We bought our Super M with the intention of adding a 3 point hitch, but the options were limited to buying a donor tractor with an old Saginaw 3 point hitch then refurbishing that, or buying a Saginaw 3 point hitch online for about a thousand dollars, then shipping it for another five-hundred dollars, and then refurbishing it with a lot of labor and a newer hydraulic cylinder for a few hundred more dollars.
As we often do, we went in the DIY direction, designed, and fabricated our own. We designed it to use off-the-shelf category one lift arms, links, and a readily available Delavan hydraulic cylinder.
Earlier this summer, we finished fabricating our 3 point hitch for the Super M. It required a lot of cutting, grinding, and quite a bit of welding with a 240 volt Forney 291 Easy Weld 180 ST
The hitch is rated for cat 1 equipment to match the nearly 50 horsepower Farmall Super M’s capabilities, follows simple design principles, is highly adjustable, and fits on the existing drawbar mounting bolts .
We finally wrapped up our hydraulic system modernization and used the IH Live hydraulic pump equipped on the later Super M models to power our 3 point as well as our power steering unit. We removed the old LiftAll unit, replumbed the fuel line, and put a 5 gallon hydraulic reservoir in its place. The set up runs perfectly, does not leak, and lets us utilize modern 3 point PTO powered equipment.
The steel, hydraulic cylinder, weld rod, reservoir, valves, and hydraulic plumbing ended up costing around a thousand dollars, putting us into our 1954 Farmall Super M for a total of 4k. This is still significantly cheaper than any 25 to 40 horsepower tractor on the market today, even heavily used ones, and tractors that are less powerful, and lack the American nostalgia and ease of repairing.