IH HYDRO LEGACY

[brewcrew]

13 hours ago, Farming Enthusiast said:

What would cause them to whine loud and how does a guy test them to make sure they're strong?

I think hydro transmissions whine just by the nature of the beast. I’m not sure if how much they whine is related to how strong they are or not. If you want to test the hydro, step one is to get them hot. I don’t mean warm, I mean hot. We had a 1026 and just for kicks I tried it on our 20’ field cultivator. It had traction issues, but the hydro held just fine for a couple rounds. But hauling silage up and down the road was not great. Again, I absolutely loved it at the bag, but we found the most success having gear drive tractors bring the wagons home, then switch to the hydro to unload.

[Farming Enthusiast]

3 hours ago, Alan Dinan said:

In later years, dad bought an 8-row 500 semi-mounted planter and we ran saddle tanks on the 1026. He planted 110 acres one day, was the field across the road from the house, fueled up when he was finished and that 407 had only used a hair over 20 gallons. I don’t think that was uneconomical. That was the only time we really checked the fuel efficiency of it.

I can't say exactly what we get with our 1086 planting but I can say it does about half as well per acre as your 1026

[mrfred54]

Back in the 70's we had a dairy farmer had a 1026 as his heavy tillage tractor. Had us install propane to increase the horse power and on the dyno was running bout 165hp. He ran the sh#$% out of that thing and I remember with about 8500 hours the hydro finally would start slipping. I rebuilt the hydro and He  ran that thing for several more years with propane . He finally bought a 4366 and kept the 1026 for light duty work. He also had a 656 hydro

[Jacka]

I know most on here heard my Hydro stories.I have three,Hydro 70 and it was my first well over 20 years ago.My 1026 followed and lastly is my Black Stripe H100.All I love,all will never leave.H70 has a loader on it.It planted,round baled ran a 15ft rotary cutter in stuff higher then the fenders on the tractor.I plowed some with it not much.1026 just raked hay pulling double raked on steep hills  and bushogs now.H100 mows with a 14 foot haybine.All are excellent reliable tractors,all have some sort of hyd.noise.I wear hearing protection in everything anyway now.All are some of the easiest tractors I ever run to go forward and reverse,doing field work etc.All are set the throttle and go to work,never change the throttle setting all day if you don’t want to or have to shut it down.l also have no problems with slipping,heating, etc.I own gear drive 1066s too and owned them before I owned any Hydro.I owned JDs, Fords, Massys. Old 20 series to 55 and 00 series JDs.Hydros were as far as transmission,shifting working were far more easier and pleasant to run.Now cabs made them for pleasant to run but as far as working,Hydros will put them to shame.As far as heavy tillage,yes gear drive can do more or maybe is more effective.I as a kid watched a local cash crop farmer in the 70's go through his fields bordering ours with a 856,1026,and H100.All pulled 710 or 20 auto 6 /16s plowing.It was a sight to behold for a eastern farm boy teenager.

IH Hydros were way ahead of their time but the other color tractor guys will never admit it.

[Dzldenny]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not my videos...

I've said it before. We did all of our tillage with the 1026 for decades. 5-16 plow. 24 foot drag. Rather small 14 or 16 foot disc but all in solid red clay and heavy hills. Never had any trans related issues. Lost a turbo chopping straw one year. Tore the pinion shaft out due to a crushed oil line at factory assembly but only after 40 years of use. Tach quit at 9xxx hours when I was still in school (1990?). Lasted another two decades before the pinion broke.

It also did all of the harvest. Chopped hay and straw. Was excellent on the round baler. And drug chopper and wagons through the mud in fall to chop corn. We ran roughly 300 acres give or take.

Only tractor dad ever purchased new. The key to its longevity was new oil and filters every year. A barrel of hytran every year was just considered normal maintenance and cheaper than a new hydro or different tractor.

I love the 10. We also had a 656 hydro D282 for many years as a loader tractor. That one was also used for spraying with saddles, cultivating, and cutting hay. Miss that one. Keeping my eyes out for another hydro. Ya never know...

 

 

 

 

[IHandJDman]

I like my Hydro 84 and would love a 186 or 3488.

[chadd]

11 hours ago, Matt Kirsch said:

Where are all the angry hydro apologists to call everyone stupid for saying the hydros weren't good tillage tractors?

Why, in just about every plowing video on youtube, there's a black stripe Hydro 100 4x4 pulling 4 bottoms! 

It isn't that the Hydrostatic transmission itself was bad for tillage.  Our combination of tractor, equipment size, and soil was a bad combination.  The issue for us was that the engine on the 656 didn't have any overhead compared to the load, so losing 10-15% of its output as heat was a big problem.  Also, IH took an engine that was already thirsty at 1800rpm (~5GPH) and cranked it up to 2300rpm (~6.3GPH) (806D burns 4.4GPH at same hp) to try and make up for the lost efficiency.  Our tillage loads would have been at the limit on a gear drive 656.  A hydrostatic drive with extra power ahead of it would probably work fine as long as you can get rid of the heat so that the oil doesn't break down and understand you'll burn some more fuel on the job than you might need to.