Case IH 585 vs Ford NH 4630

[strum456]

I am considering between these two tried and tested work horses. Does anyone have any pros and cons for either tractor? I am mainly looking for a 4x4 with a loader.

[whodat526]

i would go with the ford 4630 simple and cheap to work on i have worked on both models of tractors and said i would never work on a case ih, unless its a 1066. but the 4630 have been some good tractors over the years

[RickB]

Basildon engine, mechanical brakes and the Cararro front axle found on the Ford MFD are better and less costly (respectively) to repair than the Neuss engine, hydraulic brakes and ZF axle on the 585 MFD. The Ford has a larger and more durable dry clutch as well.

[art]

There are some early versions of the 585 that you might want to beware of for the front axle. As far as the engines the 585 has a far superior engine as it doesn't have the casting issues that many ford and nh engines have and they say it is cavatation, in the machine shop we worked in boring them out because of the anti freeze leaking into the base. We just called it a poor casting!!! Even seen it on gas engines, just a poor casting. As far as the rest of the chassis on the 585 it was used up to 85 PTO horsepower so it has a lot of reserve.

[RickB]

There are some early versions of the 585 that you might want to beware of for the front axle. As far as the engines the 585 has a far superior engine as it doesn't have the casting issues that many ford and nh engines have and they say it is cavatation, in the machine shop we worked in boring them out because of the anti freeze leaking into the base. We just called it a poor casting!!! Even seen it on gas engines, just a poor casting. As far as the rest of the chassis on the 585 it was used up to 85 PTO horsepower so it has a lot of reserve.

4630 blocks have reinforced webbing and rarely go porous as earlier versions were prone to. Art doesn't talk about his IH clutches or brakes. The service and parking brake systems in IH/CaseIH Doncaster built utilities are unreliable and problematic. The clutches were underdesigned and short lived under hard use.

[slowzuki]

The IH main brakes on the 585 are great, the parking brake, well, its gone within the first year. I've not seen any problems with clutches, the one in the 584 on our neighbours farm did 4000 hours on the first one doing loader work. The shifter is a weak point on the newer 585's, the ball falls out and the shift forks get out of sync on very high houred tractors that used the shuttle a lot.

Really both are great tractors, if they are in good shape I would take either one. If looking at factory cabs, the later 4630 had a nicer cab than the IH in my opinion.

[strum456]

Wow! I am new to this forum, but not new to farming. I am surprised and impressed at the abundance of good information you have on these two machines! I am a Ford NH guy anyway, so I was leaning that way to begin with.

I recently learned about the cavitation problems these Ford engines are known for. What are your thoughts on this? Is it really that common? Is there anything to look for when inspecting a tractor?

[slowzuki]

The cavitation problem was/is pretty common. Seems people who kept up on their coolant maintenance had less problems than others. I'm not a ford guy so I can't help too much.

[Soundguy]

just add the coolant sca/dca addative and yuo don't need to worry about the cavitation issues..

soundguy

[art]

4630 blocks have reinforced webbing and rarely go porous as earlier versions were prone to. Art doesn't talk about his IH clutches or brakes. The service and parking brake systems in IH/CaseIH Doncaster built utilities are unreliable and problematic. The clutches were underdesigned and short lived under hard use.

The emergency brake is an issue when it isn't disengaged when moving the tractor. The fact that it is a transmission brake it is easy to over power with the engine in lower gears for someone that is not used to the tractor.

The clutch has not been a problem other then from people who ride it. Even with this tractor group being considered the first manual shuttle shift do to the lay out of the controls the clutches have not been an issue for the ones we have sold and have thousands of hours of use with out clutch problems.