[AT] more HP guaranteed!/now front end on the ground.

[Greg Hass]

No quite the same topic, but close. Back when they were new, my uncle 
bought a brand new AC D-17 along with a 3 bottom mounted plow and a 
loader. I'm assuming he used the traction control although I was quite 
young at the time. He and my dad were quite close so we saw a lot of 
him. I remember him complaining that when plowing, every couple of 
rounds he would have to drain oil from the rear housing and put it back 
in the transmission. After a couple of days he decided to take it to the 
dealer. The next day he asked me and my dad to come see what the dealer 
was doing. They had the tractor blocked up and were tearing the whole 
transmission apart. I remember the mechanics saying a couple of bolts 
didn't want to come out so they twisted them off. After making a mess of 
the tractor, they had no idea what was wrong. Then my uncle remembered 
that a mechanic who had worked for the previous dealer 10 years earlier 
now worked for the IH dealer. He went and talked to him and he said he 
had never worked on a D series tractor but if it was anything like the 
WD-45 there was a hose in the rear housing that lifted the plow and it 
would sometimes split and allow oil from the front to spray into the 
rear every time the plow lifted.  It turned out that was the problem and 
was a one hour fix. It took them a week to get the tractor together 
again and my uncle took it home. Well, they must have put something 
together wrong because in half a day, it took out almost every bearing 
in the transmission. This happened in May and my uncle didn't get the 
tractor back until October. He never trusted the tractor after that, 
kept saying he heard funny noises in the transmission, but he had it for 
about 10 years more before getting rid of it. He never did go back to 
that dealer although a couple years after selling the first tractor he 
did, in a private deal, buy another D-17; I'm pretty sure it was a 
series IV. That tractor I spent many hours driving and it was a 
powerful, peppy tractor.
               Greg Hass