Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire International hydro 70

Anyone have anything of interest to say about one? I recently purchased one at a retirement auction. Plan on doing some haying with it.

Change the fluids and filters.

Burns quite a bit of fuel compared to a gear driven tractor. Approximately 65% more fuel per hour than a gear driven International of similar horse power and capability.

Restore it.

Wow, it's a rare piece of equipment that makes you the most money when it is parked!

Can't beat a Hydro for haying. Any mobile pto work really.

Pretty awesome to be able to control throttle and speed
infinitely and independently.

That...


That - and back then IH had some real issues with that trans getting really hot and have had many fail.. They didn't make 'em very long - about four years.. A couple farmers had hydros around here but gave up on 'em early; traded for gears..

Great haying type tractors , not so good heavy draft work.

Thanks for the comments 👍

Farmer I worked for had a 100.
Great for pto stuff like you say.

Pretty much every time It got pressed into ground engagement work,
It broke down.

Yep, we have had a Hydro 70 for about five years. Only had trouble once.

Not long after we bought it, I was pulling a two bottom eighteen inch plow in very hard ground. The tractor started puking HyTran all over the place. We parked it for a few weeks while we tried to figure out what had happened and were prepared for a very expensive tranny rebuild.

But, it turned out, there is a port right on top of the transmission for checking fluid pressure. It is basically a tire valve stem with a schrader valve. I had blown out the valve core.

About ten gallons of new oil, and a new schrader valve core, it was good to go.

A little study has shown the Hydro tranny is susceptible to water damage. IH HyTran oil is suggested as it has superior properties for handling any water contamination.

And I have been told, it is important to keep engine RPM fairly high. Close to or at RPM recommended for PTO work.

This one burns five gallons of gasoline an hour, whether I am plowing, baling, or doing loader work. I imagine a diesel would be more fuel efficient.

A neighboring farmer had a 656 Hydro. It was commented once that it was the only Hydro any one had ever seen run on its original tranny for over thirty years. But I don't think the guy had ever actually pulled more than a thirty HP load with it.

We used to trade farm work with another local farmer who bought a 966 Hydro new. They worked the heck out of it pulling a three bottom eighteen inch plow and a big tandem disc. They had to rebuild the tranny every six or eight years.

There is nothing better than a Hydro for pulling a baler, or chopper, loader work, or a rotovator. But I much prefer the solid gears in the JD 4020 for doing ground work.