HST vs shuttle

[marchanna]

That seems a little pricey to me. Just for comparison, I was looking at a '78 IH 844-S with FEL, 4x4, cab, and blower, and the seller was asking that much in CAD. I'm sure I could have got him down to 8k easy enough. That's about $6,300USD.

 

[LouNY]

How does $10k for a 1974 hydro with 6000 hours and a recent engine rebuild sound?
TractorHouse.com | 1974 INTERNATIONAL 7 HYDRO For Sale

Aaron Z

They are a nice tractor, that was the replacement for the 656 Hydro ours had about that when the hydro started giving up the ghost, my brother babies it along for awhile bought a replacement "rebuilt" hydro unit for it, I don't recall who he had install it but it was never right, that was a gasser, the engine was still running good bought a gear 656 with a bad engine stuck ours instill using the gear 656.
But $10,000 they are dreaming, she's worth maybe 8 after running it for 5-6 hours and making sure it still pulls good.

 

[LouNY]

Oh Lou come on now....definately not upset.....I have a straight geared, shuttle shift, and HST......but anyway.....have you ever seen a gear driven skid steer loader on a construction site anywhere? I see Bobcat T190 Tracked Hydro Skid Steers with thousands upon thousands of hours on them doing very very hard tasks. Construction worker beat the living daylights out of their euipment. I owned one and worked it pretty hard myself.

Is it going to last as long....no....but will anyone on here ever ever ever wear one out.....absolutely not!

There are a lot of old skid steers parked because a drive motor went out, on top of that they do get repaired quite often.
If you think construction is rough on them, go look at one from a dairy.

 

[Skip77]

Sorry I haven’t been on in a while. With the holidays I have been pretty busy. I really appreciate everyone’s input on the matter and I’m still researching the HST to get a better idea on its life expectancy and cost of maintenance. So far I have found that maintenance will cost more and there is still the debate about life expectancy. I’m still reading and hearing from people about the HST getting weak and wearing our sooner than a gear tractor will. I will continue my research and would like to find some older HST tractors and see how they are holding up. Again thank you for taking the time to give me your experience with both types of tractors.

 

[Phillip w]

Dad has a John Deere 4100 with a hydrostatic drive and he has had good luck with his. I have a mf 1531 and the hydrostatic drive on it maybe best thing on the tractor. The hydrostatic drive has held up extremely well. The rest of the Tractor is a real joke. Hydrostatic drive is extremely convenient in tight areas and jobs that requite alot of forward and reverse action like digging with the loader. You can power one out like say you were digging and had enough weight that the tractor tires won't spin. The hydrostatic drive will kind of "howl" and then you better get off the peddle in a hurry. I also have an old allis Chalmers that is gear driven. It can seem unhandy after running the hydrostatic drive. I trust that old allis Chalmers way more if I got to pull something. I've pulled stuff with that old allis that left me scratch my head. Plow, disc, 4 wheel drive pick-ups stuck in the mud. A once I pulled out a 402p John Deere tractor with a baler that was all hung up in the mud. I maybe old school, bit for pulling, I like gears. Now if you got say 5 acres and want a tractor to brush hog maybe plow and till a garden, some snow removal and general work, I would say go with the hydrostatic drive.

 

[rScotty]

Sorry I haven稚 been on in a while. With the holidays I have been pretty busy. I really appreciate everyone痴 input on the matter and I知 still researching the HST to get a better idea on its life expectancy and cost of maintenance. So far I have found that maintenance will cost more and there is still the debate about life expectancy. I知 still reading and hearing from people about the HST getting weak and wearing our sooner than a gear tractor will. I will continue my research and would like to find some older HST tractors and see how they are holding up. Again thank you for taking the time to give me your experience with both types of tractors.

It may not be as simple as gear vs HST. You may find a difference in build quality....and that means initial expense. Most of us seem to be agreeing that in any tractor a geared transmission should last the life of the tractor without doing repairs or anything special for the life of the machine. For sure if I was looking at the less expensive machines I'd lean toward a manual gear box.

But from the manufacturer's viewpoint, building a HST transmission has got to be more expensive. It's expensive to design and during production the tolerances are much closer so that the whole HST costs more to make. Then if they add in a multi-range feature to the HST, that's essentially a spare gear box they've just tacked onto the cost. High end machines can price in the convenience of a good HST easier than low end machines. It may be that that at the high end of the machinery market you'll find expensive tractors and commercial machines coming with HST trannys that will last longer than you will. It might turn out to be quality of design rather than type of design that is making the difference. It couldn't hurt to think about adding that to your research as you look into geared vs HST.

And don't ignore the middle ground - the power shift and glide shift machines. There are good compromises there as well. It's worth thinking about....
luck,
rScotty

 

[tman1020]

Well as long as you are comparing don’t forget gear drive tractors are not without their problems as well. Clutches don’t last forever and are very expensive to replace on a tractor. Almost to the point that if you can’t do it yourself an older tractor may not be worth repairing if you have to pay to have it done. Also I have seen more than one utility tractor with a destroyed gear transmission.

 

[CincyFlyer]

Well as long as you are comparing don’t forget gear drive tractors are not without their problems as well. Clutches don’t last forever and are very expensive to replace on a tractor. Almost to the point that if you can’t do it yourself an older tractor may not be worth repairing if you have to pay to have it done. Also I have seen more than one utility tractor with a destroyed gear transmission.

I'm of the belief that if you cannot repair your own airplane, car, motorcycle, or tractor, or live with someone who can, you should probably own none of them. Replacing a clutch on an auto or motorcycle or tractor is actually an easy job, one that I'm sure every vehicle owner who can change their oil and spark plugs could do, if time is not of the essence. And it's not likely to happen for a decade or more, for the small plot owner, unless they have bad tractoring habits.
Also, you get more tractor per dollar with a shuttle tractor.

 

[npalen]

This talk of hydrostats reminds of back in the late 1960's working at a machine tool builder in Hutchinson, KS. There was a Cessna plant there at the time that primarily built hydraulic pumps, cylinders and motors. They bought a license, IIRC, from a German company by the name of Algear (sp?) to build hydrostatic drives which were virtually unheard of in the U.S. Even zero turn mowers had mechanical variable speed.
I believe there were production problems involved with the high degree of accuracy required in building a hydrostat and I don't think the Algear project ever got off the ground.
With that said, the CNC machine tools of today are so much more efficient and the production processes highly refined to where hydrostats can be produced relatively economically.

 

[teg]

Sorry I haven't been on in a while....

If this tractor is for your personal use, how many hours do you see putting on it? I would guess even if this is for commercial use, unless driven 8 hours a day, day in and day out. You would still be hard pressed to wear down a HST tractor in a lifetime... unless you are 30 years young...

At the end of a long day driving a tractor, I would be wore out shifting gears. Today, with my HST, I can still drive and work all day and not feel it. Forget about any other arguments... :2cents: