Re: Farmall\'s are coming back!!!
Robert_in_NY:
<font color="blue">The original Fordsons were not Compacts. </font>
Compacts? Kinda like "full-size", etc. in describing automobiles. Changes over time. Like a "dollar". Ha. Anyway, I prefer reality, i.e. pounds, cubic inch displacement and so on. My old Farmall was 3,000 lbs more or less and about 2 liter displacement. So is my new TC40. I don't have the figures on the Fordson in front of me, but I suspect it was in that ball park. The 9n was a tad lighter (around 2,500 if memory serves). So . . . a manufacturer starts with so many pounds of steel, rubber, etc. and turns out a product. You can call it what you want. You can use it for what you want. When I use the word "compact" I am referring to something in that size range.
<font color="blue">They were regular ag tractors for their time. </font>
Again, you can use it for what you want. Would you call a TC35D tractor a "lawn mower" because that's what the owner did with it? Would you call a tractor a "backhoe" because that's all it was used for? Same with "ag tractor". By the way, some "compact" tractor manuals still rate their tractor as a 2-14 plowing tractor-the KUB 3710 manual certainly does. By the way, my old Farmall was also rated as a 2-14 tractor. How about that. Most current 3,000 pound tractors aren't used for "ag" pruposes. True enough. But you could certainly do so, except they wouldn't be so hot for cultivation-if you needed that. Which was my point about the "farmall", general purpose design. Functionally, the newer "compacts" would do just as good a job (probably much better) on a small farm (80 acres?) as the old 9n and certainly better than the Fordsons. One of the great things about the smaller tractors (3000 lb range M/L) is their flexibility. Heavy enough to get real work done, light enough to be easily transported and economical to run. The ulitmate power tool-I seem to recall seeing somewhere. True enough.
JEH
PS Your comment about climbing on and off (in another post) right on. Ugh. Was one thing I used to really dislike about using my old Farmall. Guess your old JD M is as bad as the IHC Farmall was.