Re: Why did the Fast-Hitch fail?

[qwk69buick]

This message is a reply to an archived post by Fritz Maurer on June 20, 2011 at 18:35:39.
The original subject was "Why did the FastHitch fail?".

Like all of us my opinion, but Ferguson was the market for almost 20 years, with David Brown, then Ford. Being first has it's perks, as many of you have pointed out it wasn't perfect, but it did work, yes you did have to get off the tractor, but other than your top link you didn't have to adjust anything else. I think part of the reason the other manufacturers developed their own hitches was the fact Harry Ferguson was a very litigious man, end of the handshake agreement. And they didn't want to have to deal with him because everything had to be his way even if there was a better way. And as many have pointed out everyone made their own, if the manmanufacturers could have gotten out of their own way and made a standard hitch that didn't belong to Harry and used all their engineering talents combined that would more than likely be only system in use today. But they didn't and it really made little sense to tie a farmer down to one manufacturers tractor and implements for life. A mower is a mower, a plow is a plow, it is much more attractive to the average farmer to be able to use all his implements on all his tractors no matter the color. I grew up with Massey Ferguson, like most they happened to be our local dealer. We had a 25, 50, 65, 135, 255, 275, and a 9n don't know where we got it, but wouldn't you know they all hooked up to the same implements. Just one person's take, but any medium or large tractor today all use a Ferguson style 3pt, so everyone else as a member put so eloquently put it was playing second fiddle in a one man band.

 

[VicS]

It always takes a while. Take combine heads today, or loader buckets. Hyd couplers just standerized. What about truck wheel bolt patterns. We love to make things different.

 

[Ron Muhlenkamp]

Fast Hitch did not allow Draft Control

 

[notjustair]

It's a real downer to not be able to buy a different tractor because every lift implement only fits one brand. That's a lot of money wasted if you are fed up and want a different make of machine.

 

[Dick2]

Most people had an aversion to go to court back in those days. Nowadays most people seem to be sue happy. It is more difficult and expensive now to protect a patent because of the high cost of litigation. Small companies find it too costly to protect their patents so the large companies feel free to infringe on the patents - it's a common occurrence.

 

[Janicholson]

3 failures: Lack of willingness to share the design, Failure to develop operational draft control (certainly possible, as it is just geometry and force control) and last is the failure to make every implement stand on its own when disconnected. (that would have been the ""killer App"") Jim

 

[DeltaRed]

Back in the '50s,JohnDeere approached IH about liscenceing the fast hitch for JD tractors.IH told them "no way".So JD went with their second choice.Ferguson's 3point.The rest is history......

 

[Brendon-KS]

. . . or pitch control without involving a second hydraulic valve and cylinder. That is my biggest gripe about the Fast Hitch on my Farmall 350 - I have no way of precisely leveling my bale fork like I could if it was on a three-point. I also had to look hard to find a Fast Hitch disk that had the pitch adjustment built into it since there is no adjustment on the tractor.

The three-point also allows more vertical lifting of the implement since the projected pivot point is up towards the front end of the tractor. With the Fast Hitch the pivot is a fixed point under the rear axle and the pitch of the implement changes more as it swings through the arc.

 

[ss55]

Wasn't there a huge lawsuit in the mid-1950's involving Massey-Harris-Ferguson? Was the 3 point hitch part of that lawsuit?

 

[NY 986]

I don't know about failure so much as the runaway success of the Ferguson 3 pt hitch. While IH had a large piece of the farm tractor market during the time of the N, TO, and TE tractors those Ferguson system tractors combined had a huge piece of the market and more often than not they turned up on many farms as a secondary tractor which gave exposure to owners of the the 3 pt system that did not have it otherwise. And at the same time not every tractor that rolled out of the Farmall plant did come with fast hitch. Looking around where I live I would say the fast hitch equipped tractors are out numbered by the other non-fast hitch IH tractors 5 to 3. 3 pt jumped out ahead and stayed there influencing owners of JD's, Oliver's, MM's, Case, and MH's to want that system which had the advantage of more or less lifting and lowering an implement parallel to the ground. My 2 cents.

 

[Mike Aylward]

Never heard that, but if it is true Deere got the last laugh. In the early 60's there was talk of standardizing a "quick attach" hitch system. IH wanted their Fast Hitch to be the standard. Deere had invented the quiok hitch for the 3-point system. The quick hitch won and it wasn't long before the Fast Hitch drifted into oblivion. Mike

 

[2 Old 2 care]

Nonsense.... Didn't happen. Sounds like the typical Binder faithful excuse/bash Deere kinda comment.

Patents are now expired. If the fast hitch was as wonderful as some people try (unsuccessfully) to portray it, the design would find it's way back into the market.

 

[billfromwisconsin]

according to guy fay delta red is correct. ih thought its way was the best and did not want to share, that attitude caused more than one problem for ih. I hate to say that jd quick hitch went nowhere that I have ever heard, the 3 point was based on fergusons. I think the patent ran out about that time. one reason the 3 point won was there was every conceivable implement already made with the 3point for fords. actually cases eagleclaw was a good hitch, and ist style is still used today. if ih would of agreed with the jd deal, the fast hitch would be the standard

 

[dmbinva]

(quoted from post at 18:20:27 05/09/15) according to guy fay delta red is correct. ih thought its way was the best and did not want to share, that attitude caused more than one problem for ih. I hate to say that jd quick hitch went nowhere that I have ever heard, the 3 point was based on fergusons. I think the patent ran out about that time. one reason the 3 point won was there was every conceivable implement already made with the 3point for fords. actually cases eagleclaw was a good hitch, and ist style is still used today. if ih would of agreed with the jd deal, the fast hitch would be the standard

I think I can sum it up, NOTHING plows like a Ford or Ferguson 2 bottom plow, and most likely never will.

 

[tractorguy2]

I think everyone is going to have there own idea as to what happened. No one is right and no one is wrong.Debating over why the 3pt won over the other designs is like asking, Why did diesel tractors win over LP gas tractors? Lp was a much cleaner burning fuel.

I haven't heard till reading this topic that John Deere invented the quick hitch. If they did the first ones must have only fit JD equipment.

Back in the 70's neighbors would want to barrow our new six row cultivator. We had an IH 706 with a 3pt and an Oliver 1855. (never did own a tractor with a quick hitch) Any time the neighbors tractor was a John Deere. They would have to remove the quick hitch because the hitch didn't match the cultivator. It was a real struggle for two people to remove the heavy quick hitch from the neighbors John Deere.Then try to help them put the QH back on when they returned out cultivator.

The fast hitch was a good design other than having to switch from 2pt to the drawbar. IH offered the fast hitch up into the 66 series. It couldn't been all that bad if IH made it that many years.

The fast hitch had the same problem as the Allis snap coupler. You couldn't mix equipment brands. You had to stay all IH or all AC.it was kinda hard to sell a snap coupler plow to an Oliver guy.No matter how big a hammer you get. It just won't fit! Same problem trying to sell a fast hitch plow to an Allis guy. I know two guys that ran IH tractor and Fast Hitch equipment. Both have told me they liked the Fast hitch over the 3pt equipment they bought later.

By the time the patent ran out on the Ferguson system. Ford all ready had it. Massey Harris Ferguson of course had it. So did Cockshutt/Olivers.

John Deere had a 3pt on the late model A's and the 60's. The weird top link would only connect to John Deere implements.

Later we traded the Oliver for a used JD 4430. Dad and Grandpa both would tell you the OLIVER had a better 3pt than the John Deere.

 

[FBH44]

Geting a Kohler carb rebuilt, I walked past my Coast-To_Coast shop worksho area. They have a rack of lawn-mower blades, all new and ready, and there were 5 shelves full, probably 15' long, must have been 5 x 15 x 2/ft. = 150 different mower blade designs. They tell me they just stock some of them, there might be many hundreds of different designs. Thgey told me some Cuub Cadet blades are 1/8" longer than some others, and nothing interchanges.

 

[Ultradog MN]

(quoted from post at 19:38:11 05/09/15) " is like asking, Why did diesel tractors win over LP gas tractors? Lp was a much cleaner burning fuel.

Diesel won out over LP for a couple of reasons. First, it was cheaper than LP or gas and has more btus per gallon to boot.
But mostly diesel won out because it is more reliable.
LP engines still need points, coils, ballast resisters and such and with all the fussing around they require it is not as reliable as a diesel.