bertsmobile
New member
Now I will muddy the waters a lot.
Do you really need a brand new tractor. You can get a lot of old tractors + impliments for $ 18,000 and still have enough left over for a couple drinks.
The landlord is on 1000 acres of undulating pasture with 4 orchard lots, two creeks & a river
He uses 5 tractors, 4 inters & 1 oliver
The Inters are all 500 series, 554 , 545 & 544 which from memory are all 20 Hp ( look them up in vintage tractor) around 1960 to 1976
The Oliver is the draught tractor and is 100 Hp but dates for 1962. and cost more in freight than purchase price.
All the tractors + impliments would have been lucky to go over $ 10,000
But if you are buying your tractor as a shinny toy to be admired by all viewers and a means of elevating your self esteem in the eyes of others ignore the rest of this post.
If you want to do your work quickly easly and very cheaply, read on.
Old mechanical injected deisel tractors will go forever, have no complicated electronics so the engine will not stop dead because you are 10 hours over the service limit or the set belt sensor has failed etc, etc, etc.
Each one is set up with an impliment that he uses regularly and he doubles up on a few.
Also if we are doig a job that did nt get finished in one session, that tractor can stay set up or even on site till we finish the job, saves hours of impliment swapping, pinching fingers and going crazy trying to find where that lynch pin vanished to.
So the tractor with the slasher on it also had a front blade so on the way to or from slashing he can grade the road This tractor also has a 20 gal tank with electric sprayer so he can spray the fence line with herbicide while he is mowing ( 3 jobs done almost simultaneously ).
Another has a PTO driven high pressure sprayer for insectcide spraying the orchard and the same tractor has a 5Hp fire pump also connected to the same tank for grass fires.
We only use "safe" organic sprays so a dilute concentration on a fire is no problems and this one has fork tynes on the front hydraulics so we can pick up a second 2 ton water tank if needed.
Currently the "spare" has a bucket on the front, although it is not particularly usefull as there is not enough tilt on the bucket to carry a full bucket very far over rough ground but right now it is sitting in the river paddock with the log splitter on the back as we are clearing up about 40 Ton of windfall timber. Usually this one has the back hoe on the back as it has the biggest hydraulic pump.
He did pay a bit more for the back hoe as it was bought as a stand alone separate implement.
Another usually as the boom sprayer with herbicide for specific weeds so the herbacide & insecticide never get mixed up and you don;t have to worry about that last gallon of formula left in the bottom of the tank. It has no front hydraulics so it gets used for the rippers ( one deep single tyne , one shallow 2 tyne & a pipe layer ) , post hole digger & cement mixer.
If you live near an urban frindge thn there will be hundreds of old tractors going for a song as the 80 year old real farmers sell out the the 40 year old hobby farmers.
Most will come with a host of implements that have not been used since they upgraded to a large more modern unit.
Being old and already having a "rustic" patina there is no problems about having them sitting out in the weather so no burning urgency to build a machinery shed for them and no tears when the boulder / branch / cow puts a dent in the guard or knocks off a great swathe of paint.
Being "old school" maintenance is very simple and there are no unique bearings or other parts, everything that is not available can be fabed up at minimal cost by blokes like me with nothing more than high school metal shop training on old lathe.
Do you really need a brand new tractor. You can get a lot of old tractors + impliments for $ 18,000 and still have enough left over for a couple drinks.
The landlord is on 1000 acres of undulating pasture with 4 orchard lots, two creeks & a river
He uses 5 tractors, 4 inters & 1 oliver
The Inters are all 500 series, 554 , 545 & 544 which from memory are all 20 Hp ( look them up in vintage tractor) around 1960 to 1976
The Oliver is the draught tractor and is 100 Hp but dates for 1962. and cost more in freight than purchase price.
All the tractors + impliments would have been lucky to go over $ 10,000
But if you are buying your tractor as a shinny toy to be admired by all viewers and a means of elevating your self esteem in the eyes of others ignore the rest of this post.
If you want to do your work quickly easly and very cheaply, read on.
Old mechanical injected deisel tractors will go forever, have no complicated electronics so the engine will not stop dead because you are 10 hours over the service limit or the set belt sensor has failed etc, etc, etc.
Each one is set up with an impliment that he uses regularly and he doubles up on a few.
Also if we are doig a job that did nt get finished in one session, that tractor can stay set up or even on site till we finish the job, saves hours of impliment swapping, pinching fingers and going crazy trying to find where that lynch pin vanished to.
So the tractor with the slasher on it also had a front blade so on the way to or from slashing he can grade the road This tractor also has a 20 gal tank with electric sprayer so he can spray the fence line with herbicide while he is mowing ( 3 jobs done almost simultaneously ).
Another has a PTO driven high pressure sprayer for insectcide spraying the orchard and the same tractor has a 5Hp fire pump also connected to the same tank for grass fires.
We only use "safe" organic sprays so a dilute concentration on a fire is no problems and this one has fork tynes on the front hydraulics so we can pick up a second 2 ton water tank if needed.
Currently the "spare" has a bucket on the front, although it is not particularly usefull as there is not enough tilt on the bucket to carry a full bucket very far over rough ground but right now it is sitting in the river paddock with the log splitter on the back as we are clearing up about 40 Ton of windfall timber. Usually this one has the back hoe on the back as it has the biggest hydraulic pump.
He did pay a bit more for the back hoe as it was bought as a stand alone separate implement.
Another usually as the boom sprayer with herbicide for specific weeds so the herbacide & insecticide never get mixed up and you don;t have to worry about that last gallon of formula left in the bottom of the tank. It has no front hydraulics so it gets used for the rippers ( one deep single tyne , one shallow 2 tyne & a pipe layer ) , post hole digger & cement mixer.
If you live near an urban frindge thn there will be hundreds of old tractors going for a song as the 80 year old real farmers sell out the the 40 year old hobby farmers.
Most will come with a host of implements that have not been used since they upgraded to a large more modern unit.
Being old and already having a "rustic" patina there is no problems about having them sitting out in the weather so no burning urgency to build a machinery shed for them and no tears when the boulder / branch / cow puts a dent in the guard or knocks off a great swathe of paint.
Being "old school" maintenance is very simple and there are no unique bearings or other parts, everything that is not available can be fabed up at minimal cost by blokes like me with nothing more than high school metal shop training on old lathe.