[Farmall] IH approved tools

[jtchall at nc.rr.com]

Yesterday I was digging through some of the literature dad acquired when he retired, the dealership actually closed at the same time so the owner was cleaning house. I came across a stack of brochures on IH approved tools for their dealerships. IH had “approved” everything you could imagine. Anything from clothes lockers to honing machines. I know the dealer he worked for had some of this stuff. The literature recommended a lot of tools made by Sioux, I remember quite a bit of stuff there made by them. There was a huge list of various pullers recommended. I bought all the 2 jaw pullers when they auctioned things off, they are made by OTC, can’t remember if that was a recommended brand or not. I found  a brochure on floor jacks and hydraulic press. I can’t remember what brand floor jacks they had, but the press was a Dake, didn’t see a brochure on it.  I didn’t see any of the electrical test/rebuild equipment in the brochures, but they had an Allen test station for magnetos and generators as well as an Allen armature growler. I don’t remember what brand the armature lathe was. (We did acquire the large Allen test station at auction so we could check magnetos). I don’t remember what brand chain hoists they used but there was a brochure with all sorts of those in it, some big enough to lift small construction equipment.  IH recommended a Sunnen honing machine, can’t recall which brand of valve grinder was on the list. All of this was in addition to the special tools designed by IH for splitting tractors or handling bulky parts.

When I look back, the dealer dad worked for had a very well stocked shop. Supposedly a lot of the stuff for the truck division disappeared when that dept. was closed up (that was before my time).  When you coupled that with the farm shop, add in the Cadet and small construction lines, this place must have been a showpiece, (the building was IH designed as well, complete with the pylon for the logo and solid glass front).


I got to wondering why IH would go to so much trouble to locate generic equipment. I finally decided that a lot (maybe most) of dealerships were basically in the middle of nowhere. You couldn’t exactly go up the street to an industrial supply store and get what you needed. Such was not the case in our area. Within 3-4 miles there were a couple industrial supply businesses, several machine shops, at least 3 automotive machine shops, and a host of other industrial related businesses (belt, bearing, welding suppliers, tire stores etc.) That same area today only has a couple automotive machine shops left (and the scope of their work has dwindled) and a couple non-chain type auto parts stores. If you were setting up a dealership out in the country with no other business around except a grain elevator, you couldn’t afford to waste you time sourcing equipment instead of running a business. IH also supplied a letter giving the nearest approved vendor for most of the tools they recommended. Coincidentally, it was in the same town where parts and (I think) some equipment was distributed from (Charlotte, NC for this particular dealer).

Happy New Year
John Hall