185 right hand step

I have never seen a factory one. Seems like a good way to get hurt!

TedN wrote: I can't answer for a 185 but I have two 190XTs with that step, a seriesI and a seriesIII. Ted

This one is different than the 190 step. Very similar but still different.

should never get on and off any equipment on the right side     i about droped a load getting on my fork lift on the right side and bumped the tilt lever    a few months ago  that kept me reminded to do things the right way ,   that goes right along being in the seat when you start somthing in case sothing goes wrong at least you wont get hurt or run over

Why is it dangerous as long as you're in neutral?

Go waaay back to 1957 with the early D-14 and D-17 tractors. Neither of them had a "thumb guard" around the top of the Power Director clutch. I think by 1959 sometime, the hand lever was changed to have that guard so when someone mounted from the right side and used the hand lever to pull themselves up and on the tractor, they didn't push down on the button (accidentally) and pull it into high range and run over themselves. A 180 or 185 only has a "detent" ball to hold it in the neutral position. One can easily bump the lever and if the transmission happens to be in gear (which it shouldn't be) the lever will probably get pulled into high range. If you notice in that picture, the hood handle is mounted vertically, which AC never did. The left side hood handle is horizontal and there is a hole in the hood for that. Not so on the right side. Again, AC never offered such a feature for those two tractors. All homemade or some small short-line company made and sold some at a great safety risk. It also appears that the corner bracket is made of diamond-plate material, which if AC did manufacture it, wouldn't have been what they would have made it out of.

Edited by DrAllis - 17 Aug 2026 at 7:52am

I suppose I can see that. I guess I grew up on other colors and you HAD to put in in neutral. My tractors alwasy creep so much wiht the hand clutch or power director in neutral that it never occurred to me to leave that in neutral. If I did that it would always run me over right or left side.

Gary Burnett wrote: I'd never trust the PD in neutral on any AC tractor I've owned to get off and on the tractor,just drop the transmission in neutral and be sure.

X2

Whats really odd is for some strange reason Allis put right side doors on its last tractor introduction the 8000 series.

One thing about people commenting about getting on a tractor on the left side was if you were still using an All crop combine and you went from a WD series to a D series and 100 series The combine was on the left, so you were walking in standing grain. When everything was running on the right-side mounting on the left became normal. The exception is running a silo blower. You pull up with the wagon to the right side of the blower tractor and want to hop on from the right to turn the blower on. I know about a fatality where a guy was mounting or dismounting a red tractor on a manure pump and grabbed or caught the wrong lever.

One more time: Allis-Chalmers Farm Equipment Division NEVER offered or MADE any right hand steps for a 180/185 tractor. Did short line companies or private businesses make any?? ..YUP, but not Allis-Chalmers !!

We're getting off-topic here and I apologize for that, but I just shudder when I see somebody standing on the step of a moving tractor (often kids) and I seem to see this most often at tractor shows.