Price Check Massey Harris 44

   / Massey Harris 44 #1  

Eagle10

New member
Joined
Mar 22, 2010
Messages
10
Location
West Olive, MI
Can any one tell me what year this Massey Harris 44 is? It is great shape and runs great!!. Has a rebuilt 4 cylinder continental OHV motor in it. Any other info on it would also be helpful. I searched Wikipedia and could not come up with the exact model or picture of it. Lots of Massey Harris info though. Can any one help?
Thanks.
 

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   / Massey Harris 44 #2  
Try tractordata.com. Very helpful site. We have Massey Harris 40 that is late 40's model. One of, if not the most, reliable tractors on the place.
 
   / Massey Harris 44 #3  
Looks nearly identical to the Massey Harris 33 I had a few years ago. It was a 1956 model. Very smooth and quiet running machine that had a top speed on the road of about 25mph. Very weird live PTO, though. To stop the tractor but not the PTO, you pulled and held back on a long lever with your right hand, similar to the hand clutch on the old 2 lung John Deeres. Before I finally remembered how it worked, I ran down a few fence posts with the front wheels while mowing.:confused2::confused3:...Dan.
 
   / Massey Harris 44 #5  
My dad had a 44 special as our "big tractor" when I was growing up. The special has different brakes and the hand clutch that allows the PTO to continue operating while forward (or backward) motion is stopped. Ours also had cast wheel centers. I would guess that the one in the pictures is an older model as I don't see the cast wheel centers, hand clutch, etc. I believe ours was a '52 model.

Those 44s are great machines. It was known to be easy on gas--I believe 4 gals/hour in heavy work. It dyno'ed at 52 hp in the late 70s as the special had a bigger motor. We used it to chop corn, pull a 4 bottom plow, bale hay until it was relegated to winter spreading manure in the late 80s and 90s. My brother would have take a load out with the heavy chains in the middle of winter across a plowed field, deep snow--it didn't matter. The spreader was so heavy that the front end would be bouncing up in the air as he drove, so he had to use the brakes to steer. He beat that tractor unmercifully for years, and never had any trouble as far as I know. It was tough and reliable. They simply don't make them like that any more.

Jim
 
   / Massey Harris 44 #6  
I used to bale hay with one of these when I was a young lad. The hand clutch was very handy when baling heavy alfalfa.
 
   / Massey Harris 44 #7  
My dad had a 44 special as our "big tractor" when I was growing up. The special has different brakes and the hand clutch that allows the PTO to continue operating while forward (or backward) motion is stopped. Ours also had cast wheel centers. I would guess that the one in the pictures is an older model as I don't see the cast wheel centers, hand clutch, etc. I believe ours was a '52 model.

Those 44s are great machines. It was known to be easy on gas--I believe 4 gals/hour in heavy work. It dyno'ed at 52 hp in the late 70s as the special had a bigger motor. We used it to chop corn, pull a 4 bottom plow, bale hay until it was relegated to winter spreading manure in the late 80s and 90s. My brother would have take a load out with the heavy chains in the middle of winter across a plowed field, deep snow--it didn't matter. The spreader was so heavy that the front end would be bouncing up in the air as he drove, so he had to use the brakes to steer. He beat that tractor unmercifully for years, and never had any trouble as far as I know. It was tough and reliable. They simply don't make them like that any more.

Jim

My dad also had one - actually still has it in the shed buried in the back somewhere - should break it out this summer and see if it still runs. Put a lot of hours on that tractor. I remember raking hay in a big field and between the hot weather and the short exhaust pipe, my rows were not always straight which was pointed out to me when the baling was done later that afternoon. Wake up quick when you hit a ground hog hole! Amazing what that tractor could pull. His has a wide front end, not the narrow type in the picture and if I recall correctly, it was a six volt system? Always hard to get batteries I seem to remember.
 
   / Massey Harris 44 #8  
Hi. I have a MH 44 Diesel High Arch that came from Nebraska. ( I live in the UK). My tractor has a plate on the frame under the battery box with the serial # on it. From this # you can find the year of build. If you let me know the # I can probably find out for you.
 
 
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