Gas Tractors

Was there any tractors manufactured that required higher octane-premium fuel back in the day?


Next question - who manufactured the last gasoline powered farm tractors and when was the last year they were produced?

(quoted from post at 07:14:52 12/05/14) Was there any tractors manufactured that required higher octane-premium fuel back in the day?


Next question - who manufactured the last gasoline powered farm tractors and when was the last year they were produced?

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Many of the late 60's and 70's tractors required higher octane.
The IH high compression 6 cylinders come to mind and I am sure there were many other brands also.

They still make gasoline powered tractors today.

I think all MFGers stopped makeing (larger) gas tractors in the early 70s. I 've been told JD stopped gas in 72 or 73. However,I'm sure someone will come up with a gas 4230;966 or something bigger and newer........

Last gas tractors I could find were Massey's in '84 and, like you said, looks like JD had several until '73. Also found 175 Allis until '76 and a 284G IH in '84. Last Case I found was a 970 in '73.

(quoted from post at 15:42:14 12/05/14)

(quoted from post at 07:14:52 12/05/14) Was there any tractors manufactured that required higher octane-premium fuel back in the day?


Next question - who manufactured the last gasoline powered farm tractors and when was the last year they were produced?

Click to expand...

Many of the late 60's and 70's tractors required higher octane.
The IH high compression 6 cylinders come to mind and I am sure there were many other brands also.

They still make gasoline powered tractors today.

Click to expand...

ho makes a gas powered tractor today?We are NOT talking about lawnmowers.

We were told in one of my Ag Engineering classes that Oliver built a straight 9 cylnder engine that required premium gasoline. The professor said that it was the smoothest running engine that he ever heard. I don't remember if he said what year that was.

Oliver only built a couple of those and decided that the public would not accept a 9-cylinder in-line engine that required premium fuel so they scrapped the whole idea - and presumably the test tractors as well.

Anyone else know the details?

Imagine putting gas into that thing at todays prices.

Memory flash: Now that I think about that, I seem to remember that the Oliver was an in-line 8-cylinder that required premium gas.

It was Pontiac that developed a 9-cylinder in-line engine that never made it to the marketplace. The managers thought that the public would not accept a 9-cylinder engine.

Well Back in the day No they did not require the top shelf stuff as the lowest grade gas back in the 60's till the low lead fuels were put on the shelf was around 93 at the lowest and BACK in the DAY that stuff would make and old pick up ping . Now back in the fifty's as to what the octane was AT THE pump i am not sure as i was not driving back then all i can say about the mid fifty's is that my 56 Ford rag top with a 292 T/Bird special needed Ethel and she would plum scream when she wet down. Also back then i know that the 1957 B 60 Mack with the big Thermodine needed high test along with every other gas burning semi out there . I can tell ya that i use to get my gas for my old Ford at a little fuel stop for the trucks on the west side of the little village i lived in and the 105 octane gas was 16.9 cents a gallon In 64 i built a 390 Ford for my 61 Ford rag top and i ran 13.5 pistons in it and had to run no less the Sunoco 250 but most times it was the 260 or on the weekends it was one click past the 260 . Now as for when the last gas tractors were built was around 1975 . I can tell you this for a fact that if you try and WORK and i mean work a gas tractor today it is wise to run the good stuff if you want to call it good . (1) the new cylinder kits you buy today are NOT the same as when they were new , the pistons are NOT forged . They are cast they can not take the heat of lower grades of gas , they can not dissipate the heat like a Forged piston can to the skirts and to the cylinder walls . I know for a fact that the 87 octane burns way hotter then the 93 . and i know for a fact that sometimes ya don't get what you pay for at the pump. as case in point here as we have one of our 706 gassers down once again with a melted wiped out piston . This happened this summer where we were doing hay at a farm about 8 miles from home . 28 acres of hay on some of the nastiest ground you will ever want to put a tractor on . the 706 will mow with a 12 19 john Deere haybine rake it twice and still have enough fuel to make it back home on one tank of fuel-gas what ever , as long as nobody BORROWS some for there pleasure . Well even though the tractor was parked way back over the hill away from the road someone drove across the hill and helped themselfs to some free gas. My buddy went to rake and while checking the tractor over discovered that it was almost empty . Like i said we were 8 miles one way from the tank at the farm and only a mile from a local gas station . he said there was a couple three inches of gas left so he drove it down to the station and filled it with there HIGHTEST and he raked the twenty eight acres . When he was done he dropped the rake and hooked back on the haybine and headed to the next farm to mow , it is a little better but still hilly with one hill a little on the steep side and the hay was heavy . In heavy hay the haybine will even work the 806 and warm it up with pulling the hills . Well on the second round he was pulling a hill and he ate a piston out of it . seams that there 93 was only 89 . I will catch a lot of flack on this but i have been building engines a lot longer then most of you have been around i can look at pieces and part out of a failed engine and know what and why it failed . My buddy and i even went as far as to have gasoline tested at a lab to see what was brought to us and the lab chemist told me more about gas then i ever even thought about . He is the one that told me that the 87 burns fast and super hot for emission , There is a huge difference between a car - pick up engine verses a tractor and Med , heavy duty truck engine . A car - pick up engine is not working under full load at full power all the time and if it does it is for a brief moment , a med duty truck engine is working harder for longer and it may be the same cu. in. as what is in a car of pick up it sure is not the same as what they are . a working gas tractor gets really HOT , like when your plowing , yea i know who plows with a gas tractor today well here i am not sure as we stopped plowing with the gas tractors around 94 . But the 355 New Holland feed grinder grinding ear corn will make the High PRo glow on the manifold and muffler at night on the 706 also the haybine will put a glow to it and put a little red on the muffler . The fuel min. req. for your tractor engine is in the owners manual . I know for the I H line that for the tractors like the 460 -560 the higher reving 4 cylinder 89 is min. for the ones that came out after it was upped to 93 . This year i have had enough fuel related problems that i am sick of it . Like i told the last guy with his grain truck it will never DO WHAT IT USE TO and trying to find parts are a night mare . Parts prices are outrageous . But back to the gas thing myself i have gotten to the point that i really don't care what you want to run in YOUR tractors i will just wory about what i need to as for the most part most of you just play with your old tractors and don't have to worry about grinding feed or maken over four hundred acres of hay getting the corn planted so that ya can feed the cows . and do it with basically old junk. What i try and keep running is 4 S/MTA's (2) 400 gasser a Wd 45 (3) 706 gassers (2) 64 806's (1) 966 (2) 1066's (2) H's a 1850 oliver gas ,a 1950 son to be Cunnins repower a 1855 cummins repower a 2150 Cummins repower a 2255 one J D A one J D B , one J D 720 D and 6 skid steers and a hand full of trucks of OLD vintage that are nothing more then a pain in the drain. and the fuels of today are not the fuels of days gone by . A feww days ago one of my friends posted and add of a long gone car dealer and the add was for a new 69 Road Runner and his add stated he would sell you a brand new 69 Road Chicken for 2500 and some bucks and it came with a lot of shell we say goodies for the lets go play at the local track or back road . Today you would NOT run that car on the best PUMP gas of today as they were a 10.5 to one engine , yes i know my Road Chickens as that is what i was doing back then Wrenchen on them and i was thru each and every training session that was offered by Chrysler i was Certified on all MoPar high performance engines and knew all the tricks to make them go better then they came off the show room floor . We did a lot of fuel testing on who's gas did what . worked hand in hand with the factory and one Factory rep , there were only four of us at four different dealerships in our district . Got a offer to take over a Ford Drag club program and a lot more of the driving force (money ) . There i got to do things that was FUN getting to BUILD engines and get to run them on the dyno's and just see how far ya could take them before you made spare pieces and part. World of difference between and engine running 1550 -2350 Rpm for hours at a time and engine running 6 grand for maybe 14 seconds or 10 grand for 8 seconds , think about it 10 grand a MIN. for only 8 seconds , how many turns did the crank make , how many times did the pistons go up and down ?? Then ya come to a tractor engine that is working for what eight ten twelve hours running for all it is worth at lets just say 2100 Rpm .

I had a WC Allis Chalmers with 4.125 LP pistons that should have had ethyl gasoline but I burned regular and it would turn the muffler red at 1700 RPM. Finally threw the governor weights through the timing gear two times and went back to conventional pistons and governor spring.

Know what you mean about today's gas.Went to start the 45 LAI to warm up so I could add some more anti-freeze to it. Gas is about 60 days old , the engine won't fire. I believe it is the gas has gone bad. Going to change gas and hopefully fix the problem.

Well from what i have been told by our fuel suppler is that for him to get us 93 it has to be laced with Al ki hol as the best coming in the pipe line is 90 and so what evaporates faster gas or AL KI HOl . So what are you left with ?? Also he told me that this gas only has a shelf life of around 90 to 100 days . No Av gas has a year but you won't like the price and it is a little over the top for what we need . as we don't need 100LL . So what we do need is to get rid of the gassers and go with diesels . Need to move the diesels that we do have now back to chore tractors and get much larger tillage tractors and bigger tillage equipment . Our old stuff is getting plum wore out and needing major rebuild and to find better in the size we can handle with the power we have no the cost is twice what stuff in the 21-24 foot range is . and i feel that if we went BIGGER size wise we would be saving time and money . We have maxed out our horse curve and we are NOT able to get what we have to the ground with out a lot of wheel slippage even with direct axle mount duals and weight , we do NOT have the table top FLAT fields and the 1066 with loaded tires and 18.4x38 radial duels will paw on the hills . We went from 16 foot silage wagons to 18 footer and let me tell ya ya don't want to fill them to the roof and except a 706 or 806 to bring them in out of the field in some of the fields as you will make it to the end of the field going west but ya ain't coming back to the east with a full load it just ain't going to happen . The 806 weights in at over 13500 and a full wagon will let you get almost to the top when you spin out and guess what you are NOT going to hold it and wait for someone to come and throw a chain on you and help you get over the top as you will set there for oh maybe two seconds and down the hill backwards ya go . so you get the bright idea that oh i will just go out the back road as it is almost flat and go down to the side road and down it to the state highway and UP the farm lane on gravel , ah yea wright half way up the drive and you will spin out and back down ya go and you will not get her stopped till you setting across the main road . Almost a major crash with a empty lowboy and the marks of locked up tires are still there . The 1066 has enough trouble and it weighs in at over 18500 with out the duals . We use to chop with a two row and smaller wagons , now we are running and old junk 5400 deere with four row and 18 foot rear unload wagons that can weigh in at over thirty grand . The old case of the tail wagging the dog.

Depends on who you ask on the octane. Few people read their manual and learn the difference between Research Octane Number (RON) and Motor Octane Number (MON) and the R+M/2 that is used at most pumps in the US today.

You'll see some someone screw up the timing or a carb setting then try to blame the fuel.

We've never had a engine "melt down" due to low octane and thats with over 20K hours put on a single 656 equipped with a 263 engine and God knows how many hours put on various other gas IH engines.

Well one thing i know is the I H gassers and i know how to time and fuel them along with doing the dist. as i am still one of them old farts that know how to rebuild and curve a dist. and have the machine to do them on and have been doing them for fifty two years . And yes i know about fuel i have even had fuel-gas tested at a lab in Columbus Ohio and i can tell you this it is not cheap to do this . But for now Deer hunting is more important then fuel -gas what ever .

Stay tuned.

The federales are attacking the off road diesel market as they have the light truck diesel market.

Manufacturers are reacting by continuing to refine gasoline engine technology, thereby narrowing the efficiency difference between gasoline and diesel engines in industrial applications.

I will not be surprised to see the remergence of gasoline engines in industrial applications in the foreseeable future.

Dean

Was that the Oliver XO-121 from the mid-1950's?

Probably the Oliver 1800. It holds the record for fuel economy out of all the gasoline tractors tested at Nebraska Tests. Test # 766 done in 1960 with 92 octane gasoline. Oliver was making some of the highest compression ratio gas tractors. That 1800 beat many diesels with fuel economy. Made 73.9 horsepower with a 13.1 horsepower-hours per gallon rating. That beats many diesels including Deere 2010, 3020, Ford 1910, 1900, 6000, IH Hyrdo 70, Farmall 656 Hydro, Massey Ferguson MF205, MF210-4, MF220, Allis Chalmers D19, D15, and many Oliver diesels e.g. 1755, 995, 1550, etc.

I notice a huge difference between 1959 and 1960's Oliver 265 cu in gas engines. 1959 880 shows 57.43 pto hp whereas in 1960 the 1800 4wd shows 86.98 and the 1800 tricycles/wheatlands show 73.92. Typo or engine design changed?

God help us all. Meanwhile the EPA cracks down on people pushing trees into ditches.

http://www.justice.gov/usao/ks/PressReleases/2013/Nov2013/Nov13d.html


Read the Rodney Heinan charges. The "flowing streams" are a couple of ditches that flow if you get 2 or more inches of rain. What he is relly being charged with is telling the Army Corp of Engineers to go pound sand when they tried to enter his property.

Had an 1800 back in the day. It pulled a semi-mount 5 bottom plow that was used on every field that was farmed. Used regular gas in it. Starting out with a full tank when plowing it would run out of gas in 5 hrs, think the tank held 30 gallons. It may have been under pretty good load since she was running in 3rd gear most of the time and we did not believe in plowing shallow. Every once in a while went to 3 under in the tough spots. That tractor never gave a a bit of mechanical trouble and as far as we know that carb had never been changed from factory settings. At the time it seemed to be gulping quite the gas but at 0.30- .35 / gallon it did not matter much. At today's prices might be different. The 1800 series was probably one of the best tractors made in its time. It was our last heavy tillage tractor that had a gas engine.

I have the original owners/ operator manual for my ih 300 utility delivery date Nov 27 1955. It says gasoline of at least 75 octane and up

Beating a Deere 2010 at just about anything .is like a teenager competing in track and field against their grandmother.
The JD two cylinders did better on the fuel efficiency when the trim screw for the main jets was only turned out about a turn instead of maxed at 5 turns . Apparently during some of the Nebraska tests the screw was dialed out for max power at the expense of economy .

Both engines were 265 cubic inches BUT many changes in the 1800 engine. Also the first 1800 with FWA was in 1962 with that horsepower and was a 283 cubic inch engine.

The 686 International still had a gasoline option in 1977, 78 and maybe 1979.

The Oliver that is mentioned is an in line six. It was called X O 121. That stood for : EXP. Oliver, 12 to 1 compression ratio. The tractor is in the Floyd County Iowa Museum , IIRR. It was an experiment between Oliver & The Eythel Corp. It was designed to run on very high octain gas. clint

A fella east of town did have a gas 4230. He bought it new. Was one of the first Gen 2's in the area. Don't know where it's at now. Very rare tractor.

(quoted from post at 07:10:05 12/06/14) The Oliver that is mentioned is an in line six. It was called X O 121. That stood for : EXP. Oliver, 12 to 1 compression ratio. The tractor is in the Floyd County Iowa Museum , IIRR. It was an experiment between Oliver & The Eythel Corp. It was designed to run on very high octain gas. clint

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It was a 4 cylinder engine. Chuck

Probably really rare. There has been a couple of guys with no clue about what they have and didn't care less when told on this and another site. They were wanting to know how to bolt a combine engine into a gas 4230. More than one has asked about bolting a combine diesel into a side console 4020LP with power shift.

Back on the subject of the Oliver 1800. It holds the record for being the most efficient gas tractor ever tested at the Nebraska Test Institute. They did it with high compression which is the key to the high efficiency and often avoided in farm tractor engines. Oliver did it with the 1800 by using 8.5 to 1 compression ratio, while most other tractors were running 6 to 1, or 7 to 1.

Oliver did a lot of research with high compression gas engines and that XO-121 had 12 to 1 compression. Never made production though and was built from a diesel engine block as I recall.

The 1800 DID make production and I think it's the highest compression ratio ever used in a farm tractor. Nebraska Test Institute used 92 octane gas during the tests - I assume to keep piston detonation down.

I tried putting high-altitude pistons in a John Deere 2020 and running it at 1000 feet- in an attempt to copy what Oliver did. It did NOT work. It had horrible detonation even with high-test gas and could not be worked hard.

To Mr. Buick/Deere. You can argue the bad aspects of overall tractor design with the 1010/2010 series. The engines were not all that bad though. There's nothing that's "higher tech" in Deere gas engines later on that made the combustion chambers more efficient. E.g. the 1020, 2020, 3020, or 4020 gassers.

In fact, the 1010/2010 engines had several "firsts" for Deere and the tractor industry. Positive-seal teflon valve-stem seals. Diesels were the first to use Stanadyne rotary fuel-injection pumps, etc. Also the first Deere full-size engines to use a wet-sleeve system.

In regard to you maybe thinking the 2-cylinder tractors would of been more efficient if the main jets had been trimmed down? Guess you could say the same for any gas tractor tested.

The fact remains that Oliver somehow built an engine that could be worked hard even with a high compression ratio. There is not a John Deere two-cylinder gas tractor that even comes close. Deere 520 comes the closest at 11.46 horsepower-hours-per-gallon. John Deere 2010 beats that with 11.79 horsepower-hours-per-gallon. Oliver 1800 beats them all with 13.1 horsepower-hours-per-gallon.

This site has an interesting article about 1950's experimental tractors that includes a picture, a short description of the Oliver XO-121 and the resulting Oliver 1800 gas tractor:

Left hand column/ Research & Info / Articles/ History (6th item down)/ Experimental Tractors (5th item from the bottom)/ 1954 Oliver XO-121 (4th item down).

Here is a picture of the XO-121 engine. VChuck