The Farmall 400: the best-kept secret of the Farmall line

May 04, 2017

The tractor is a fantastic value in the 40 to 50 horsepower class

IN THE SHOP with Rachel

By Rachel Gingell
Farms.com

Here’s the secret: the Farmall 400 is nothing more than a Super M-TA with fancier tin. The Farmall M is one of my all-time favorite tractors and the Super version of the Farmall M is even more powerful. The torque amplifier adds another layer of power, making the Super M-TA one of the more sought-after tractors in its class. This popularity is for good reason!

In 1954, International Harvester decided to rebrand their product line, switching from letter designations to numbers. I understand their desire for a name change – after adding “Super” and “-TA” to the model designation, they really couldn’t do much more to indicate new features. The entire product line was given new designations and the Super M-TA resurfaced as the 400.

In every important area, the Farmall 400 is the same as the Super M-TA. The tractors share the incredibly reliable and easy to maintain 4.3L 4 cylinder engine, offered in gasoline, diesel and LP gas. The Farmall 400 came with optional power steering. There’s no three-point hitch offered from the factory but many tractors come with the two-point IH Fast Hitch.

More than 40,000 of these tractors were produced over three years at the Rock Island, Illinois factory. This number may seem low until you remember that the 400 shares almost all parts with the Super M (50,000+ produced) and many parts with the M (270,000+ produced). The laws of supply and demand are on your side!

This tractor is a great buy. It’s as much as US$4,000 less expensive than the Super M-TA. As long as you don’t have a nostalgic connection to the letter designation on the hood, buy the 400. You get all the same benefits as the Super M-TA with a much lower price tag.

Video: Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way

Harvest is a week out and the farm picked this week to fall apart. The truck needs a battery, the barn curtain's got a problem, and the corn and beans are telling us we're out of time to get it all fixed.

So it's a full day of wrenching. Tork supervises while I get the truck back running, then we're out at the hog barn where one rusted up part has the whole curtain system hung up. Ladder work, cable work, and a little dad-and-son disagreement about the right way to do it. We close it out walking the fields, shelling beans and checking corn, because whether everything's fixed or not, harvest starts when harvest starts.

Chapters: 00:00 Everything breaks the week before harvest 01:00 Tork supervises while I fix the truck 12:30 Out to the barn to find the curtain problem 14:30 One rusty part hung up the whole curtain 20:00 Running the curtain cable from the ladder 24:00 Walking the beans and corn before harvest 26:30 Wrapping up

We're a 6th generation family farm in southeast Iowa showing the real ups and downs of pig farming and row crop farming. No script, just the work. Subscribe and follow along.

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