You're talking about the DV550 & 9.0 diesel. The earlier DV550s seemed to have a bad rep the latter 9.0s were decent, but not great. They did start well in the cold. Heard plenty of good stories about the 266,304, 345, 392s but none about the 549. Id put the Ford 534 over the IH 549 also.
I almost bought a low mile 60s GMC with a Toro-Flow diesel recently heard they were not great on power, but did great on fuel.

 

My FIL had a mid 70's Ford (F700 I think, maybe F600) Grain truck out on the farm. I used to help him by driving it during harvest time. He had the 370 gas V8 and 5 speed standard (Clarke?), 2 speed axle and I recall when it was fully loaded you couldn't miss a shift or chances are, you would have to stop and build up the momentum, once again.

I used to think that the little old 370 cube V8 was too small for the heavy grain loads (overloads?)...but it really was the little engine that could. It did the job.

 

I never understood the 370. I used to drive a boxtruck that had one. No power, no torque. When getting on the freeway, plan to yield or get killed. The thing had an automatic tranny, and was always revving at it's absolute max to keep moving. It drank gas, and couldn't get out of it's own way. What the hell was Ford thinking? Destroke the marvelous 429, put lousy crap heads on it with tiny valves, and call it a truck engine? This had to be one of the worst mistakes Ford ever made.

By contrast, I once drove an old U-Haul field manager's rig (remember the old U-Haul rigs that had trailers stacked up top and bottom like a car hauler?) It was a '63 Ford with a 330 and a governor. That freakin' thing would haul, and if you stood on it a few seconds after the governor kicked in, the governor would give up and it would really rev. I had a ball driving that truck.

 

The 370 I drove was in a Grain Truck, with the standard transmission. It was working real hard, but as most grain truck , only was on the highway when we took it to a grain elevator , which was not too far. Mostly it was moving in first to third gear on the fields and around the farm yard, or down old mud farm roads.

You don't need a real power house for this application. We also used to have a '50's International grain truck, probably the equivalent to something like an F500 of those days. The cornbinder had a 226 inch straight IH six.

I can't imagine a medium duty F series with a 370 and one of those old automatic transmissions-what a power sapper that must have been.

 

I think the 370 & 429 had the same stroke: different bores

 

Hi there, new to the board also... I am a volunteer firefighter and have driven many different firetrucks with different motors in them. I figured I would throw my 2 cents in on this topic. I can remember a Ford C/Hamerly tanker I drove.. it pulled 2,500 gallons of water through a 5 speed transmission.... it was slow as sin... I mean SLOW (as has been noted here)...you used to try to come up with the best way to get to calls without doing hills. It was retired in 1998 with 38,000 miles on it, it still ran but it was starting to limp pretty badly. The Kennett Fire Department in Chester County, Pa had another Ford C tanker (with a Bruco body) that had the 429 Ford in it... they said that it drove much better than thier pumper (which had a 534 in it) and would routinely go faster than it (the pumper carried 1,000 gallons of water compared to the 2,000 on the tanker). Both seem like good motors to me..... I have another friend that has a 1961 Ford F-700 with and American LaFrance body on it... it is supposed to have a 332 in it.. but everyone who looks at it says that there is no way it is a 332.. it is to small and it is Gold in color (which I guess the 332 never was)... it moves the truck pretty well though (300 gallons of water in a 1,000 gallon tank). Moving to Cornbinder power... there was a ladder truck at one of the fire schools around us that had an I-H 549 motor in it.... it was very loud and sound like it was moving pretty well... but it was also slow. Plus it had TERRIBLE overheating problems... on a fire department ladder truck... a hydraulic pump is run off a PTO from the transmission... so the drive engine also powers the ladder on it. The engine runs at about 1,700rpms when you are using the ladder (activated by a high throttle switch)... if you ran the ladder for more than 10 minutes the manifold would glow red and you could cook on it. I couldn't imagine this was normal... but I saw it in another piece that had the International 549 motor in it.. if you pumped with it (pump is PTO driven) for any amount of time the manifold would glow red and you would have to keep the engine covers open (which didn't help that much it didn't seem). Continental made alot of large gas engines for the fire service as did Hall-Scott, Waukesha and Lycoming... Lycoming motors were standard in American LaFrance fire trucks from 1948 through 1959 (the 700/800 series pieces).. most of them were Lycoming J V12 motors with dual ignition (of course).... they were airplane motors basically.. if you lost your engine book from American LaFrance... you were up a certain creek without a paddle.... the only person who could really tune it up was an airplane mechanic.... another gashog but a very powerful motor. FWD, Ward LaFrance, Hahn, Peter Pirsch and Maxim all used Waukesha gas motors as standard equipment on thier pieces (unless you speced a diesel at which point you got a 6'71 Detroit). Those were all some very tough, bulletproof motors (although the Waukesha had a problem with throwing rods and/or self destructing if worked to hard). The 543 Ford always seemed a bit doggish for it's functions.... if you compare it to some of the GMC V-6 motors of that time it is sort of hard to fight for the Ford motor... although they were built tough. I can remember having a Ford C/Hahn pumper that I drafted (pulled water from a pond and than a river) with for 6 hours... we moved 3 million gallons of water in that time.... she was running pretty high up in the RPM range (around 1,900 or so) but it didn't overheat or cause problems... it just pumped merrily away. That piece had a Ford 534 in it as well... good motors for the fire service.

Dave Fritz

 

Back in 2000 before gas went through the roof I borrowed a friends 370 powered short dumptruck to haul some filldirt. All I had to do was fill it back up when I was finished.
I couldnt believe how much gas it drank; even for a medium duty is was really bad: using that truck with todays gas prices would make a fat wallet thin !

 

for the dodge motors, they had a 478 CI and a 549 in 1970-1971 trucks, but im not sure of the HP or torq.

for international

they had the same 2 motors

the 478 from 65-71 put out 234 at 3600 rpm and 431 at 1800 rpm

the 549 from 61-71 put out 257 hpat 3400 and 505 of developed torque at 2000 rpm

source is from chiltons truck repair manual 61-71

any other motors some one wants me to look up?

 

I was still young when these old engines were in vogue, but the diesel was coming on strong. We should remember that in the middle 50's to late 60's that gasoline was still inexpensive, and most of the construction work was done by local companies, or the prime contractor used the local owner-operators to get things done. The big gas V-8's were a lot cheaper to buy and maintain than a diesel, and diesels were not as reliable as they are now. The big names in my part of the world were the 534 Ford, and the 549 Binder. The Dodge diehards would run a 413, and then there was always the silly guys who would drag out a 409 chevrolet, but most soon learned that GM stuff was there to be repaired, and not worked. The big V-6 GMC was a power house, but used more fuel than the 534 (If that is possible) and were hard to keep cool when the going got tough. The 534 was a standard when it came to irrigation wells in the 60's 70's 80's, and in fact, there are still 534's pumping water in SW Kansas, and doing a fine job of it. I also remember reading truck sales brochures in 1966. The last few remaining Emeryville and the new CO 4020 International still maintained the 549 as its standard engine, and the R-200 had a 461 as standard, and optional 549. Of course, you could get a diesel as an option. These engines were not meant to be hot rods, they were built to pull,and they did that very well.

 

I worked for a small road construction company during the summers of '67 and 68.' The firm had three 1963 Ford T850 trucks with 534 engines and 5 speed main transmissions and 4 speed auxiliary transmissions.. These trucks had 10 yard dump bodies on them. They were also used as semi-tractors pulling 20yard belly dump trailers for most of one of the summers. They had 3 1956 or '57 GMC 10 yard dump trucks which, originally had V8's in them but had been converted to gas burning 478 cu. in. V6's with 5X3 transmissions. They also had 2 1965 GMC 10 yard dump trucks with 351's (way underpowered) and 5X3 transmissions. They, also, had one AutoCar semi-tractor with a 220 Cummins and 4X4 transmissions. The Fords would outpull all of them but , the 478 GMCs were pretty strong for their size. I really enjoyed the sound of the 534's. The secondaries in the Holly 4150 carbs were vacuum operated and would open at about 2500 rpm. Shifting those heavy duty Spicer transmissions, especially split shifting, was interesting since none of the gears were synchronized but, kind of fun once you got the hang of it. The 534's WERE hard on fuel. I don't remember for sure but, I think they got about 2 mpg when worked hard.

 

I forgot to mention that the 534's were governed at 3,000 rpm.

 

Is there a difference in pistons on these to super duty's? I am looking at replacing a piston and can't find anything for a 477 but I can find them for a 534. I was wondering if they were interchangeable.

 

Evidently, there is a difference between a 477 piston and a 534 piston although the bore of the two engines is the same. The part # for the 477 piston assembly is B8QH 6108-CA and for the 534 it is B8QH 6108-DA. These are for standard size pistons for 1962-74 years. I would think the pistons are NOT interchangeable. Maybe a parts guru will be able to tell us what the difference is.

 

What I remember most about the 477 and 534 Super Duty was that the ones made before 1972 or so ran pretty good, but after that they got worse and worse due to the emission controls. Rheems1 was right on about the big Internationals running hot, I saw the exhaust manifolds glowing red on them after a hard pull. Biggest problem I saw with the big GMC V-6's was the carburetor. They used an oddball Stromberg that wasn't really big enough. You used to be able to get an adapter to run a big Holley 2bbl. on them, and it would really wake them up. The last year for the V-6 was 1974, so you didn't see that engine get worse in the later years. I remember when Ford dropped the 534 in 1980 (very few were still being ordered by then, mostly fire apparatus). The 429's ran a lot better then the 534's at that time.

 

The big (478's) GMC engines were interesting. They wound up slowly but, they wound up about as fast loaded as they did unloaded and would lug very well. Another summer I drove a mid 60's GMC 10 yard dump truck powered by a 478 ToroFlow diesel with 5X3 transmissions. I thought they were economical but not very powerful. Another construction company was hauling out of the same gravel pit as ours was. They had Chevy's with 409's. Many a time when I pulled out on the paved highway I'd have one of those Chevy's on my butt and I'd try to keep ahead of it with no success. They would blow the doors off of the ToroFlow. Maybe under a hard pull it would have been different but, on the open road it was no contest.

Oh yes, I had a typo on an earlier post about 534 rpms. The governed speed is 3,200, not 3,000.