Dithering over which little old tractor

[andy cobb]

On 12/01/2021 at 00:24, spuddog0507 said:

You cant have to much power, there is a few angles of how to look at this with old school kit,

1,, they are not to expensive to by now, for your budget you would get something that is fairly decent,

2,, this age of machine was built when the UK was booming in engineering and most things back then tended to be made out of proper steel and not tin foil, most machines of the 50s/60s/70s tended to be vastly over engineered and thats why they are still about and in use,

3,, most machines of this era tended to be very simple and in my book simplicity is reliabilety, and with them being very simple it makes repairs very easy to do and parts do seem to be very cheap,

4,, electrics on the older machines tended to be very very basic as well and dont tend to give any trouble,

5,, what ever money you spend today on a older machine will be a wise move as it gives you a machine to work with and that machine will be going up in value as you use it so its a win win situation,

i have a old 1970 David brown 780 that works round the yard, it had loader on front and fork lift on the rear only let me down once in 11 year when some arsehole ran it out of diesel but back up and running in about 10 mins, all ways starts even in the coldest weather and when the beast from the east came lad in yard next door has 4 fast tacks a few loadalls and a old Bonnser side loader, he managed to get one load all going and the bonnser was the only one that started on its own, my 780 started ok, its nothing fancy but it does the job it was bought for and for me its worth its weight in gold to me as it really makes things very easy for me,

The other tractor i have is a 1990 Kubota l3250 which is of simular size to a grey fergi but the Kubota has a bit more going for it, again it is very simple on the mechanicial side, its 40hp, has 4WD, very manoverable in tight woodland, pulls very well, has a shuttle gearbox which makes life very easy in a woodland, it has a full cab with all glass, it has a cab heater and best of all it has a wireless fitted that works, all in all for me the Kubota wins hands down but that is for what i am doing with it,

Going back Fordsons where the first choice by many people to work in forestry the old green standard fordson then the E27N then the Majors and then later the countys which are still being used by many today, this should tell us something that the Fordsons/fords stood up to the abuse a lot better than many other makes did, 

 

 

 

Is that the kubota that Chris Shepard used to have?

[Dan Maynard]

I assume you mean the clutch plate has stuck itself to the flywheel. Two ways to fix it, first is wedge the clutch pedal down with a weight or piece of wood and leave it a week. With a bit of luck it will free itself.
Second way is to hold the clutch down and just drive it around for a while, putting a bit of a strain on it if you can by driving it up a hill (be careful buggering about on hills!). They usually give after a while and often with quite a bang.

Yes, clutch plate stuck on. Sadly it's been parked up a few years so I suspect holding the pedal down may not work but maybe I could borrow a field from someone to drive it around in.

Just think it would be really handy for moving ibcs with some forks on the back.

[Ferguson system]

3 minutes ago, Dan Maynard said:

Yes, clutch plate stuck on. Sadly it's been parked up a few years so I suspect holding the pedal down may not work but maybe I could borrow a field from someone to drive it around in.

Just think it would be really handy for moving ibcs with some forks on the back.

Holding down the clutch pedal, and spraying brake cleaner up through the drain hole underneath the clutch sometimes work.

[difflock]

11 hours ago, Mr. Ed said:

What I really wanted (but it was a long way away and I couldn’t view it) was a real value for money outlier - a Universal 4wd for about the same money. Abandoned Italian tooling, built in Romania. Apparently impossible to kill. But we went mainstream - easy parts and easy fixing. 

 

That would also have been a very sound pick.

I grew up with a 540 Universal, and a Fiat 640, both were indestructable.

Though that Duncan cab was a proper bastard on the unwary/uneducated elbows!

[spuddog0507]

48 minutes ago, andy cobb said:

Is that the kubota that Chris Shepard used to have?

No, not with out he owned a golf course up above Newcastle ? one owner before me and that was the golf course it came off and i cant remember the name of it,

[Peasgood]

2 hours ago, Dan Maynard said:

Sadly it's been parked up a few years so I suspect holding the pedal down may not work

Nothing to lose then. It has worked for a lot of people in similar circumstances. 👍

[htb]

Remember doing it with a Mk2 Jag. Started it up warmed it up. Lifted it up on trolley jack, into gear, mate lowered jack and away you go, took a good few miles of driving to free it off. 

[openspaceman]

26 minutes ago, htb said:

Remember doing it with a Mk2 Jag. Started it up warmed it up. Lifted it up on trolley jack, into gear, mate lowered jack and away you go, took a good few miles of driving to free it off. 

With old land rovers I managed by jacking one wheel up and chocking the rest, put it in fourth with clutch held down and rev it up and down. The overrun is aggressive as the inertia of the wheel exerts more torque.

 

Back in the day I didn't extract in the winter so the tractor would sometime seize the driven plate to the flywheel. I'd start it up and warm it, throttle down and snick it into 3 low and trundle up the field revving and slowing and stamping on the brakes till it freed with a bang.

[Mr. Ed]

I can’t contribute much to this clutch-bag of mechanical heroics except to find one side of the handbrake of the Suzuki jeep (all 4wd vehicles here are indiscriminately jeeps) seized on. Hitting it hard on the outside did the job, but not before I’d managed to move quite a long way sideways. 

[dumper]

Just a thought, a man can never have too many tractors or chainsaws. push  the boat out and buy two it’s great to have a spare!!!Grammar

Edited January 14, 2021 by dumper