I have been lurking a while, and finally joined. Lots of great information on this forum. I have searched to try to get some rough pricing, but have quite a range I feel it could be in. I have the opportunity to purchase a 1988 Ford 1920 4wd tractor with 12x12 shuttle shift that has 2050 hours on it. I think a good part of those hours were very hard hours with very little maintenance. I know this because I have been working on the tractor for a friend. Here is what I know: the original owner bought it brand new and probably used it on and off themselves and took decent care of it. At some point it became the second tractor and other employees began using/abusing it. It probably had very little maintenance, and people no doubt used it hard without caring. A few years ago the original owner sold it to a friend of mine and my friend hired me to do a lot of work to it to fix it up, so I know how rough it was when he bought it. For example the FEL has probably been overloaded many times as one of the FEL pivot brackets that support the load had been extensively re-welded before I worked on it, and then I found that the other bracket needed to be re-welded as well, which I fixed.
It has a 7108 FEL that I replaced about half the hoses on and put a brand new $1000 bucket on that has a reversible cutting edge. The bucket pins are long gone, but appropriate size bolts are in there acting as pins. It also has a 6' wide Gannon box blade with hydraulic tilt, angle, and scarifier bar with brand new scarifiers on it. The Gannon is really worn down though, they never flipped the cutting blade and just kept using the box and have actually worn away about 1" of steel off the bottom of the Gannon box itself. It is going to require some welding work to get it right again at this point.
The rear tires only have about 10-20% left, and the front tires need replaced now. It does have rear wheel weights. It has a ROPS. A bracket that bolts around the rear axle has a crack in it that needs welded, I think it is where the ROPS mounts. The sheet metal is rough, but all there. It has the Sims full metal cab and windshield, but the doors and back enclosure are gone. I know the headlights don't work, the flashers don't work, and the neutral safety switch doesn't work. At around 20 F degrees the 3 pt. goes up VERY slowly the first few times. There is a hydraulic leak between the main cases underneath. The steering ram leaks pretty good. One ram on the FEL leaks pretty good. At least one front wheel seal may be bad. The tube that encases the drive shaft is damaged.
The engine starts right up with no issue every time. I have adjusted the clutch pedal and brake pedal freeplay and both seem to work fine. I have no idea how to tell how much life would be left in the clutch though. All the hydraulics work good and the FEL seems to move at a decent rate with throttle. The rear scarifier bar will not stay up for more then a few minutes though without hitting the lever again as it bleeds down pretty quickly. All gears and ranges work fine. The 4wd works fine. The PTO spins, although we have not had anything hooked up to it. The engine seems to run good despite its perceived abuse.
I would be using it for general dirt/gravel/firewood hauling with the FEL, light grading with the box blade, snow plowing my driveway, hauling logs out of the woods, and bush hogging a field.
He is going to be selling it with a flatbed trailer that is probably worth about $1,500 around here. But I would like some advice on what you guys think this tractor is worth. He is thinking of trying to get $8,500 for the tractor, attachments, and trailer all together. Do you think this is reasonable considering the history of the tractor and what it needs? Thanks in advance.