IH 560 Repowered With Chevy 350

2002 - Volume #26, Issue #6, Page #06

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Dwight Lauer operates an auto repair shop and also does a little farming near Winterset, Iowa. When he decided he needed a better tractor for making hay, he found a 1959 IH 560 with a bad engine.
    "I figured it would be a good project for slow times and weekends in the repair shop," he says. Turns out, it was mostly weekends and it took a little longer than he had anticipated.
    The result, however, so impressed his cousin, Steve Lauer, that he contacted FARM SHOW to tell us about it.
    "Except for the engine, the tractor was in excellent condition," Dwight says. "The owner had run it out of oil and it froze up. But the tachometer read only about 2,600 hours. I had rebuilt an old 350 V-8 out of a Chevrolet pickup, so I decided to put that in the tractor."
    He modified the engine slightly to have more mid-range torque by replacing the cam with one designed for the engine when used in an RV. He also took a governor from an IH 915 combine and fitted that to the 350 engine to regulate the rpm's.
    He used the original 13-in. flywheel from the Chevy pickup, but made an adapter for it, so he could use the original clutch and pressure plate from the tractor. "That way, we didn't have to replace the tractor's transmission," he notes.
    Lauer says mounting the engine in the tractor was a bit tricky. "I used the original mounting plate from the 560, but it had to have new holes cut in it so I could center the 350 engine on it," he says. "I have a friend, Dean Murray, who's a good machinist. He redrilled the holes so we could center the engine on the plate and also made the adapter for the flywheel."
    While the 350 engine packs more power than the 560's original engine, it has a shorter block. "We shortened the frame and the hood 5 in. in order to make it look better, once the engine was in place," Lauer says.
    He recently found a turbocharger out of a Chevy Corvette that he's installing on the rebuilt 350.
    Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Dwight Lauer, Quality Car Care, 1012 N. 10th Street, Winterset, Iowa 50273 (ph 515 462-1035; fax 515-462-1384).

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IH 560 Repowered With Chevy 350 REPOWERED EQUIPMENT Repowered Equipment 26-6-6 Dwight Lauer operates an auto repair shop and also does a little farming near Winterset, Iowa. When he decided he needed a better tractor for making hay, he found a 1959 IH 560 with a bad engine. "I figured it would be a good project for slow times and weekends in the repair shop," he says. Turns out, it was mostly weekends and it took a little longer than he had anticipated. The result, however, so impressed his cousin, Steve Lauer, that he contacted FARM SHOW to tell us about it. "Except for the engine, the tractor was in excellent condition," Dwight says. "The owner had run it out of oil and it froze up. But the tachometer read only about 2,600 hours. I had rebuilt an old 350 V-8 out of a Chevrolet pickup, so I decided to put that in the tractor." He modified the engine slightly to have more mid-range torque by replacing the cam with one designed for the engine when used in an RV. He also took a governor from an IH 915 combine and fitted that to the 350 engine to regulate the rpm's. He used the original 13-in. flywheel from the Chevy pickup, but made an adapter for it, so he could use the original clutch and pressure plate from the tractor. "That way, we didn't have to replace the tractor's transmission," he notes. Lauer says mounting the engine in the tractor was a bit tricky. "I used the original mounting plate from the 560, but it had to have new holes cut in it so I could center the 350 engine on it," he says. "I have a friend, Dean Murray, who's a good machinist. He redrilled the holes so we could center the engine on the plate and also made the adapter for the flywheel." While the 350 engine packs more power than the 560's original engine, it has a shorter block. "We shortened the frame and the hood 5 in. in order to make it look better, once the engine was in place," Lauer says. He recently found a turbocharger out of a Chevy Corvette that he's installing on the rebuilt 350. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Dwight Lauer, Quality Car Care, 1012 N. 10th street, Winterset, Iowa 50273 (ph 515 462-1035; fax 515-462-1384).

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