Buying Advice Help me find a tractor to manage my 40 wooded acres

   / Help me find a tractor to manage my 40 wooded acres #161  
Look for evidence it has been greased regularly (loader pins especially). That means there will be gobs of grease on the pins and zerks, or evidence that gobs of grease have been cleaned. If the pins are grease-free but dry/dirty/dusty, it hasn't been greased in a while.
 
   / Help me find a tractor to manage my 40 wooded acres #163  
Likely too late for your inspection today, but as was said, check for leaks, look for grease in places where it should have been regularly greased (grease zerk = grease), check fluid levels and make sure they don't look filthy. Diesel engines turn oil black fairly quickly, but it shouldn't be gunky. Drive it, try the PTO to make sure it at least spins, and if you can't try digging into a pile of dirt or gravel, at least slowly curl the bucket and use the loader to raise the front of the tractor up. Working hydraulics will do that without issue. Raise and lower the 3 point hitch to make sure that's working. There should be a drawbar. As mentioned, check for bent loader parts, and make sure the SSQA levers are working as intended. Based on the photos, everything looks just fine...

Hopefully, the oil filter will have been changed with the oil at 50 hours then every 100 hours (or, I think so for this tractor), and the change date/hours will have be written on it- one way to tell if maintenance was performed. Not sure, but maybe the hydraulic filters (two) have been changed, although the fluid is good for 400 hours (filters get changed earlier, to remove any particles from manufacture or initial wear). The operator's manual was shown in one of the photos, so a few minutes reading that should give you an idea about what service was to have been performed.

Spend some time looking over the instrument panel and the information it shows (which is a lot more than economy tractors), and check out the auto-throttle operation if you can.
 
   / Help me find a tractor to manage my 40 wooded acres
  • Thread Starter
#164  
I checked out the L3240HST and it was in rougher shape than I thought, although it may mostly be cosmetic. The cockpit plastic is faded and the orange paint is faded and peeled off in some places. Other used tractors I've seen weren't that faded. The tractor ran fine and I was able to pick up some dirt and dump it. It seemed quieter than other tractors I've heard. The loader and 3pt hitch worked and I ran the PTO. No unusual grinding or noises in any of this. There is a knob on the left side of the steering column that controls the low/high (turtle/rabbit) speed which was broken (but the dealer said he'd fix it).

Pictures to follow...

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   / Help me find a tractor to manage my 40 wooded acres #167  
Looks decent. Looks can be deceiving, the plastic and sheet metal on modern machines is easy to damage, even with routine use. As long as there's no leaks, no strange sounds, nothing else apparent, seems like a good machine. See if they'll throw in a couple sets of rear remotes. I think their cost is around $500/set.
 
   / Help me find a tractor to manage my 40 wooded acres #168  
One other thing ... Some of the Grand L's in this era had a problem with an internal seal inside the HST pump I believe... The tractor needs to be split open to fix it. My buddies L3540 has his fail at about 250-300 hrs if I remember correctly. I know that some other models had the issue also. Luckily his was covered under warranty, but this one wouldn't be.

Check to see if that repair was done. I believe Kubota has TSB on the issue.
 
   / Help me find a tractor to manage my 40 wooded acres #169  
I see a distinct lack of grease how many hours on it.
 
   / Help me find a tractor to manage my 40 wooded acres #170  
I see a distinct lack of grease how many hours on it.


Agree -- the 3-pt ball ends look like they were never greased or oiled. And the loader pin I saw looked bone dry.
 

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