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Stieger STIII 325

44K views 178 replies 35 participants last post by  NowhereNodak 
#1 ·
I am about to pull the trigger on one of these old girls, just waiting to hear back on a diffy to make sure parts are available

Other than a 9380 we had I have not been around these tractors at all. Here Versatile not only had market share they had market control.

I find alot of interesting things about them, they are definitely heavier than the versy, more hydraulics and a much better road gear so these are big plusses IMO

Things that this one has, Atom Jet hydraulic add on but the pump is bad hanging on the side of the tractor with a chain. It has a 2sp transfer case. 3406 Cat engine, not sure if there was other options.

This tractor needs lots of love but seems to be solid and a good runner. An oil check plug had fallen out of the rear diff and ruined it. It is equipped with Raba axles, I guess Clarke was also a possibility.

It is cheap enough to bring back to life and be that 100-150 hour a year tractor I need so badly but otherwise can't afford at the moment.


So here is my questions.....

I will be bringing it in the shop and going through everything, so where should I stick my head first to see how much doe it will take to make it good?

What updates should be done?

Is there anything that needs special oil or a grease zerk I need to make sure it gets plenty.

Anything at all I should know?

I am kinda excited about this a little bit, the wife use to spend alot of time in the old girl back in the day. For some reason she don't seem to be but I think her attitude will change when it's sitting in the shop

Thanks guys!
 
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#2 ·
Clutch and brake master cylinders were always a problem until we sleeved them with stainless steel.
Artic pivot bearings also wear and needed new bearing around the 6-8000 hour mark, 10 hourly greasing.
Spicer 10-10 gearbox, heard parts are hard to get, don't know if that's true though
Raba diff parts were still available from CIH the last I knew
 
#3 ·
Have you checked with big tractor parts on the parts have heard they are good on parts for those old work horses. Not really familiar with that particular tractor but any new to us machine gets all the fluids changed all the filters and screens. I would check the coolant before draining to see how neglected that has been. Hopefully the fluids can steer you to any potential problems. Good luck
 
#5 ·
The tractor needs love but I don't think it was completely neglected. I'm sure it wasn't greased like needed but I'm confident it was. I got to drive the tractor about 5-6 years ago a little for a few hours but the master cylinder went out loosing the clutch. Got it fixed up and gave it back.

The tractor run like a watch, great power and I remember it shifted pretty good. I don't remember any play in the steering but it's been a while.

It hasn't been used in two years now, and I would say it maybe got 200 or so hours since I used it.

The problems it has is its been living outdoors for a long time and the mice have done a fair bit of damage. The paint is pretty poor and tires have good tread but are weather checked.


Does anyone know if the oil in them Raba axles share oil with the planetary? There is some whole axles available, just really hoping I don't have to mess with planataries

Hey KWO, I don't know if you had a miss print or not but the artic pivot bearings got me a little cross eyed.

I believe the tractor has around 11,000 hrs

The owner at one time had a parts tractor with fire damage but sold it for scrap before the rear took a dive.
 
#6 ·
Raba and Eaton were the two axles, Not sure about the Tiger though, as they were 450 525 hp.
Big Tractor Parts is your friend when it comes to Steiger.
The AC filter and over all AC system was weak. Some people put a red dot on top of the cab.

Does it have a swinging drop box? Steiger had a drop box that pivoted at a ratio with the steering to reduce ujoint angle when turning. Not all had it though. There were also two different brake setups available as I recall.
If you are familiar with the component nature if the Veersatile, then you will enjoy the component nature of the Steiger.
 
#11 ·
I don't remember anything about the drop box being swinging but it's been a long time since I was up close. Think that would have caught my attention if it did.

I am a huge fan of versy tractors, ran lots of different models, even had the forbidden triple nickel on the farm for harvest pulling grain cart and loved it! Maybe I am just that easy to please! But what work I have had to do was very easy and maintenance is a joy, especially if ya compare to a Johny of the day.

I haven't been up close to it in a long time, it was one of them deals talking to the owner about it since my wife drove it and pretty soon I had all but cut him a check for it. What he is asking definitely seemed fair enough but was a little nervous about what it may cost to get the axle back in one piece witch sounds alright and will leave me comfortable sticking money into other aspects of the tractor. Important cause I don't want a money pit when I could pick up a 875 for probably 10g and I know my way around. But I really want some of the Stieger features like a road gear.

I talked to big equipment, they are kinda my go to guys and I generally only go to big tractor if that's what they instruct me to do. They have been very good and honest with me, excellent experience with them. It was big equipment that told me it was Raba or Clarke axles but he might have made a mistake.
 
#7 ·
They run a Uni-ball bearing ( spherical ) in the pivot
The planetaries have their own oil with a shaft seal in the axle tube, but known to leak from side to side. Steiger's recomended 10w hyd oil, Raba said 90w
The one with the fixed drop box have a single disc brake and a two piece tail shaft on the rear and the swinging style have a multi disc brake set up
 
#9 ·
I stand corrected on the common oil in planetaries.

Perhaps mine is not original then, because it has the swinging transfer case and a single disc brake
 
#8 ·
I bought an ST310 Panther III that was destined for the wreckers a few years ago for less than the price of the tires, and went through most of the tractor. Big tractor parts assured me that all parts are available, until I ordered transmission countershafts and they were not making them currently and out of stock. Got them chromed instead to bring the OD back to a pressed fit, worked fine. Mine has had the hydraulic clutch replaced with a linkage, problem solved forever. Brakes, just add occasionally. Does the atom jet kit include a cooler? That may be a necessity, as they just rely on a big reservoir to be the cooler.

I rebuilt engine, transmission, new high volume hydraulic pump and some other hydraulic mods and some electrical for a few thousand dollars, but mine is the Cummins, so cheap rebuild kits are available.

Now I just need to address some steering leaks.

Cab blower is not located ideally, but AC cools fine. Heater is great, but defrost is difficult due to location of vents.

Tilt telescoping steering column is handy until something breaks inside. Parts are available GM, for late 70's cadillac cars. But a nightmare to reassemble.

Drive it with load then no load and see if it stays in 2nd and 3rd.

As far as I can tell planetary oil is common to diff, but have to be filled separately.

I've never understood the concern about worn articulation joints, just keep greasing and carry on, what harm do they cause, compared to the grief of changing them?

I love the old girl, Cranked to 400 HP when I got it, 650 michelin duals all around, it pulls anything and goes anywhere I ask it to.
 
#12 ·
Does the atom jet kit include a cooler? That may be a necessity, as they just rely on a big reservoir to be the cooler.
That is a great question that I don't have the answer to either. He use to run a 4010 concord with 2300 cart on it and while doing tillage with it a newbie turned the switch on and overheated the pump locking it up.

I plan to pull a 2400 concord cart with a Phillips rotary harrow for seeding cover crops and occasionally putting my Great Plains turbo till behind it.

Was thinking since the pump is fried I may try to make some changes and put on a piston pump on it in case I come up with some other sort of bright idea.

Hopefully it has a cooler, thinking with the air seeder it would have been a must but it's hard to say.


Glad to hear you love yours! Good confidence booster, I'd rather pile 20 grand into if needed than to buy a hundred thousand dollar tractor that nickel and dimes me with all the "amenities"

Lots to learn when I get it home but I love hearing things about them, seem alot like the versies I am familiar with, plenty of changes as time went on, looks like they were working hard to make them a great machine!
 
#10 ·
Probably my mistake, though there are serial number breaks on when they change and I thought the two went together
If the Uniballs wear to far they start to elongate the housing they sit in, easy to check upwards movement with a pry bar
 
#14 ·
HaHa! With some of my other projects it's probably going to get a nice long bath, some electrical updates, autosteer, a better seat and radio for starters. Get some new blood in its veins. Clean up the mice issues and if she treats me good she just might get a paint job to complete it.

My side dresser is first on my list and hoping I can get the rod weeder in the shop tomarrow to go under the torch and see if it can take shape!

I am hoping to haul some corn from where the tractor is at next week when the weather gets better and I'll get some pics of the old girl for ya'll
 
#15 ·
It should almost be mandatory on here now, if someone is doing a project, they have to keep us posted!! Even if it's just for sh!ts and giggles. I have a few things I've done I want to get put on here but just haven't got around to doing. Latest project was our electric auger got a hydraulic mover put on it, works nice. Some of my projects would be best suited for the jokes thread!
 
#16 ·
Sounds about like my conversion of an IH 490 disk into a vertical till machine project. Keep taking pictures of it and keep coming up with something else that needs to be done to it. Right now it needs to have more weight applied to make it cut through corn residue better when it gets damp, but don't know how much those main frame wheel spindles can hold either... Apparently they were the same on the larger 490's (Ours is about 25 foot) and also used on the 496. I highly doubt they were any stronger than anything off a 6 ton wagon gear so rather wary of them. Should also remove the caps that hold the pipe thingamabob for raising and lowering in place and tap them out for grease zerks, one lone fitting on top just doesn't look up to task.


Anyhow now that your thread has been slightly derailed, what year is it roughly? Seems to have been a fair number of the older green Steigers around here years ago but not as many now. Most are all CIH 9100 series and newer. I wonder when they added hydraulic coolers as standard equipment, as our 9150 has one. Ours also has Raba differentials and finals, but they are the inboard kind. (Bar axles, so tires are spaced to fit down a 30" row, would definitely work for planting or sidedressing someday if I get to a 24 row planter.) They aren't that bad to work on either as many things can be accessed by someone halfways flexible.
 
#18 ·
I have a ST310 iii with the S34 Clark axles, single planetaries where as the Raba are a double planetaries. If they are Raba they should be a 598 20/40 IIRC . the 20 means cw and 40 means ccw or vice versa . Have a ST225 bought new with 10000 hours with the smaller 598 10/30 diffs. Difference being 3x3 planetary whilst the 20/40 have a 3x5 planetary. The wheel seals were known to weep but there was an updated seal to help.
The Clark are a larger looking diff but I don't know if there any better. The later 1000 series had a 698 Raba diff
I would recommend these old tractors
 
#23 ·
Sorry didn't mean to hijack this thread, couldn't figure out how to add a picture while starting a new thread! This is a big day for me!! lol And I make fun of my dad! As far as Steiger goes, was there alot of them made, the green ones anyway? Have never seem many around here, like literally maybe 2. I think every man and his dog has had a Versy though.
 
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#24 ·
Sorry didn't mean to hijack this thread, couldn't figure out how to add a picture while starting a new thread! This is a big day for me!
Now ya done it! Your just screwed yourself now because you can't use that you don't know how to post pics as an excuse! LoL

Auger looks great by the way!

I think there was a good number out there but I think the dealer network was sporadic just as Versatile was and who ever got there first won the area. It seems not far after you cross the river here they were very popular on the eastern side of the state but they were manufactured there to. Also seems where ever I end up in Montana they usually dominate.

Always seemed guys had the same enthusiasm and love for steiger as guys did for Versatile.

I believe there was one model marketed as an IH and a few models marketed as Ford so they had respect from large manufacturers of the time
 
#32 ·
It makes you wonder where farm equipment would be if the 80's hadn't been so hard on them. It took out some pretty innovative companies - Steiger, Versatile, Massey ferguson to name a few. I know these names are still around, but not in the same context.
 
#38 ·
We had a ST-280 Cougar with the 3406 when I was a kid. I grew up driving that tractor and wish I had it back what a great tractor! That thing was a pulling beast, with a very roomy and quiet cab. The downsides to those tractors was the AC wasn't the best but it worked. The breaks sucked and even if working properly didn't work good but that was just something you knew ahead of time. The other weak point was the clutch, mainly because the tranny and clutch are made for a semi not a tractor. Good thing was as I recall is they were pretty easy to change. Biggest problem was the break wouldn't last long in all the dirt and dust so I remember pushing in the clutch for about 10 seconds then grinding it in to gear a little, wait, grind a little more, wait, and then she would go in on 3rd or 4th try. We bought it brand new, put 5000 hours on it, the neighbors bought it and put 7000 more hours on it and then it got sold to someone in the northern part of the state and is still running today to my knowledge. The original batteries alternator and starter weren't replaced till almost 8000 hours! One of the heads on the motor unfortunatlly got loose at about 11000 hours and dusted the motor so it had to be rebuilt but no other drivetrain problems to my knowledge. They were just good tough tractors that would pull anything especially with the big cat or cummins motor.
 
#41 · (Edited)
Hey SWF.
My two cents.
These old girls are tough tractors built in an industrial style for a long life.
Axles were indeed Raba and Eaton. There were two Eaton diffs... S-34 and S-40?
Tigers had heavier 594 Rabas.
I have an ST 325 panther with a 3406 @11000 hours and the diffs have been uprated to Rabas from a late model 9280. The 9280`s had two different Raba diffs during there time in manufacture. Mine being the latter.
The 9380 had 694 Raba diffs that had a pressurized and cooled oil option. I gather you had one of those.
The 3406 is a superb lugging engine that purrs like a kitten, but has a rather large appetite for oil, particularly when the hours get up there.
A good modification is to extend the grease zerks on the front of the steering rams with a 3 foot length of hose, so as to avoid getting eyes full of crud from looking up.
 
#42 ·
Hey SWF.
My two cents.
These old girls are tough tractors built in an industrial style for a long life.
Axles were indeed Raba and Eaton. There were two Eaton diffs... S-34 and S-40?
Tigers had uprated Rabas.
I have an ST 325 panther with a 3406 @11000 hours and the diffs have been uprated to Rabas from a late model 9280. The 9280`s had two different Raba diffs during there time in manufacture. Mine being the latter.
The 9380 had different Raba diffs again that included an oil cooling option. I gather you had one of those.
The 3406 is a superb lugging engine that purrs like a kitten, but has a rather large appetite for oil, particularly when the hours get up there.
A good modification is to extend the grease zerks on the front of the steering rams with a 3 foot length of hose, so as to avoid getting eyes full of crud from looking up.
The ST 325 series 3 would have the Raba axles would it not? I may be wrong, but I thought someone told me that all series 3, ST designations, were Raba equipped.

My series 1000 1360s, which I now have two, a CP and a KP, have Eaton s-40s, the CP having a cab controlled diff lock option. The KP has a mechanical locker and man does it tear stuff up on tight corners.
 
#43 ·
Mine has Raba's, I guess there was a few different options in them years though I guess.

Still waiting to hear back what the axle vin's are, they say no one has put enough clothes on to crawl under it. He thinks he still has the original book that he believes has all the information in it but no one's gotten back to me yet.

I am hoping to be there this coming week if it warms up, hauling corn in -10 degree weather on a 50 mile haul is about as far away from home as I want to get. The tractor is 280 miles
 
#45 ·
We had an ST 310 Panther III and had the Cummins which we had boosted to the 360 HP rating. I believe it was a 1983 designated model so late in that series and it was definitely the Raba axles, probably then as Lynas mentioned being the 20/30 series. At 4000 hours I was getting some pieces of brass coming out of one of the diffs ( can't recall which one now ) but all along from new there was a high brass/gold color to the oil coming from the planetaries and oil was changed every 500 hours so it was never neglected. We had it in at the dealer to check out what was going on with the axles as I believe a wheel seal was leaking and then they discovered that one of the diffs had its brass thrust washers fail behind the side gears within the carrier rendering it junk so had to have a new carrier installed in the one diff. I believe they did some swapping of planetary gears ( whatever was recommended to wear on the other sides of the gears ) . I got the impression this was a problem, the wearing of that brass material and although I will never know, it may be in part to blame because I was using the best oil possible with high GL5/6 rated hypoid gear specs although that is type of oil ( typical 80w90 hypoid gear oil ) that was called for. Apparently brass and that extreme pressure additive don't do the best as a unit according to the head mechanic at that shop and why this type of gear oil and some syncro units in transmissions are not compatible.

On another note of these axles, the breather setup was very prone to plugging with dirt on the rear axle as the dust from the front tires would add the dust to the rear area. That breather plugging would then pressure the axle and cause a wheel seal to leak. I found I had to turn out the breather stand pipes once a year on the rear axle and clean out the pipe, the breather itself and check that no dirt was building up below in the threads of the axle body.

Ours did not have the swinging two speed box.

The other problem was the on going issue of the master cylinder leaking internally and not being able to engage the clutch brake properly and putting in new kits, installing a new master cylinder and did replace the slave although it never was the problem, just recommended to change it. The brakes were a single disk and when still under warranty the pads or the pistons stuck and it overheated the brake caliper and totally wore out the pads so that was changed. Obviously we were not the only ones with these issues as I read above.
 
#47 ·
At 4000 hours I was getting some pieces of brass coming out of one of the diffs ( can't recall which one now ) but all along from new there was a high brass/gold color to the oil coming from the planetaries and then they discovered that one of the diffs had its brass thrust washers fail behind the side gears within the carrier rendering it junk so had to have a new carrier installed in the one diff. ( whatever was recommended to wear on the other sides of the gears ) . I got the impression this was a problem, the wearing of that brass material and although I will never know, it may be in part to blame because I was using the best oil possible with high GL5/6 rated hypoid gear specs although that is type of oil ( typical 80w90 hypoid gear oil ) that was called for. Apparently brass and that extreme pressure additive don't do the best as a unit according to the head mechanic at that shop and why this type of gear oil and some syncro units in transmissions are not compatible.

.
We had the brass thrust washers fail on our ST225 with-in 1000 hours of running LSD 90 oil. Had been running TF 10 hyd oil for 6000 hours prior with no trouble. Blamed an odd size tire on the front. Oil was always clean until the 7000 hour service when it went silver colour
 
#49 ·
Because our Panther came out as a 310 HP unit, it only had 20.8 x 38 bias duels so when we boosted it we had fluid put in the four inside tires, again what was done in that era and they specifically warned not to add fluid to the outside tires. I believe the tractor would have benefited from having had larger radial tires and rearranging any added weight to give a better balance. I believe the base tractor with no fluid added was about a 65% front to 35% rear and my impression back then is that they were depending on pulling solid hitch implements that would then transfer their weight where as floating hitch implements don't and end up leaving an off balanced unit and on radial tires very prone to tire hopping. Chance 2 may have some insight into that line of thinking. Having the fuel tank in the rear also lightened up the rear as one went, perhaps not a big deal as of course other tractors have that design. Anyway the gist I wanted to point out is to be aware of their nose heavy design and if radials are on the tractor and power hop is an issue, some re-balancing may be in order.

But as to basic component type tractor builds, yes sadly tractors have become a technological nightmare on wheels as the complexity is beyond what most can work on ( those aspects ) and sadly some dealerships are way over their heads ... but they know how to charge the pants off the farmers for service calls.
 
#52 ·
Well if it makes the nerds feel better this old dinosaur will get lots of now tec!

First things first, Outback autosteer!
Next, a brand new radio equipped with a USB jack and Sirius radio ready just because since I won't be making payments on a 350 hp tractor I will feel fine making payments on a radio station!
We will have to see what the A/C system is biult like, if it's poor I will make it better
And cannot forget all the lights will be replaced with LED

I have been told the seat is out of an NH combine and is air ride!
 
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