IH 86 series tractors...AC ?

[Banjo]

I have been looking at some 886's and 986's and there are several on the market that either don't have AC or it doesn't work. So I am wondering how critical it would be for me .....where I'm basically going to use it to clip pastures with and unroll some hay in the winter. Looking at the design with the large doors on the side....can they be easily taken off in the summer and would that give you enough airflow to stay comfortable without AC ? Then put the doors back on for the winter. I have a SxS that I do that way and it works fine. You guys that have these tractors, what are your thoughts?
I don't plan on baling hay and being in all the dust.

 

[Clod Hopper]

I had a case backhoe with cab and no ac and I don't remember it being an issue

 

[Silver]

I had a 1486 I couldn't get the ac to work so I just undid the door stoppers and tied them forwards and opened the back window. I guess that's the one advantage to having backwards (for a tractor) opening doors. I thought the airflow was just fine, but it probably get a lot hotter where you are. 85F was about as hot as I would have been in.
AC parts for them are actually not too costly, I put a new compressor, dryer, and expansion valve in mine for about $300 Cdn. Still didn't work though, but I'm no ac mechanic. Kept going down on high pressure.

 

[jd720]

Most of the time the compressors go bad and people are just too tight to spend money on an old tractor and they use them just like you are talking about. I think those are still good tractors and I would just spend a few hundred bucks and fix it you will be much happier and it will probably last several years if done right. They make kits to change them over to the new style compressor.

 

[Banjo]

Most of the time the compressors go bad and people are just too tight to spend money on an old tractor and they use them just like you are talking about. I think those are still good tractors and I would just spend a few hundred bucks and fix it you will be much happier and it will probably last several years if done right. They make kits to change them over to the new style compressor.

One that I'm looking at(986) apparently didn't come out with AC....would it be feasible to put AC on it?

 

[littletom]

No ac from factory would be a pain to put on. On those tractors the blower and all that stuff is in top of cab, remove roof panel to access. Put everything new in my 1086 except lines 2 years ago. Thinking under a 1000$. If You think you don't want to deal with air I would rather have no cab and a canopy. Sometimes you can deal with it but on a 100 degree high humidity ky day you better be tough. That glass cuts more air than you think.

 

[jd720]

That tractor was probably sold new in one of the far northern states then and somehow made its way down here. I had a John Deere 4430 that came out of Wisconsin that had the A/C added to it but that was probably added 30 plus years ago when it was available as a kit. Fixing a A/C system that doesn`t work and adding an A/C is 2 totally different things that tractor is probably best left where it is in my opinion. If you can find one that it just needs repaired I think they make a kit to convert to the newer style compressor that has the compressor and bracket, expansion valve and receiver drier for about $500 . You would probably want to have this done by a mechanic with the proper tools to flush the system and the pull a vacuum but still you would probably get by for less than $1000 total which is well worth it in my opinion.

 

[Banjo]

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[Banjo]

No ac from factory would be a pain to put on. On those tractors the blower and all that stuff is in top of cab, remove roof panel to access. Put everything new in my 1086 except lines 2 years ago. Thinking under a 1000$. If You think you don't want to deal with air I would rather have no cab and a canopy. Sometimes you can deal with it but on a 100 degree high humidity ky day you better be tough. That glass cuts more air than you think.

Thanks littletom and jd720, If it weren't for needing to unroll hay in the winter I would prefer a canopy in most situations...its just that month or two...I need heat.
I like to do most of my bushhogging in the mornings when it is cooler. If the doors would come off easily it looks like the IH would lend itself to that scenario better than a lot of the other brand tractors.
Anyway, I was wondering about how easy it would be to put AC on one that didn't have it originally...thanks for the heads up.

 

[mdt192]

Our cabbed 886 is miserable to operate when disking the dove field in July without A/C. Not so bad if you are in a higher gear.