New 444 Owner with some questions (Southern Ontario)

[Harry]

Welcome turboff. Your 444 is a sweet GT, I own one myself. I believe all your questions were answered by other members. I look forward to hearing more about your GT. Harry

[JSinMO]

Welcome @turboff ! I’d love to see pictures of your 444 if you’re able. I have a 446 with a blade and mover deck. I’m going with some type of bolt on wheel weight instead of liquid inside of the tire on mine. I figured that way I can easily remove the weight if I want to. I believe the are posts here on the site showing how to make weights.

[myerslawnandgarden]

Hey all,
I am now an owner of a new to me 444. According to the serial number it is from 1972.
I bought it at a trailer center where the machine was traded in by the original owner...it is in great shape! I am going to add an hour meter and voltmeter and maybe a steering wheel knob for now. It came with a 60" deck and 54" dozer blade, along with a hilariously small little trailer! Going to use it to clear snow and mow my 1.5 acre property. Just ordered some 8-16 tire chains (couldn't find any locally...) and hopefully that will give me the traction I need to move some snow around...my property has a very slight grade, so I am going to look for a holding valve.

I have a few questions:
-Do the factory turf tires have tubes in them? I am wondering if I will have to order tubes to add some ballast weight...Does running with ballast inside the tires tear up the lawn in the spring? because if it does I may just add some weights on the rear hitch instead.

-The 60" deck says "J..something" in the model number tag...Will this work on the 444? I know later years have the engines flipped around which can cause issues with using the deck. I'll also need to source a belt for the pulley.

-Even with the brake on I can push the tractor...is there a way to adjust the brake so that it actually acts as a parking brake?

With the factory turf tires it could barely get up my slushy driveway..Hoping the chains will help with that. Of course we're supposed to be getting major snow today into tomorrow so I will probably have to shovel the driveway by hand..again

Many thanks!

First of all, big welcome to our little forum here! Congratulations on your 444! Me personally like the 444's the best We have a pretty good contingent of folks here from Southern Ontario, but also from further South and other parts of Canada. I am not fully skilled to answer all your questions but we have very experienced members in all Case GT related matters and I'm sure they'll chip in.

As far as I know the factory tires do not have tubes in them. Some people do put tubes in them on account of the tires being cracked, and/or filling them up with fluid to add weight for traction. But there are people here who add various fluids as ballast in the rear tires even without tubes. I don't think the weight added just inside the tire would ruin your turf, unless it's so soft that you'll make ruts without ballast too.

For snow related duties you will need both the chains and wheel weight. I have combine steel weights, 162 lbs per wheel, and chains = good traction.

I am pretty sure your J series deck fits your tractor. We have a really big manuals section which you can explore too
https://manuals.ccigt.com

We also like seeing pictures of tractors hint hint nudge nudge

Hi Eugen, thank you for the welcome and thank you for the information!
Trying to find steel weights for the wheels seems pretty difficult. I have been following this board from before I bought my tractor to read get some leads on stuff. What combine are you weights off of? I am assuming there is a specific bolt pattern needed to fit our wheels? The 444 manual is so dark in some spots I can barely see what the picture is pointing to! lol
Only info I can find about that deck on a 444 is that it may be a bit big for the tractors power level...lol. I will do some more digging

Hello turboff,

I think that your 444 will be fine with the deck that you have, it can't be a 60" deck with a model # starting J4..., more likely a 44 or 48" width. Also, if the previous owner used it on that tractor, a 60" deck would not have been able to be mounted on a 1972 as that was a short wheelbase model.

A couple of pics of your deck would be and I can confirm the size.

Hope this helps,

Bob

[Timj]

Welcome to CCIGT @turboff glad to have you here. Congratulations on your new 444. Hope you enjoy your time here and join in.

Chains will definitely help you get some traction for plowing. Weight will help even more. I've been plowing a little with my 448 this winter with chains and no weights. It does ok if I use the tractors speed momentum but it lacks the "bulldozer" power without weights.

The condition of your turfs may factor into your decision to tube them anyway. Many of us have had to tube them to get them to hold air anyway. I recently got a price of $150us from my tire guy to tube mine and fill them with Rim Guard.

I have ran the factory 75lb weights from new in '93 on my 4118 with no issues to the lawn. They actually help me not spin on a steep hill in my yard.

Tim

[Gordy]

Hello turboff and welcome to the group OH and excellent intro

It is easy to tell if your tires are tubed or not, look at the valve stem. If it has a bulge at the rim it is tubeless, A tube valve stem will be straight through the hole in the rim and if you wiggle it to the side a bit you can see the edge of the hole in the rim.

Guy's that take too much pride in their golf course green like lawns would say to take the weights off for mowing to lessen soil compaction. As mentioned I leave it loaded as I have hills and pulling a heavily loaded trailer up hill on damp grass can suck.

Here is a picture with the JD part #'s, The 2 piece is lighter and made to fit around the hub on the inside of the rim. These are for the 16 inch steering wheels on the JD combines. Try a google search for Tractor salvage yards in your state/ province whatever you call it up there

Gordy

Edit. I lucked out and found a pair of the 2 piece weight on an online auction. With sales tax and buyers premium the total came to $17us and change

[Eugen]

If you come across these John Deere weights check them out. They were used on a lot of JD combines, on the smaller, rear wheels, which had the same inner diameter and bolt pattern as the rear wheel on our 400 series tractors.

1. Part number H78062 was used on the inside of the rim, at 104 lbs each. On each wheel there are two parts and are somewhat easier to install; they fit inside the rear rim on the outer side of the tractor.

2. Part number H93849 or H80070, are the same item, and each weighs 162 lbs. They are a bear to install. The combine used these on the outer side of the rim.

I found a full set at a combine cemetery near Stratford.

If I didn't find these I'd have done what Dave has done, pour my own from concrete. I also planned to fill my tires with windshield washer fluid but there's no need now.

[turboff]

First of all, big welcome to our little forum here! Congratulations on your 444! Me personally like the 444's the best We have a pretty good contingent of folks here from Southern Ontario, but also from further South and other parts of Canada. I am not fully skilled to answer all your questions but we have very experienced members in all Case GT related matters and I'm sure they'll chip in.

As far as I know the factory tires do not have tubes in them. Some people do put tubes in them on account of the tires being cracked, and/or filling them up with fluid to add weight for traction. But there are people here who add various fluids as ballast in the rear tires even without tubes. I don't think the weight added just inside the tire would ruin your turf, unless it's so soft that you'll make ruts without ballast too.

For snow related duties you will need both the chains and wheel weight. I have combine steel weights, 162 lbs per wheel, and chains = good traction.

I am pretty sure your J series deck fits your tractor. We have a really big manuals section which you can explore too
https://manuals.ccigt.com

We also like seeing pictures of tractors hint hint nudge nudge

Hi Eugen, thank you for the welcome and thank you for the information!
Trying to find steel weights for the wheels seems pretty difficult. I have been following this board from before I bought my tractor to read get some leads on stuff. What combine are you weights off of? I am assuming there is a specific bolt pattern needed to fit our wheels? The 444 manual is so dark in some spots I can barely see what the picture is pointing to! lol
Only info I can find about that deck on a 444 is that it may be a bit big for the tractors power level...lol. I will do some more digging

Hello turboff,

I think that your 444 will be fine with the deck that you have, it can't be a 60" deck with a model # starting J4..., more likely a 44 or 48" width. Also, if the previous owner used it on that tractor, a 60" deck would not have been able to be mounted on a 1972 as that was a short wheelbase model.

A couple of pics of your deck would be and I can confirm the size.

Hope this helps,

Bob

Hey Bob. I actually found a post on here where someone was saying that there was indeed a 60" deck called J48 (even though it doesn't go with the rest of their naming schemes.

I'm going to attach some pictures of the tractor. I took a bunch so you can help me figure it out. I was able to see the deck is indeed a J48 even though JTS mostly scrubbed out and it indeed does measure out 60"

[Spike188]

Welcome aboard @turboff I don't need anything other than the photo to identify your deck as a 60". Just a word of caution from experience. The blades are timed with toothed pulleys and belts. Scalping, hitting rocks, and fallen branches can do damage to the belts and blades. When the timing is off the blade tips will make contact with each other. One can get by with running non Case drive belts but pulley wear and belt failure will increase. With the 60" deck, I order 9/16 oem belts from dealers in the states. @myerslawnandgarden is a regular on this site.

You have an outstanding group of Case products. The trailer even appears to be Case but I would need to photos of the tongue and rear gate sleeves.

[Eugen]

Thank you for the nice pictures @turboff ! You scored a nice tractor!

Do you have all the links to attach the deck to the tractor? As for the size of the deck, according to this manual:

https://manuals.ccigt.com/PartsManuals/ ... marked.pdf

the deck may indeed be not an ideal fit for the 444. The way I would interpret this though is that in the toughest conditions like tall or wet grass it may not provide the same performance as the 446 or 448. Decks for Case garden tractors show up quite often on the market, especially in your area. There are good chances also that you can trade yours with another member here. But until then, if I were you, I would make sure the tractor is in good shape to run these attachments.

My experience so far has been that the wrong belt, a poor clutch, and/or worn out bearings on the deck will rob the tractor of at least 2 HP. So, you may be cutting grass very happily with your 60" deck if these things are properly set. If not, you'll be frustrated with a 48" inch deck just as much as with the 60". Here's something that happened to me. I have 446 and I used to have a 226. Both with strong engine, but the clutch and/or belt were not quite right. The snow caster did very poorly on the 446 and 226. The same snow caster on my current 444 flies the snow like crazy. My 2c.

[Timj]

Yep, definitely a j48 deck. It looks to be in very good condition , so does the 444.