W9 vs W6

[Glenn F.]

While Im not a Red guy I certainly have a lot of respect for them. I have always been intrigued by the W series tractors. Just this week somewhere on YT someone said the W9 was just not the tractor the W6 or W4 were due to design flaws. Could I get some expert comment on this?

Thank you,
Glenn F.

 

[rustred]

Who said that ? Just curious what they were referring to. Never heard of any design flaws.

 

[Janicholson]

As Rustred indicates, the differences between the W4 and W6, and the W9 are certainly factors in choosing one over the others. in my opinion, The size differences, and the farmer they were directed toward were different. The W9 is a prairie tillage tractor. The W6 is also intended for tillage, but on smaller scales, maybe 150 to 250 acres. The W4 is more mid-contenent 100 acres, single tractor situation. The W9 is easy to handle in open spaces and not a handy go to yard machine at all.
The W series seating and operator comfort are not ideal to my 6'1 frame. The clutch needed to handle the power is a difficult push almost straight forward on all three. Both the W4 and W6 (to a lesser degree) are trailerable. The W9 is much heavier, requiring a substantial trailer to move it over distances greater than driving it. But all are pretty equal in reliability. I have not mentioned the WD6, or WD9 as they have no little brother in the H size category. Jim

 

[rustred]

Will add also the w9 went through a lot of fuel and it had a 30 gallon tank for a 50 h p tractor. I think thats what scared most people away from them. And also the bull pinion brgs used to go on them. I have all 3 models and really like them. I pull my w9 in the antique pulls and it does very good. To me it seams to pull better than the diesel model. They are a tough old tractor. But the w6 was the most common around here and was pretty hard to beat for the job it did. I do remember doing a valve job on them was just the normal thing to do. I re-rinded dads w6 when I was 15 years old. And the uncle had a 44 Massey special I replaced the sleeves and pistons when I was 17. Still have it here.

 

[Red Mercury]

W-series tractors were pretty common on the Canadian prairies. My experience with the W-6 is it was the hardest steering tractor of the three. W-9's weren't a lot better but installing the larger 4-spoke 20 inch steering wheel helped. The W-9's used a lot of gasoline in a day so most people sold/traded them for something more efficient before they celebrated many birthdays. I have some WD-9's which are much more efficient. It is well known that the WD-6's & WD-9's would crack cylinder heads and this has been deemed to be a design flaw that never really got corrected--my personal opinion is that many cracked heads can be attributed to operator error or poor maintenance. W-9/WD-9 tractors were also known to a lesser degree for bull pinion bearing failures, especially when used for plowing, I think on the furrow wheel but don't quote me on that. I only ever had one fail on my Super WD-9 pulling a 5-14 IH #70 plow. In all fairness, that tractor had nearly 12,000 hours on it at the time and I don't believe it ever had the transmission oil changed--very foolish on my part. I change the transmission oil in my old tractors now. They will never run long hours again, so the transmission oil change ends up being a one time only event.

The W-6 in my opinion is a bit of an odd size--big enough to be heavy and awkward, not really big enough to work a lot of ground so they are not too popular. Somewhat common to see loaders installed on a W-6. I have a couple of W-4's as well--smaller and a little more nimble so I used one of them on a IH semi-mount sickle mower.

 

[caterpillar guy]

I thought the MD and the WD6 used the same engine in the diesel models. Or maybe it was the WD9 instead. I know the I&T book listed specs for both models in the engine and trans sections. Our book was bought to work on the MD.

 

[Charlie M]

Only new tractor my dad ever bought was a final year production of a gas standard W9 when he started farming in the early 50's. Being in central NY state not many were around. There were more W4's and some W6's. He farmed for years with only the W9 and a Farmall H so the W9 did a lot of jobs not met for a big tractor like running a mowing machine and a hay baler. Dad did all the field work with it pulling 3-16's for plows and a 10' disk. The tractor was great for belt work being used on a belt driven silo blower. He never had a mechanical problem with the tractor. Around 1965 dad decided to go to all diesel tractors to save fuel cost so the W9 got traded for a Cockshutt 50 diesel. Besides the fuel economy of a diesel, diesel fuel in the 60's was about 9 cents per gallon compared to about 20 cents for gas. The W9 was the first tractor I ever drove and I was about 9 years old at the time. I drove it on the hay baler while dad stacked the wagon. He had to get the tractor moving and stopped and all I did was try to steer. We managed to pick up most of the hay. I was about 12 when dad got rid of it and I was finally big enough to run the tractor alone for field work. Definitely was not like running a Farmall of about any size. I wish I had one in my collection but probably never will.

 

[DanielW]

Interesting to read the comments by Rustred and Red Mercury about which W's are in their area: I always found the regional variation in IH and Farmalls to be unusual, and more varied than you see with other makes. In some areas it seems there are almost no W series, because the Farmall M's, H's etc were more popular. Around here you see almost no M's, but a huge pile of W6's and Super W6's (about matched in numbers my the Massey equivalents: the 44 and 44 Special). Head five hours East of here and there are tons of W4's and M's, but no W6's.

I always thought it odd the W6 was so popular around here, when the M was pretty much the same tractor with a better layout. On the W6 you sit as though you're about to give birth. The W4 was only slightly better. It's been too long since I was on a 9 to know if it was better/worse, but the owner of the WD9 I drove at the time mentioned the same bull/pinion and cracked head problems noted by others.

 

[redforlife]

The H and W4 basically had the same gasoline engine. Likewise, the M and W6 did as well. The W9 had a bigger engine yet, and had no brother in the Farmall line up.

I'm guessing the MD and WD6 basically had the same diesel engine as well. I haven't been around those two, but stands to reason thier diesel counter parts would of been the same since they were on the gas side.

With the W9 being a bird of its own with no size duplicated in a row crop version, the WD9 engine would of been a bird of its own too. No likeness in the Farmall department.

 

[DR. EVIL]

The diesel versions of the WD9 & WD6 were not real popular around where I grew up, only ONE MD in fact, but probably close to 100 Farmall M's. I never saw a W4, W6, but the neighbor across the road bought a W9 to ease the workload on his 560 gas raising 320 acres of corn every year. The 560 was dependable as a Timex watch, just feed it gas and go! But the lack of timeliness reduced his corn yields so the W9 was added and it pulled anything the 560 pulled, 4-14 trailing plow, 13-14 ft disk. His only other tractors were a Farmall Cub he mowed his lawn with, a stock 8N Ford which was worthless on row crops, and a second 8N with a FUNK conversion to an in-line 6cyl OHV Ford truck engine. It still struggled doing things we did with our 1939 H.
I went to a Red Power Round-Up at Edgerton, Wis. in about 1990, a guy was running around on a freshly repainted W4 painted IH 483 Yellow, it looked like a slightly overgrown Cub Cadet.
The start on Gas, Run on diesel engines with three valves per cylinder did require a patient operator to idle the engine before shutting it off to prevent head cracking, actually great advice for ANY engine, gas or diesel, car. Truck, tractor or lawn mower. The 5 main bearing crankshaft in the 4 cylinder Diesels were virtually unbreakable. The 3 main bearing crankshaft in H's is a lifetime part, life of the tractor or the owner. The M gas is similar, I've only ever seen ONE broken, was the neighbor's M, had been overhauled and a machine shop milled 1/8th of an inch off the head, neighbor was pulling 3-14's right across the creek from our farm one day, my old Boss was waiting to take his Son, our neighbor to lunch, and just like you pulled the plug out of the outlet on a radio it got quickly totally silent! I've heard via the internet of ONE other broken crank in an M. The salesman who sold Dad his Deere R diesel December of 1963 told Dad to NEVER lug it down, run it in a gear it can always run top governed speed in, 1100 rpm, which meant I pulled 3-14's in 3rd gear, about 4 mph, broken crankshaft scraps the entire tractor, keep in mind, any Farmall M pulls 3-14's 5 mph. We had 16 acres left to plow when the R disappeared, I used the Super M-TA to pull the Deere 4-14 plow the R was supposed to pull. TOWNSHIP road Commissioner bought it to drag roads and rototill scarified oiled dirt roads, the rototiller tore the pto drive train out of that R 3 times in 3 years. Any good Farmall M could have run it. The Commissioneer traded the R for an Oliver 770 diesel that I was still running 10 years later!

 

[rustred]

and also,... the 560's driveline was copied right from the w6 . kinda shows the w6 was a good model there. the 9 series which evolved into the 600,650 models then was replaced by the 660. nothing to do with the 9 series in the 660 as they built it off the 560. so more proof the w6 was one heck of a tractor.

 

[BarnyardEngineering]

I don't know if it was so much that the W6/Farmall M was such a great tractor, than the waning demand for "Standard Tread" style tractors as the old "I don't like change" guard of the time was passing on their farms to the young generation home from WWII and Korea.

Carrying over the drivetrain from the 450 to the 560 was a strategic decision on the part of IH. They either needed the extra time to develop the 06 series, or they thought the 06 series was ahead of its time, and would bomb for being too different.

Bolting planetary hubs on to a 560, cranking the engine RPMs up 33%, and calling it a 660 was a stopgap measure. They needed something to put against the JD 820 and 830 or risk losing that segment entirely.

Of course you'll probably read that I'm saying the W6/Farmall M was NOT a good tractor. If you really read, I say nothing of the sort, but I can't stop you from thinking what you're going to think, so... carry on!

 

[Charlie M]

I personally think the W series and there successors were over all good tractors for what they were built to do. That style was becoming obsolete and for most farmers the Farmall style could do the same thing
and was a lot easier to operate. People talk about cracked heads on the diesels but I think other companies had the same problem in the time frame. We had a cracked head on our 350 diesel and that was a
continental diesel, not IH.

 

[rustred]

case D, massey 44, minnie U, oliver 88, were the W6 competition tractors of the time. i have run them all. and if i had to run the W6 all
day long no way would i complain. i cant get over u guys saying how clumsy they are. plus around here the country was full of them old 15-30
mccormicks , that opened up this country from out grand parents. my dad broke 1/4 section of land with one which he said took all summer.
thats the old one bottom breaking plow i am referring to.

 

[Leroy]

But not in Ohio and Indiana. I am 79 and never saw a W4, W6 or W9 in farming at eny time. The 9 was too big of a tractor and the 4 and 6 were not used because the H And M were better suited in this area. I have only seen W4 and possibly W6 at shows and don't think I ever even saw a W9.

 

[Roger in Iowa]

WR9 had a hand clutch. Much easier to operate than a foot clutch. Still have dad's that I grew up with.

 

[NY 986]

All you mentioned are good tractors but once you run an 88 it will impress you.

 

[NY 986]

I don't think IH was playing 4D chess when it went through the progression of the letter series tractors up to the 60 series. All the companies back then tried to milk a design down to the last penny and IH was no different. The 06 series engines existed in other parts of the company before being applied to the 06 tractors. Everything else was more or less crash program engineering in response to JD, Oliver, and Case. IH tried growing the company sort of like what GM did with multiple divisions but cash flow wound up being sapped so R & D lagged behind the competition.