# hours ain't hours



## bool (Mar 14, 2016)

Hello folks,

In the spirit of the old Castrol ad (oils ain't oils) I suggest that, when it comes to tractor hours, hours ain't hours. I don't mean some hours involve harder work than other hours, that's obvious. I mean that hour meters on different models of tractor measure hours differently. I don't know this for sure, but I think it happens. The hour meter on my IH 444 reads "hours at 1400 RPM", which means that at rated speed of 2000 RPM each hour's work gives nearly an hour and a half on the hour meter. None of my other tractors have an indication marked on their hour meters. I have a feeling my JD 2130 and 720 read hours at rated speed. And I think the hour meter on my more modern NH TS100 is probably electronic because it seems to read hours when the enggine is running, no matter what speed. It has higher hours than the others but seems to be no more worn.

What do you reckon?

Roger


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Welcome to haytalk bool, hope all is well in your part of the world......

This is an interesting question and one I have never pondered.....I don't think any of the earlier tractors that I have owned had any type of compensation for rpm speed vs tractor hours. The hour meter either had voltage or not......didn't have 10v at 1200/ 11v at 1300 etc....so I'm not sure that any of them had the ability to compensate for RPM. But then again perhaps some ran the hour meter off of an output of the tach or some other type method. Seems way over complicated but I guess it's plausible....


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

Interesting. I never thought of this. I just have always thought of them as engine hours. Meaning if the engine is running the clock is ticking. Like on our MF hay swather there is engine hours and cutting head hours. When looking at used ones head hours is more important then engine hours. I think this is also why the larger pickup trucks have an hour meter on them. I don't know when they started putting that in. I just know in the oil/gas industry here in Colorado they idle the pickups a lot and I mean maybe sometimes all day. So what looks like sorta few miles is crazy high on hours.


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## 8350HiTech (Jul 26, 2013)

somedevildawg said:


> Welcome to haytalk bool, hope all is well in your part of the world......
> 
> This is an interesting question and one I have never pondered.....I don't think any of the earlier tractors that I have owned had any type of compensation for rpm speed vs tractor hours. The hour meter either had voltage or not......didn't have 10v at 1200/ 11v at 1300 etc....so I'm not sure that any of them had the ability to compensate for RPM. But then again perhaps some ran the hour meter off of an output of the tach or some other type method. Seems way over complicated but I guess it's plausible....


It's all in the tach and it was standard until electric tachs and hour meters came out. Some of those electric ones are so simple they read hours when the key is on.


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## SVFHAY (Dec 5, 2008)

You guys haven't spent much time talking to used tractor jockeys. " With these new e tach's 9000 hrs = the old 4000"


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

8350HiTech said:


> It's all in the tach and it was standard until electric tachs and hour meters came out. Some of those electric ones are so simple they read hours when the key is on.


yea I've heard of guys leavening the key on and accidentally racking up hrs.

Huge difference in hrs on a mechanical tach and a electric tach in the life of a tractor.My older tractors have hrs @ PTO speed.


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## Gearclash (Nov 25, 2010)

Yes, as a general rule the electric hour meters will add up hours faster than a mechanical meter. Depending on the duty of the machine it could be a lot faster. I've seen the difference as seasonally we switch between an older mechanical tach tractor and a newer electric meter tractor on the dairy's TMR mixer. I also saw an electric meter than ran up hours way too fast, maybe 3 hours for every clock hour.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

Gearclash said:


> I also saw an electric meter than ran up hours way too fast, maybe 3 hours for every clock hour.


My combine hr meter is a spinning,lol.Think it's going about 10 times as fast as it should.I only put about 100 hrs a yr on it so not a issue with me keeping track of the hrs for oil changes,etc.Just another case where the electronic crap sucks.


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## Wethay (Jul 17, 2015)

I have both a Deere and a IH with mechanical tachs. I believe the Deere is an hr at rated pto speed and the IH is 1400 RPM. I have seen a Gator that came to the dealership with 10 hrs have something like 75 after a long weekend. A new hr meter and 10 hrs of the key on made the customer happy.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Electric ones read an hour even if the key is just turned on.

Some of our Oliver tractors read right on the tachometer than an hour was XXXXX engine revolutions divided by xxx. So the faster it ran, the faster the hours added up.

I believe most of our mechanical tachs figure one hour is at the rated engine speed. The Cats would be at 2800 for a 3208, the 310 Waukeshas would be at 2400 and the even older Waukeshas would be at 1750 or even lower for the XX series and the Perkins in my Whites would be one hour at 2200 RPM.


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## Farmineer95 (Aug 11, 2014)

I had a conversation with my cousin about this recently. He runs an oliver on tmr mixer. I commented he might want to change oil at a shorter indicated interval since it does a lot of idling. You are correct in saying hours aren't hours but then my question is where do you draw the line. Thinking with a cable running off engine speed in the oliver's case maybe go 75 hours???


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## hog987 (Apr 5, 2011)

Things even vary between electric hour meters. My old new holland read an hour every 56 minutes. My kubota is bang on an hour per hour.


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## Gearclash (Nov 25, 2010)

Farmineer95 said:


> I had a conversation with my cousin about this recently. He runs an oliver on tmr mixer. I commented he might want to change oil at a shorter indicated interval since it does a lot of idling. You are correct in saying hours aren't hours but then my question is where do you draw the line. Thinking with a cable running off engine speed in the oliver's case maybe go 75 hours???


I wouldn't worry about it. I know of a TMR tractor with an electric meter that gets the oil change every 400 hours. Interval is supposed to be 250 hours. 20,000 + hours and not overhauled yet.


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## Orchard6 (Apr 30, 2014)

Gearclash said:


> I wouldn't worry about it. I know of a TMR tractor with an electric meter that gets the oil change every 400 hours. Interval is supposed to be 250 hours. 20,000 + hours and not overhauled yet.


Correct. And most operator manuals will take into account the type of hourmeter used (i.e. older tractors usually have an oil change interval of around 100 engine hours where as most newer ones are 200+ engine hours). At the minimum, change oil at the manuals stated time but if you do use a used oil anaylisis (highly recommended!) as part of your maintenance program you may be able to stretch oil changes well beyond what the book says if your oil reports say everything is good.

Edit: I wanted to include both posts but it'll only allow my to quote one. ????


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## hog987 (Apr 5, 2011)

Things even vary between electric hour meters. My old new holland read an hour every 56 minutes. My kubota is bang on an hour per hour.


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