[AT] Moving West...

[Greg Hass]

Am sending this for conversation purposes, not to start any arguments, and 
somewhat thinking aloud.  Eveerything I am commenting on applies in our 
area.  Your mileage may vary.

During the years I was growng up, tractors in our area were 30% IH, 30% JD, 
with the other 40% divided between Case, Oliver, AC, and Ford.  There were 
a few Minneapolis-Molines.  Each of these makes was represented within the 
county by their own dealer.  We are now down to 2 dealers: one Case-IH and 
one JD.  Since IH became Case-IH, our county has become 90% green 
tractors.  The IH dealer survives because Case combines are very popular 
and  98% of the green tractors in this county are pulling red plows.  Our 
family is third generation red tractors, although in the last 25 years we 
can afford nothing close to new.  The thing that has always amazed me is 
why the JD people are always so forgiving of John Deere's screw-ups. but if 
IH made a mistake they would hound them for life.  A few examples are:
	If IH came out with a corn planter that required you to dump baby powder 
in with every batch of seed, they would have been
	laughed out of existence.
	Yet 95% of the planters in our area (which are JD) all carry a big can of 
talc powder and think it's just great.

	All of the older IH tractors from the 806 through the 1466 series had dual 
PTO shafts, one 540 rpm and the other 1000 rpm.
	John Deeres of the same era (4320s, etc., including my brother's 4230) to 
go from one PTO to the other, you must back the
	tractor up a slight incline (so you don't lose oil) and remove an 
aggravating snap-ring from each PTO, pull the one out of the 	transmission, 
pull the one that is stored in the upper part of the PTO assembly, and then 
reinstall them in opposite places.
	This must be done every time you use an implement with a different PTO speed.

	Another example is (I may be wrong here, but I think it was this series) 
the 40-series JD tractors the engines would blow
	early in their life and were replaced with a 50-series engine.  Many times 
at an auction in our area, they will advertise a
	40-series tractor with a 50-series engine like it's something to be proud 
of.
	By the same token, when a 460 or 560 IH comes up at auction, you would 
hear people talking, "You don't want one of them.
	They all had bad transmissions, "  even though the problems they had (I 
believe they were bearing related) had been solved 	years earlier and 
retrofitted into the problem tractors.

I have fixed and driven both, and don't see that much difference. However 
among the green people	there seems to be one he$$ of a loyalty.  Just some 
random thoughts.

Greg Hass