What would you buy for $3000

[Thomas]

The post hole digger kinda narrow the vintage tractor picking...other than that..Ford 8n or a Farmall A sounds like in the price range.

There alot of attachments..plows,harrows,mowers etc.. setting idle now a days and should beable to pick up cheap.

Maybe if you visit a auction or dealer trade in lot you can get a better idea.

 

[s1120]

A Farmall A can run a posthole digger? I had discounted the old Farmalls becouse I thought they would not use modern attachments. I do like them though. I grew up with an old "C" that my dad had. We sold it right before he died, about a year before I got my land.

Mostly I have been thinking old Fords, and Fergasons, but I have also been hearing a lot of good things about the olivers also. Any thing else good out there? JD, Case,etc? There seems to be a hole in the info from the old vintage stuff, to the new compact tractors.

 

[Egon]

Alis Chalmers B hasn't been mentioned.

Egon

 

[Will_C]

Paul; I think there is many fine old tractors out there, in all thr clasic makes. I think your limiting factor will be the 3 pt. hitch. Woods makes belly mowers for vintage tractors, and there is the tow behind bush hog route, but I'm not sure about any post hole diggers that don't use the three pt. hitch.
If you are flexible on that 3000 dollar limit, you should be able to start to consider Case, Jd, Ford, etc., from the 1960's vintage. Most of those tractors will have PTO and three point hitches.
Will

 

[MJB]

In older tractors you can likely buy a larger tractor for less money than one of the small ones listed earlier like the Farmall As or Ford 8Ns. I bought my Case DC for $350 including tire chains. I bought it from an auto mechanic who could not get it to start. I found the choke butterfly was off center in the carb which would not allow the choke to close enough to allow the tractor to start. I ended up putting a few hundred dollars into it for a valve job, new gaskets, and new front tires and now it runs like a top. It has a standard three point hitch and independent live PTO and live hydraulics (a lot of new Kubotas still can't make that claim/w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif). In the Case tractors anything built after about 1951-52 should have a 3ph and hydraulics. There certainly are not as many Cases around as many other brands, but they built a quality product as good as any and better than most. Hope this helps.

 

[s1120]

<font color=red>I bought my Case DC for $350 including tire chains. It bought </font color=red>

THATS the kind of deal I would like to find./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif/w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif But they are few and far between./w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif

 

[MJB]

I should clarify my last post some. Case cultivator tractors (DC, SC, VAC, and on into the number series) built after about 1951-52 should have a three point hitch. Case called it an "Eagle hitch" and the lower links have latch type couplers alot like the ones you see on some modern quick hitches. Here is a shot of the back of my DC showing the hitch setup.

 

[MJB]

Oops, forgot the picture.

 

[s1120]

Nice. Looks like a nice size. Not to big, not to small. How much HP does it have?

 

[MJB]

The later DCs with the gasoline manifold and high compression head were rated around 40 PTO horsepower. At the time most tractors were rated by how many plows they could pull. The DC was sold as a 2-3-4 plow tractor. In heavy soil it could only handle 2 bottoms, 3 in average soil, and 4 under ideal conditions. The engine is 260 CID and the governor is set to 1200 RPM full blast. The tractor weighs about 5000 lbs dry. Lots of cast iron in that old girl./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif