Allis-Chalmers 8550 4wd Super Beast Tractor 

We had one..same disc as well. Daddy had me hit a 960 acre field that bordered a lake bottom. They had just blown a beaver dam a month before and a lot of that bottom was exposed. It looked dry..buckshot, Mississippi Delta..I tried to get it out. If I had stopped as soon as those BRAND NEW RICE/CANE tires, I could have raised the disc as high as it would go, unhook it, drive it out, come around behind the disc and pull it out backwards. But, at 12 years old, when I stopped, I open the door and stepped out on the ground🙄one D-8, one Case 2590 and a 4 wheel drive Case 2870, 3 2" cables. I had to dig down 5 feet with a sharp shooter shovel to unhook the damn disc (that was 3 hours of digging hard buckshot clay) i had to carry, and hook up all 3 of them big ass 50 ft cables. I was so tired after that, I didn't stick another tractor for years🤣🤣

Back in the 1980s my grandpa had one of these along with 14 Internationals. The Allis was the most reliable out of the 15 and it did the heaviest work

Give me a lawn chair and an ice tea!! Sit and watch these tractors all day!!

Them old tractors had class you could tell em apart besides the paint! Gotta love AC! Thanks for sharing!

Jason needs an AC 8550. I can tell he really wants one. The dual stacks really do it for me. I can see why they're called Queen Mary's. Compared to other tractors of the age, the A-C seems really advanced in the transmission, hydraulics, and ease of operation.

That is still a state of the art tractor!! I bet it was incredible back in the day.

A rare glimpse of Mr. BTP himself!

Such good visibility in a cab of that age. Great video .

This video really takes me back thankyou

Thanks you so much for this in depth in cab video. Glad to see you running one, the voice behind the video. I imagined you a lot older. Keep it up. A lot of us looking for this era tractor vids.

Well done on vid👍, I have seen one these at dealerships but never in field operating. Love 8550 singing especially from cab, those twin stacks 🤤.

BTP Thanks for the new video , love to watch the tractors at work. These are actually close to me in Illinois.

Great catch. I’m fortunate enough to have someone in my area that still runs one of every Allis 4wds. They are truly cool tractors.

Love it! As I was growing up we had all AC tractors. 220, 200, D17 propane, and a Gleaner M combine. I wanted my grandpa to buy one of these in the worst way, however it didnt happen. Great video keep them coming!

Wow what a great looking AC tractor. Owner takes great care of his/her machinery. I now know what Mr Big Tractor Power looks like, with you operating the big AC Monster. The wheels look brand new on this AC. Enjoyed this AC segment you provided. Watched & Appreciated 🚜👍👍👍👍👍

Thanks for the video! An amazing Tractor!!!

I Love Allis Chalmer tractors. My grandfather farms with a D17 and 185. Awesome video and keep up the good work.

Always loved the look of the late model Allis’! 😊👍🏻

Beautiful Sounding Tractor. Love any of the Allis Chalmers 4 Wheel Drives.

My favorite tractor of all times... Great video, Thanks !

That era of ACs and Whites had excellent design. So late ‘70s with those great angles.

Really enjoyed the video Jason, thanks

Great video, pal! I like these classics a lot

Quite the machine with he twin exhaust pipes. There was one of these 4wd AC rigs on Craigslist not long ago. You don’t see many of them around anymore. Also I’d like to see more of that tandem rig at the end also. Those are pretty cool setups.

Love these big ol'' beasts

Awesome video... I spent many hours on one of these pulling a mouldboard plow in the early 80's! Thanks for sharing!

Love it !

Years ago my brother-in-law‘s uncle bought a 7060 AC it was a good tractor but at the very beginning he had a lot of trouble with it I think about the transmission and or the rear end he had it back to the implement dealer several times before they finally got it fixed right after that pretty much ran like a champ

Love older tractors like this one that has a "TALL" stance. "Beast" is a good name for this Allis. These older tractors, with the tall stance, just look awesome, no matter their color's, out in the field or just going down the road. Saw an older 8-wheeled big Ford that had a tall stance like this setting out in a field last month. Thanks for posting.

Love the Allis brand!

Woah!!!! I hope you are doing a video on the tandem tractor at the end of the video! I really enjoyed this one. I worked with a fella that had one that was pretty hot. If I remember correctly, they had to switch to tubeless tires because he was sheering valve stems from turning the wheels inside the tires. Great job as always!

Awesome rig, great video

That’s a sweet set up👍

Awesome Jason great video

Ótimo video amigo. Muito bom relembrar a Marca Allis Chalmers. Muito ajudou a produzir e construir por esse mundo afora. Parabéns pela postagem!

My family has 2 8550s that are still used and one as a parts tractor both used for tillage one has dual straight pipe exhaust with a rebuilt engine love those tractors always will be a orange fan Both work with 4 fold chisels

Back in the day I plowed with a JD 2030 and a three bottom toggle trip. 50 ac in 24 hrs. Road travel included 45 minutes one way. Now I got some big hp units but old school. If I could only turn back time now. Tks for the good video’s.

Friend down the road has one of these. Great to see them in operation

Another great video. I give 14/10.

I'm in love... Growing up I loved Allis Chalmers and Deere. We had Allis Chalmers lawn mower. I think a 410, it was more of a garden tractor than anything. The cab/door shaping and angles on this style was tops.

Good to see the old girl still working.

I do love the looks of old alis charms like the smaller 17 18 19 they were my favorite but i love the colors they look good all painted up fresh

Sweet machine, thanks

Hey ! BTP just had a chance to see you in the video. Because of your BIG voice I had imagined a thick neck guy and what-do-you-know, you're a big neck guy. Plaisantries aside, happy to "meet" you and keep these great videos coming. TYFS

Good to see you behind the wheel !

Beautiful Machine. That is my Ole Stomping Grounds

I operated one identical to this 8550 back in the late 80s nothing but power . if I had the chance I would buy one.

Wow what a great tractor good video

Nice tractor and disc. Thanks

Neat tractor, always liked the Fiat-Allis wheel loaders:) As always, great video and keep them coming

Well done,thanks. Sam

Sweet video once again

First time seeing our tractor on RU-vid , fun fun!

Love em beautiful sounds amazing.they also put those motprs in semis

The dairy farm just north of me has one of these tractors, awesome machine !!!

2 thumbs up and 2 big toes love AC here thanks 🙏 sir

Great video ,I was just watching the ICE crystals form on my windows..this made me THINK warm.....😎😁

Awesome tractor

Super Beast!

In the background at the end was that two tractors hooked together?😎

I have the 8550 in farming simulator 22 it's so fascinating to cultivate fields with it makes working with fields that have difficult turns easier I live in the city I miss being on my father's farm

I don't know how you do it, but you always come through with great stuff. thanks.

I love the old 4 wheel drive tractors from the 70s/80s orange,green,red,yellow I love em all. No electronic B.S on these old guys just raw H.P and pulling power

Did You enjoy driving it ? ;). Thank You for video

LONG LIVE A-C TRACTORS. I have a '55 WD and it is just good to operate one. HEAVY METAL.

That was awesome you get a chance to drive it I’m surprised you don’t get more opportunities to sit behind the wheel of more tractors that you film

In 1987 and 88 I worked for a farm in Vermont, we had a variety of iron on the farm, most of it old and worn and full of character. We 'demoed' a pair of used 8050 and used 8070 from the local Allis dealer for a couple of weeks during tillage and planting. Both were cab and 4wd, the 8070 had 600 hours and the 8050 had 1,200 hours but no radio. Since I was the low guy I got the 8050, and spent time discing ground. I recall the 8050 having good mid range torque, harsh shifts, tight turning, I really liked the extending steering wheel button! I recall the only thing I didn't like about it was the short wheelbase, it would bounce and porpoise when going across the headlands, where a Ford or Deere were longer wheelbase and smoother. We didn't buy the Allis Chalmers but I enjoyed my seat time in them.

Nice AC and disc

Great cameo.

everything you need and nothing you don’t…wish they built them like this today

The farm I worked on when I was younger had two small AC tractors- a 180 and 185. Nice tractors, but you had to be careful as transmission parts wore out, they would pop out of third gear. Nice video!

I turned up the fuel on a 8550, 600 horsepower on dyno. We sold it new that way and it still runs today.

My Uncle still operates two of these on his CNY farm here in NY.

10:12 Check out the home built AC 4WD tractor at the end!

Gleaner photo bomb was clever but that tandom tractor at the end is the show stealer. We are all wanting more of that one. Great video,big orange fan here in central Wisconsin. I have my grandpa's first tractor an AC WC!

I enjoyed the video of the Allis Chalmers 8550 tractor because we had one. We also had a AC 7580 which we traded in on the new 8550 in 1982. At first we liked it because we had nothing to compare it to except the 7580 we traded. It was much more powerful and did our work quite handily. As the hours rolled on, the problems arose. A serious week point was the CV joint in the high speed shaft that drove the rear half of the tractor. We replaced 3 of them; each one only lasting maybe 1000 hours and each one costing nearly double the last one. Next was the cables that controlled the shifting and hydraulics. They were cables inside a sleeve and seized up making it unable to shift or use the hydraulics. The engine had poor torque. Very noisy, quite powerful but only at high rpm. Once the rpm started to drop, so did the torque and it wouldn't recover. What it could do was guzzle diesel fuel. Far too much. It wasn't until we purchased a 1982 Versetile 895 rated at 5 hp more than the 8550 that we were able to compare the two and see what a vast difference there was. The 895 was head & shoulders above the AC 8550 in all aspects. Quieter, much more powerful, far more lb/ft of torque, and used less fuel. The Cummins engine in the Versetile was what they called Constant Power meaning you could throttle down the rpm and maintain the torque. It was amazing compared to the torque shy AC 8550. Sure the AC had a live PTO which we used to run an air seeder and adjustable wheel tread that some row crop farmer might use, it meant nothing to us. Another sore spot was the factory 20.8 x 38 Armstrong tires. They soon began to crack on the side walls and go flat. We needed to replace them and AC would not warranty them. That tractor got traded for a 1985 Steiger Panther 360 and all out problems were solved. That was one hell of a tractor that we farmed with for 20 more years. Those twin turbos and twin mufflers on the AC 8550 were all show and no go.

It had a de-stroked version of the 844 Big Allis Chalmers engine used in the HD20 Crawlers with twin TO4B Garrett Air-Research Turbocharges like used on the 7030-7040-7045-7050-7060 Tractors with a slightly smaller compressor (cold air side) wheel.

I like ALLIS CHALMERS

I always liked AC tractors my friend's dad had some AC's D15 D17 D19 and one of the newer ones this is the first time I ever see one like this Wow or what a beast or what

That is really a beast, can you imagine what return in investment those two machine brought in fr there owners, thanks very much

Do they do multiple passes with the disc ? Any luck on getting torque ratings for these tractors ? Thanks and thumbs up !

The Beast. My favorite 4 wheel Tractor of all time. The Queen she was. Bad all the way to the Bone. !!!👀 🤔

nice

Thanks BTP 👍👍👍👍👍

Orange power!

We have a 7020 allis Chalmers, runs like a champ! 14000 hours and counting

I operate heavy equipment mostly big excavators and loaders, but love big farm tractors best.

In the early 80s the big custom corn cutter had one of these and a Gehl three row. Then he bought the biggest case a few years later..

I drove a 7060 in south C it pulled very good tractor but it what slow in 1973.

You should do a video on a Allis Chalmers D21

We had 3 of them back in about 91-08. The first was a older 78 model that ended up falling in a ditch near a field. The second was a 79 model that was turned up then the engine threw a piston out the block. We just left it and had a new engine just never time. The last was a 81 model the new look my grandpa would say. He loved it till we just parked it and forgot it even turned over. The transmission was acting up on it but we had 2 parts ones to repair it. Sadly all 3 were sold cheap and haven't ever looked into where they went

The innovation of the 70’s. It’s a shame the 80’s were not profitable. So sad to see the equipment I grew up on fade away. Not saying I grew up around this particular machine.

tractors from a time that could still be repaired without all the overcomplicated equipment on tractors made today

I love videos of these machines becuse here in sweden they dont exist becuse the dealerships that imported them were the same dealership that imported nuffield tractors and the dealship decied to fully focus on nuffield tractors in 1960s and they stopped selling AC tractors. That was the end for AC in sweden.

I still have a picture of the 1981 West Virginia University cheerleader squad posing on a new 8550 at the State Fair if WV.

That would be super cool with tripes

What is with the Gleaner combine at the beginning of the video? Did they just finish thrashing/

They just released this same exact Tractor for Farming simulator 19 on console and it's awesome it looks and sounds just like this actual 8550

I wonder if this is Randy Goebel. We visited him looking at trucks and he was nuts over AC. If this was an inline engine, how did the exhaust system work?

Why does the axle stick out to the dual but they are running band duals?