Farmall Cub-Still a Good Small Farm Tractor?

[wolc123]

I had a cub for about 15 years and was not at all impressed with it. My grandad's old John Deere M was much better for cultivating corn one row at a time. Just sight down the hood ridge, hold your head up, and go at high speed. With the "cultivision" cub, the speed was way slower (only 10 hp vs about 20 on the M), head down and stiff neck. I hated it.

Now I use a two row 3 point Dearborn cultivator behind my Ford 8n, which is about 3 times faster than the cub and twice as fast as the JD M. The cub was also tough on throw out bearings, unless you greased it regularly. Thank God and craigslist that it's gone. I will never buy another red tractor.

 

[k0ua]

I don't know about the Cub, but our Super A drank gasoline like it owned an oil refinery. A modern diesel tractor can work hard all day on a fill up. When we were plowing the garden with the Super A, it was a run to the fuel station every couple of hours. I have never seen such a small engine drink so much fuel. Our family had one for many years, and was my "first tractor" when I was big enough to reach the pedals. here is a picture of me as a very small boy with my sister on the Super A when it was still pretty new. This was taken in 1956

 

[RjCorazza]

Cool picture! I love the old Farmall tractors.

 

[California]

Maybe I'm speaking out of turn here ...

I asked my neighbor who farms 200 acres with 20+ tractors for advice on a tractor and he suggested a Cub for the lightweight hobby-farmer tasks he expected I would do - till garden, mow weeds etc. Instead I bought a then-20-year-year-old 24 HP Yanmar diesel, with specs similar to an 8N. $4k, with loader. I'm glad I did. It does far more than the Cub could, and it takes standard 3-point implements. I've since moved down to a similar age 18HP Yanmar with power steering and Powershift as my primary tractor. Photo 1 Photo 2 That one was $3,500 including loader and loader forks, while the larger one is now dedicated to a 3 point backhoe 90% of the time.

In my opinion (debatable!) Cubs today belong in parades. And either of these diesel tractors, each with a loader, is more useful overall than a 10hp Cub and not much more expensive.

 

[wolc123]

For gardens of 1/4:acre or less, I would consider a cub. For anything more, there are nearly an infinite number of better choices.

I hated the offset "cultivision" for cultivating, but it wasn't bad for some other uses. I used mine for plowing light snowfalls. Snowplowing is a job I find rather enjoyable, and the cub let me stretch that job out a lot longer than if I used my larger, 4wd tractor. When I was pressed for time after work on weekdays I used the bigger tractor, but I spent many pleasurable weekend hours plowing snow with that old cub.

With loaded rear R1 tires, it got decent traction without chains and worked suprisingly well with a front plow. I didnt care to much for the factory snow plow , because switching it out with the cultivators took too much time and was not an easy task.

I made a plow for it, from an old one off a Wheel horse garden tractor, that was a lot easier to install. I welded some steel plate on both sides of that blade to make it wider, and a couple pieces of 2 inch pipe to the back of the frame. It took me about 5 minutes to install with two bolts attached in the back and a chain wrapped below the frame and attached to the mid cultivator holders to lift.

That little 4 cylinder gas engine always started great, with no need for a block heater, no matter how cold it got. I dont dare try to start my diesel in the winter without at least 30 minutes with the block heater on. I have a switch for that in the house so it's no big deal. I usually call my wife to turn that on before I leave work, so it is warm and ready when I get home.

 

[Sonny580]

I have an A and a SA and NEITHER of them use much gas----They are a much better tractor than the cubs and everything is standard on them.

 

[Fuddy1952]

I guess it's like which is better, a Dewalt battery drill or a brace and bit drill.
Of course the Dewalt is faster and better, but they both drill a hole.
I grew up using a Cub and it got all we needed to do on 30 acres. Certainly was a step up from using a mule 50 years prior.
Our neighbor had 2500 acres, most of it left as forest, but he lived in a cabin, no electricity or tractor. He had some draft horses and a couple of oxen he used to plow with for corn, hay, a garden.

 

[the old grind]

"A backache was good enough for my Grandfather, it's good enough for me." (.. holding a sickle, declining a scythe ..)

 

[Ontheback9]

Well, I spend my days sitting behind a desk at the courthouse, so before I croaked I went and bought an old house that sits on four acres. After restoring the house, I cleared about three acres of 30' high weeds, scrub pines and plants with two inch thorns I never saw before. After the woods (more like a jungle with a handful of trees) were cleared, I built a three-rail farm fence around two acres. Having no real tools for the job, I dug post holes with a clam-shell post hole digger (my blisters grew bigger than my fingers) and cut the rails with a chain saw I found at a Goodwill shop. The fence tooks months to build and a long time to paint black. We used my JD rider mower to cut the field down to about 4' high growth, which almost finished off the mower since it's not built for that sort of work. I wasn't either! My wife drove the mower while talking to her friends or watching TV on her cell phone while I walked ahead, slashing whatever was in the way with the old chain saw, sickle, machete and can of gas so I could burn out whatever I couldn't hack away. That process took about four months in 90 degree weather. It almost killed me as well as the JD. At that point I knew I needed a real tractor, so after reading about tractors for a few weeks (while the fields grew back to a foot high) I became fascinated by the old Farmalls. I found a retiring farmer selling off his equipment about 200 miles away and went and bought his 1960 Farmall Cub. He immediately knew I knew nothing about tractors when I asked for the key and where the brakes were. Worse, it took me about 15 minutes to figure out how to climb onto the deck where the metal pan seat was another 18' higher on top of some sort of spring. When he quit laughing at me, he showed me how to start the thing, how to operate the PTO, the hydraulics, and how to slide implements into the "fast hitch" (which with me doing it wasn't so fast). Of course, I took no notes and didn't remember anything he told me. He had so much fun goofing on me that after a while he invited his friends over and they all sat on lawn chairs drinking lemonade while laughing at me too. They said it beat watching TV. He had so much fun that he threw in a Mott flail mower, a plow, a disc, a cultivator, and a harrow (whatever that's for.) I've taken the tractor apart, put it back together (well most of it since I have a box of bolts and bent metal pieces I never found a place for), repainted it (Harvester Red), restored the old decals, and it looks like new. Problem is, I screwed up rewiring the harness I bought and it doesn't start. I really love this amazing machine but I'm backing to mowing two acres with my trusty JD. "Farming" is really fun but I'm glad I have a day job.

 

[Brendanspapa]

Well, I spend my days sitting behind a desk at the courthouse, so before I croaked I went and bought an old house that sits on four acres. After restoring the house, I cleared about three acres of 30' high weeds, scrub pines and plants with two inch thorns I never saw before. After the woods (more like a jungle with a handful of trees) were cleared, I built a three-rail farm fence around two acres. Having no real tools for the job, I dug post holes with a clam-shell post hole digger (my blisters grew bigger than my fingers) and cut the rails with a chain saw I found at a Goodwill shop. The fence tooks months to build and a long time to paint black. We used my JD rider mower to cut the field down to about 4' high growth, which almost finished off the mower since it's not built for that sort of work. I wasn't either! My wife drove the mower while talking to her friends or watching TV on her cell phone while I walked ahead, slashing whatever was in the way with the old chain saw, sickle, machete and can of gas so I could burn out whatever I couldn't hack away. That process took about four months in 90 degree weather. It almost killed me as well as the JD. At that point I knew I needed a real tractor, so after reading about tractors for a few weeks (while the fields grew back to a foot high) I became fascinated by the old Farmalls. I found a retiring farmer selling off his equipment about 200 miles away and went and bought his 1960 Farmall Cub. He immediately knew I knew nothing about tractors when I asked for the key and where the brakes were. Worse, it took me about 15 minutes to figure out how to climb onto the deck where the metal pan seat was another 18' higher on top of some sort of spring. When he quit laughing at me, he showed me how to start the thing, how to operate the PTO, the hydraulics, and how to slide implements into the "fast hitch" (which with me doing it wasn't so fast). Of course, I took no notes and didn't remember anything he told me. He had so much fun goofing on me that after a while he invited his friends over and they all sat on lawn chairs drinking lemonade while laughing at me too. They said it beat watching TV. He had so much fun that he threw in a Mott flail mower, a plow, a disc, a cultivator, and a harrow (whatever that's for.) I've taken the tractor apart, put it back together (well most of it since I have a box of bolts and bent metal pieces I never found a place for), repainted it (Harvester Red), restored the old decals, and it looks like new. Problem is, I screwed up rewiring the harness I bought and it doesn't start. I really love this amazing machine but I'm backing to mowing two acres with my trusty JD. "Farming" is really fun but I'm glad I have a day job.

The Cub is a tough durable machine. It’s perfect if you have a lot of time to work with it, and don’t have any other hobbies, obligations, or passions. If not, get a modern tractor that is more powerful, with available sources of good attachments, as well as service and repair parts.
It’s your choice.