Argonne
Gold Member
- Joined
- May 21, 2005
- Messages
- 279
- Location
- Paris, TX
- Tractor
- JD2210, Ford 4400, Case IH 685, Terramite T7, JD 6x4 M-Gator
I have a Case/IH 685. Nice tractor. About my only complaints with it are that the operator position is a tight squeeze for guys as big and tall as I am, and the seat suspension preload adjustment is just insanely difficult to adjust. If my wife gets off of it, and I get on, I am in for 10 minutes of hard labor cranking that stupid 1 1/2 knob on the back of the seat. It has developed that the Case is my tractor and the Ford is hers, just to avoid adjusting that seat.
Last summer I started working on a nearby horse ranch, and he had a brand spanking new Case/Farmall 60A to do most of the field work with. To my dismay, I found that it has exactly the same seat adjustment knob that my 30 year old 685 has. Oh well, deal with it, at least I'm getting paid for the time I spend adjusting the seat.
Before today, I was merely annoyed with the engineers at Case regarding their seat design. After today....well check this out.
I was mounting a large grader blade on the 60A 3-point. Since the seat switch prevents the tractor from running when the seat is unoccupied, and since this isn't my tractor and would be unacceptable for me to jump out the switch, I had my wife sit in the seat so she could start it up and fine tune the lift and tractor position while I was back with the blade putting the pins in.
I tell her, "hey, jump in the tractor and start it up willya, I need help with this." She climbs up and cranks the engine, and, nothing, cranks but wont start. I say, "let me try it". She gets down, I get up, and it starts for me. I shut it down, she climbs up, and it won't start. Two more cycles like this!
Yes, it's true. The morons at Case put the seat sensor between the suspension and the tractor, instead of between the seat and the suspension. If the operator is not heavy enough to compress the suspension at it's current setting, the engine will not start. So I had to do the requisite 10 minutes of hard labor with the forever be damned Case seat suspension knob just so my 100lb wife could start the engine and help with the 3-pt, and then I had to do another 10 minutes of hard labor to set the seat back before bouncing around in a field for 4 hours.
While I'm "critiquing" the 60A, the dipstick goes in a bare hole in the block which is nearly impossible to locate if you have a loader on the machine, and anything but a blind luck bulleye with the stick will carry dirt into the engine every time you check the oil. Adding oil requires either a ladder at the front of the tractor or an end-loader to climb. Once up there you need to lay on the engine to reach the filler. Opening the hood wide does not give access to the filler from the sides.
Last summer I started working on a nearby horse ranch, and he had a brand spanking new Case/Farmall 60A to do most of the field work with. To my dismay, I found that it has exactly the same seat adjustment knob that my 30 year old 685 has. Oh well, deal with it, at least I'm getting paid for the time I spend adjusting the seat.
Before today, I was merely annoyed with the engineers at Case regarding their seat design. After today....well check this out.
I was mounting a large grader blade on the 60A 3-point. Since the seat switch prevents the tractor from running when the seat is unoccupied, and since this isn't my tractor and would be unacceptable for me to jump out the switch, I had my wife sit in the seat so she could start it up and fine tune the lift and tractor position while I was back with the blade putting the pins in.
I tell her, "hey, jump in the tractor and start it up willya, I need help with this." She climbs up and cranks the engine, and, nothing, cranks but wont start. I say, "let me try it". She gets down, I get up, and it starts for me. I shut it down, she climbs up, and it won't start. Two more cycles like this!
Yes, it's true. The morons at Case put the seat sensor between the suspension and the tractor, instead of between the seat and the suspension. If the operator is not heavy enough to compress the suspension at it's current setting, the engine will not start. So I had to do the requisite 10 minutes of hard labor with the forever be damned Case seat suspension knob just so my 100lb wife could start the engine and help with the 3-pt, and then I had to do another 10 minutes of hard labor to set the seat back before bouncing around in a field for 4 hours.
While I'm "critiquing" the 60A, the dipstick goes in a bare hole in the block which is nearly impossible to locate if you have a loader on the machine, and anything but a blind luck bulleye with the stick will carry dirt into the engine every time you check the oil. Adding oil requires either a ladder at the front of the tractor or an end-loader to climb. Once up there you need to lay on the engine to reach the filler. Opening the hood wide does not give access to the filler from the sides.
