All about the IH Farmall 400 Gas Start Diesel

[@markschwab7829]

You also need to put your lever back to diesel setting so those valves cool down slowly and don’t warp happened to me.

[@JonathanS78]

@@markschwab7829 yeah. I realized after I made this video that I forgot to mention that.

[@65f100352]

Love the video! Got a question.... my best friend in high school was a farm kid. One day we went out to the barn and he hopped on this tractor and he was explaining the same exact process to me. Brought back a lot of memories! My question is, I remember that tractor being a super MTA gas diesel? Or did they make one? Maybe my memory is faulty. Either way, that sure brought back a lot of memories! Great times and hard work!

[@JonathanS78]

There is what they call a Super MD-TA. It’s the gas start diesel version of a Super M-TA. That’s probably what he had. These gas start diesel engines were used in a lot more tractors than just the 400s. They even used them in bulldozers for quite a while.

[@65f100352]

@JonathanS78 cool. Okay. I haven't thought about that for many many years! Brought back a lot of memories. Thanks for the reply!!

[@JonathanS78]

@@65f100352 Yeah. Thanks for the comment.

[@jefffirefighter12106]

You have to wonder why they didn't use a starting engine like (Caterpillar/John Deere) used? Alot better system, using a starting engine. Too many moving parts in the IH system to keep in order. I've seen rebuild videos on the IH system, very complicated, they suggest you shut off the tractor on the gas system? Diesel runs on (Heat/Compression) I wouldn't want to put gas in a hot system like that on a hot motor, cracking pistons.

[@JonathanS78]

I thought this was an interesting question and so I did some research on it. Kinda interesting. I might do a short video about this. IH decided to not use a pony motor (starting engine as you called it) because they wanted it to be crank startable. The issue with pony motors is that you can’t crank start them. IH wanted something that could be reliably started in any conditions. As far as stopping on gas. It wasn’t as much of an issue with cracking pistons as cracking heads. You want to let it cool down on the diesel by letting it run at an idle for a while if you have been working it hard in the heat before you turn it off. Thanks for the comment and for watching the video.

[@jefffirefighter12106]

@@JonathanS78 Your right, I meant to say cracking of the heads.