Dad had a WD45 that I grew up on. My uncle had an M. For some reason, the M was at our house and Dad had me drive it back to my uncle's (I was about 14). I hated that tractor.

To me it was like going from am a modern car to a Model T.

The AC's had a much quicker governor and were much better on a flat belt than the Farmall. 

:) I am a retired engineer.  I find it hard to believe that any good engineer would not have similar criticisms to mine.  I'm being intentionally vague though.  Just curious as to what people like and dislike.  I kept looking at the H and M layout, controls, routing and thinking "really?"...

My late Father-in-law said the same thing; he grew up on a farm in southern Idaho where his Father owned a Farmall M, a Farmall H, and an Allis CA. He said the CA ran the ensilage blower better that the Farmall M, but the Farmall H had the best cultivator controls in the sugar beet fields. Of course the M walked away with the Tumblebug plow.

He brought a well-used WD with him when he moved the family up here to northern Idaho, and I ran it quite a bit; I learned to love that hand clutch!

None of them are as easy to do routine maintenance on as my 1941 John Deere Model A though   (Brakes, clutch, valve adjustment...)

You'd be better off comparing an H to a WC.  Outside of hydraulics, they were basically the same thing.  A CA was literally decades ahead in terms of engineering and design.

AaronSEIA

I do see them all at the auctions . All have issues from poor maintenance by the owner. 

This Farmall is a piece of crap. Yep ! It is ! Look at what the owner did to it, nothing 

I think the thread is more about the design than mechanical problems.

Yep, just on the very late Ms and newer (i.e. Super Ms) the clutch pressure plate is a little to big of diameter to fit out the bottom of the housing because they upsized the clutch. This still came in handy on my Super M because I needed to replace the input shaft seal and bearing. You're crouched under the tractor which isn't fun, but you can get the pressure plate, throwout carrier, and clutch all loose, cocked sort of sideways, and get the input shaft out to replace the bearing and seal. Definitely easier than splitting the whole tractor.

I think the CA would be better compared to a Super C, 200, and 230. They were made roughly the same years as the CA and were similar size. Those Farmall tractors could have true live hydraulics driven directly off the engine so that is a plus over the CA. However if you can keep the hand clutch on the CA in working condition, it does give you a form of live PTO and live hydraulics.

I do like the quick release hood latches on the Farmalls, compared to threaded fasteners on the AC hoods. The bigger rear tires on the Farmalls give you better traction in field work but do cost more to replace. No spinout rims on the Farmalls - pro and con as the spinouts do cost more, but if you need them for cultivating different row spacings, they're handy.

Mounted implements are a plus on the ACs. It's easier to find Snap Coupler attachments, I think. They are out there for the Farmall Super C etc. but don't seem to be as easy to find. Governors are also snappier on the ACs as another poster mentioned above.

Dad likes the larger diameter wheels on the H, but I think you can mostly compensate with wider wheels and proper ballast.  Greater ground contact can be achieved either way.  I put wider spinouts and wider tires on the CA and plan to add liquid ballast and "properly" distributed weights.  I'm not quite sure what I'll be using it for beyond mowing yet though, but it'll be ready at least :)

I like to watch some of the youtube pulling videos but am sometimes dismayed at some trying to use very narrow tires on their Bs and Cs and CAs.  They usually end up losing traction long before they run out of torque.

Running out of traction before horsepower is the reality of tractive effort physics... and tire diameter, in agricultural tractive effort, is a key element far greater than tire width, because the CHORD ANGLE at which the tire engages the soil determines when the TE slip curve starts it's rapid climb.  This is all illustrated in the empirical evidence study done by Wismer and Luth in their 1973 paper publication:

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Off-Road-Traction-Prediction-for-Wheeled-Vehicles-Wismer-Luth/3398768f304f5ac0c6bb0c8e2f43356d89973a6f" rel="nofollow - https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Off-Road-Traction-Prediction-for-Wheeled-Vehicles-Wismer-Luth/3398768f304f5ac0c6bb0c8e2f43356d89973a6f

Adding ballast is another key factor, but realize that when engaging in a tractor pull, it is not the TRACTOR, or the TIRES, or the ENGINE that determines who wins or looses, it's the RULES that make the determination. If the rules predicate using stock tire size, and a green or red or yellow tractor used a larger diameter tire than an orange, then the natural advantage at any given weight, will favor the larger diameter, REGARDLESS of the width.

But that's not really the context of this thread.

The point to remember when comparing tractors, especially comparing BRANDS, is that manufacturing tractors wasn't about building the 'best' tractor, it was SELLING THE MOST tractors, and it wasn't about having 'ALL THE BEST' features, it was about having features that YOU controlled the PATENTS on.

The Allis Power Director was a very serious patent feature, it was a reckoning force of competition to the IH Torque Amplifier... because of HOW it worked, and it's competitor could, and could not do. 

Now, in the realm of comfort, there weren't many tractors prior to the late '50's that had what we would nowdays regard to as 'good human engineering'... and part of it was simply the agricultural normals of the era.  Row cropping used to be very mechanical-cultivation-intensive... they'd plant in check-rows so that weeds could be cultivated out from several angles, several times a season, and as such, a good view, offset from centerline, was a big feature in tractors.  Power steering really didn't exist, but if you were rolling through rows, it wasn't massively necessary...

How each company addressed things like this... was highly restricted by PATENTS.

Now comparing IH to Allis in terms of business,   International Harvester's primary focus was the manuacture of machinery for the agricultural industry.  Their greatest asset, was their ability to reach out to markets worldwide, and to manufacture both domestically, and overseas.

The primary focus of Allis-Chalmers, was the manufacture of industrial and utility power equipment.  Farm tractors were a 'surplus product', in the shadow of massive generators, electrical transformers, steam turbines, etc.  Their greatest asset, was their foundry and industrial engineering capacity... it enabled them to pour huge components, and then use the excess material to effectively make large quantities of other parts, including engine blocks, transmission housings, etc., at a very low cost.  They were masters of Economies of Scale.

All this being said, comparing two TRACTORS isn't a 'which is better?' type situation... it is more a 'which is better for what circumstance, and why'.  In making up a side-by-side comparison/contrast chart, one will find that both have significant strengths and weaknesses, both have design elements and operational features.  In investigating the strengths, weaknesses, design elements and operational features, then looking at what was PATENTED, and by WHOM, you'll get a really good idea of why everything is as it is.

I guess my biggest complaint about the M was I didn't feel safe driving it. With the WD45, that I learned to drive on, the fenders (especially the right side) made a pretty safe environment. On the M, I felt like I could easily fall under the fender.

The hand clutch setup was a great help for a kid learning to drive a tractor. I can remember starting and stopping with the hand clutch when I practically had to leave the seat to reach the foot clutch.

This is just my opinion, but I think the extra base tractor weight and larger diameter tires of the SM/400/450 let a lot of IH farmers (or anyone with a heavier tractor) be lazy about proper plow setup. I think you're alluding to that by stating properly adjusted plow, sharp shares, extra weight, etc. for the WD-45 in your case. The M was no longer in production when the WD-45 came out, and don't forget AC was still trying to compete with the WD-45 by the time IH had already released the 450, although the D-17 wasn't far away.

I'd wager either a good IH dealer with a Super M or a good AC dealer with a WD-45 could set up their tractor to outdo the competitor's tractor that had just had a plow hooked up to it with little optimization, or one that was getting a little worn and out of adjustment. An average setup 450 might even outdo your best setup WD-45, towards the end of WD-45 production.

My answer was to get a WD-45 AND a Super M! Both have their place.

I'll plow with my 560 and 3-16" FH all day before I hook the WD to the SC plows. The WD does the garden because it's smaller and handier not because it does a better job.

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Both IH and AC were trying hard to skirt around Ferguson patents for the three point hitch and top link draft system. Both were compromises.

Which one won out? Ferguson. It's on everything modern. Sure there is a quick attach from skid steers put on them.

While we had a WD it was mostly relegated to sickle bar mowing and the chopper and round baler that was used until the novelty wore off.

The Ferguson we had did everything. We had Oliver and IH six cylinder for heavier work. Refurbished, the Ferguson is my current workhorse. My WD is for fun. My Seventeen year old doesn't like driving the WD.

I think all the tractors were fairly crude until the 1960s. After that all the equipment became a bankers game of financing equipment, land, and inputs driving out most small family farms.

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  It seems as this post is comparing apples to bongo drums, With the 2 different tractors being designed in totally different eras. In the late 30s the Allis Chalmers WC & UC tractors are more of a comparison to the first (1939) of Farmall's H & M Tractors. Even so,  Allis Chalmers had the idea of "high-Speed" farming whereas Farmall was just a modernized version (for the time) of brute force to get the job done. This basic design was carried into the 350/450 tractors with running improvements. Even the design of the 460/560 in 1958 was only a somewhat minor design change for Farmall.  The Allis WD came out in 1948 and the CA was introduced in 1950, these 2 tractors had many firsts that had never been seen on a farm tractor. 

  At this point in time most all of the implements used were primarily drag or trailer type, with the main exception of row crop cultivators. Anyone that has used both the H&M cultivators along with the WC cultivators would agree you could install/remove the Allis Chalmers units easier that the Farmall ones. 

CrestonM wrote: My big gripe against any of the W series is the afterthought of an operator's "platform". I don't like sitting off to one side with my right knee getting whacked by the hand clutch and my left leg needing to be 6" longer than the right leg to reach the clutch. If they would've placed the operator in the middle with an actual platform like a Farmall, I think they would have a much better tractor. This is the only reason I don't own a WD45. Aside from that, I think they are outstanding machines.

Creston, a flip-over seat bracket goes a long way toward solving some of your W problem.

The traction booster flat out works! Maybe a year from now I'll have an experienced opinion of the early IH draft control system. Maybe the later style, think 56 series too. I did plow a couple acres of sod with my 756 once. I was having so much trouble that day I can't remember how draft control worked. That Oliver plow hooked on the 185 worked great.

I will say this, I go to a lot of plow days and the Red tractors/plows that go, they work.

Just because the Ferguson design won out doesnt mean it's a great system.  I prefer the snap coupler design, but I'm sure we could design something better than either.

Also, with regard to wheel diameter.  You'll note that I did say "partially" compensate with tire width and weight (and tire pressure and other things).   Of course, you can also make these adjustments to the larger diameter tire.  But you can increase the competitiveness of a smaller diameter tire relative to a specific larger diameter tire with width and weight, and significantly so.  I'll also note that the increase in tire size/diameter also reduces the effective horsepower/torque available at the ground without gearing changes.  Even the increase in wheel weight can have an impact to reduce horsepower/torque.  As little as 1 inch in diameter increase can have a significant reduction impact.  So...there are a lot of factors to consider.

I also don't think you necessarily want to build maximum bulk into the tractor frame.  You want a lighter tractor for some operations (e.g. cultivating) and a heavier tractor for other operations.  The ability to add and remove external weights is the best solution to right sizing a tractor to task.

Edit:  I do think the routing of the CA (B/C) steering arm is substandard/antiquated.  I've never liked that arrangement.  I would probably have also designed the CA to more easily add a reinforcement frame similar to the IB frame (but less kludgy).

Don't judge me for saying that: I still love my Allis's more than other makes (though the Fordson Major and Ford 5000 might be up there with the Allis's). But knowing what I do now, if I were buying a new tractor in 1955 it would depend on the type of use I was putting it to. If I were using it primarily haying or doing other lighter field work on flat land, I would go with the Allis without hesitation: Far more pleasurable to drive and well thought out. But for beating about in the bush running log winches/wagons and smashing over the stony fields up in the Canadian shield at our Northern farm, I'd have to begrudgingly take the IH.