on some grounds. For raking hay with ground driven one aftermarket 9 speed was nice, No need to run wide open. One time in past a aftermarket company made faster fourths for the tractors. One aftermarket gear box bolted in place of pulley gear box and give a speed between fourth and fifth. Pretty rare. 

[DR.EVIL]

On 11/13/2022 at 4:18 PM, Jacka said:

Don't want to be mean but I ran to many of those 2 bangers to be impressed when I was a kid.They WERE ALWAYS inferior to Farmalls and a MTA was light years in front of them.I was at a sale not that long ago, bunch of IH's and Farmalls running just sitting there at idle, smooth as silk. They had one two banger JDR diesel I think.It was at idle and just seemed to labor the whole time.Maybe that's how they supposed to sound but sure was pitiful.

 

   After running our Super M-TA a little bit summer of 1963, cultivated corn, mowed hay, disked & plowed, Christmas of '63 I find a Deere R facing me when I open the machine shed door. Dad tells me, " It's YOUR tractor this coming spring!"  And I don't EVER recall Dad running it, or even riding on it. Dad did run it to his favorite Deere dealer for a tune-up, 20 miles there and 20 miles back. The R and SM-TA were within a single horsepower of each other, but the SM-TA would work circles around the R, and my ears wouldn't ring for hours and hours after running the SM-TA like they did after 3-4 hours on the R, and the R labored on EVERY load we put behind it, 14 ft Krause disk at about 4-1/2 mph disking corn stalks, forget the Deere 4-14 trailing plow, I pulled the IH #8 3-14 with the R most of the spring. In fact, we still had 16 acres to plow when the Township road Commissioner bought the R, I plowed that 16 acres with the SM-TA and the Deere 4-14 plow.

   The factory muffler wasn't much better than a straight pipe on the R. The neighbors laughed at the R, at the right engine speed the front end of the tractor bounced up&down about half an inch. R was the ONLY 2 cyl diesel with the gutless 2 cyl Pony motor, a Farmall M and a stout log chain was a better "starting aid" an H, even a Super H wasn't enough tractor to pull start an R. R was also the only 2 cyl diesel with just 2 main bearings on the crankshaft. The Deere salesman told Dad to don't EVER lug the engine down, sounds like a broken crankshaft just about destroys the engine.  Oh and that 11 mph road gear was another one of those, " What the HECK were they thinking!".  The R had the FIRST live pto Deere ever put in a tractor. Our Road Commissioner knocked out the pto drive train three years in a row running a rototiller, third time he traded the R for a 770 Oliver diesel that is probably still running trouble-free.

   Neighbor had a 730 Deere diesel, was his big horse till he bought the side console 4020 with turbo the neighbor across the road traded in on a new Deere. Not sure what all problems the various tractors had, but the old Deere A he had, 4020, 3020 gas, all didn't run at his auction, only his 350 FARMALL that was his first and only tractor for close to 10 years.

   Probably my worst day on a 2 cyl Deere was rotary hoeing Beans with a Deere 60, could only start & run in 4th gear, listened to that thing hammer and bang for about 10 hours doing 80 acres of beans. I forget what I did the next day, maybe chop haylage, but I would NOT have run that 60 another minute on a second day. This guy and THREE 4020'S, 4320, 4230, and I get stuck on the 60 because the bigger newer faster tractors are busy?