This 8n now has just over 2000 hours on it. It was my first tractor purchase. I bought it from the widow of the original owner, when it had 1200 hours on it. It has always been stored inside and still wears it's original paint. I believe that the rear tires and rims were original.
Its first home was directly across the street from the house where I grew up. I remember my dad borrowing it a few times to plow our little garden when I was a kid. He used grandpa's John Deere model M, of about the same era, to disk and cultivate.
Grandpa's old M was hammered from years of hard farm use , while the 8n was still in near showroom condition, having only worked on our elderly neighbors small garden.
When he passed away in the late 1980's I bought it for $ 1200, and have used it for a little bit of spring plowing ever since. Last year I noted that the right rear rim was badly corroded around the stem. I lowered the pressure to about 10 psi and got another year out of it.
It finally failed and leaked down, just after I finished my spring plowing this year. I had to use my modern John Deere, 4wd, diesel tractor to finish planting corn, a task I much prefer the old Ford for. It dont have that bulky loader frame and joystick blocking access to the right side, and the platform is much lower and easier to mount and dismount when checking fertilizer and seed in the planter.
I also prefer the old Ford for plowing, because it has hydraulic draft control which makes it easier to maintain uniform plow depth.
Changing the old rim was not that difficult, although I did have a few tough challenges to overcome. I needed a long pipe on the handle of a 3/4" breaker bar for leverage to break loose the (6) 5/8" fine thread carriage bolts that held the center section on the rim. I was able to salvage and reuse only (2) of those. I replaced the others with standard coarse thread nuts and bolts of the same length.
My little floor jack didn't have enough power to break the bread with a plain rectangular wood block and chain. Trimming that block with a chainsaw, to match the rim curve, allowed me to put the little jack force right where it was needed to get the job done.
One final challenge was getting the old tire off the back side of the old rim. I finally succeeded by sticking a long crowbar all the way across, and beating it off with the flat side of a splitting maul.
I did not save the liquid calcium chloride ballast because that is what caused my corrosion issues and j didnt want to hurt the tractors value to whoever gets it next by putting it back in. I will also get rid of that in the other side when I get around to changing that one.
I am guessing that it wont work as well for plowing without the ballast in the tires. I guess will find out about that next spring.
Its first home was directly across the street from the house where I grew up. I remember my dad borrowing it a few times to plow our little garden when I was a kid. He used grandpa's John Deere model M, of about the same era, to disk and cultivate.
Grandpa's old M was hammered from years of hard farm use , while the 8n was still in near showroom condition, having only worked on our elderly neighbors small garden.
When he passed away in the late 1980's I bought it for $ 1200, and have used it for a little bit of spring plowing ever since. Last year I noted that the right rear rim was badly corroded around the stem. I lowered the pressure to about 10 psi and got another year out of it.
It finally failed and leaked down, just after I finished my spring plowing this year. I had to use my modern John Deere, 4wd, diesel tractor to finish planting corn, a task I much prefer the old Ford for. It dont have that bulky loader frame and joystick blocking access to the right side, and the platform is much lower and easier to mount and dismount when checking fertilizer and seed in the planter.
I also prefer the old Ford for plowing, because it has hydraulic draft control which makes it easier to maintain uniform plow depth.
Changing the old rim was not that difficult, although I did have a few tough challenges to overcome. I needed a long pipe on the handle of a 3/4" breaker bar for leverage to break loose the (6) 5/8" fine thread carriage bolts that held the center section on the rim. I was able to salvage and reuse only (2) of those. I replaced the others with standard coarse thread nuts and bolts of the same length.
My little floor jack didn't have enough power to break the bread with a plain rectangular wood block and chain. Trimming that block with a chainsaw, to match the rim curve, allowed me to put the little jack force right where it was needed to get the job done.
One final challenge was getting the old tire off the back side of the old rim. I finally succeeded by sticking a long crowbar all the way across, and beating it off with the flat side of a splitting maul.
I did not save the liquid calcium chloride ballast because that is what caused my corrosion issues and j didnt want to hurt the tractors value to whoever gets it next by putting it back in. I will also get rid of that in the other side when I get around to changing that one.
I am guessing that it wont work as well for plowing without the ballast in the tires. I guess will find out about that next spring.
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