Buying Advice Hobby Digging 5 acres Cheap Gentlemen Farmer

[Industrial Toys]

It took be decades to accumulate the stuff I have, mostly at Auctions. Feels like yesterday I moved here and was hardpressed financially to buy a push lawn mower.

 

[Dippybird]

I know this is old but I was in the same place as you. I bought an older l2900 4wd but not hydrostatic. Bought it off of a neighbor but it is a glide shift which has been fine. I probably would have preferred the hydrostatic. But I much prefer a non hydrostatic tractor than no tractor. You really do need to look at the cost of what you will have to fix on it even when you do it yourself. I changed all the fluids and filters when I got it almost $500 just for materials. Mine will need new rear tires soon. Tires are $300 to $400 a piece inner tubes $80 if the rims are rusted through they are over $300 each. If I put calcium chloride in them I can do it myself if I want beet juice it is another couple hundred. It could be close to $1.5k to do the back tires myself. I will say at least looking at rims several companies make aftermarket cheap rims for John deer and not kubota. I don稚 know if that is true for a lot of parts but that would stear me towards an older jd.

 

[i7win7]

$600 for replacement rims, $160 for replacement tubes because of calcium chloride. Beet juice seems like a better long term investment.

 

[Dippybird]

It maybe, it wasn稚 worth it to me yet. I have an older used tractor so my case maybe different. There seems to be plus and minuses to each. My rims are rusted because I had inner tubes in them. The inner tube valve stem doesn稚 really seal to the rim so I believe water can get in and runs around the rim where the tube has a gap with the rim. I believe the tires on my tractor are original and they are not tubeless therefor they had inner tubes. The calcium chloride doesn稚 leak onto the rim, it is in the inner tube. If I had beet juice in the inner tube I would still have rust. I patched my rim and fortunately since I have inner tubes the the rims do not need to be air tight. I called around where I live for the beat juice. It was about $150 a tire for me. The tire then would weigh about 400lbs. I could not figure out how to get the 400lbs tire out of my truck and safely back on my tractor without another machine which I don稚 have. They would come and pickup the tire and fix it for me. It just costs a lot more. No one around me would sell me the beat juice to bring home and do myself. So calcium chloride it is.

 

[i7win7]

Guess what these tractor rims have in common, inner tube failure & salt water

 

[Dippybird]

Unfortunately I am too technologically challenged to see the pictures but I can imagine. I really don稚 know what the best answer for tires is. It seams like they all have pluses and minuses. The only way for saltwater to get on the rim is for the inner tube to fail. If my inner tube fails my tire goes flat (and potentially a lot of the liquid leaks out. If I let the tractor sit for a long time with a flat tire the rim may sit in salt water. I have heard some old timers say salt water in the tire with no inner tube and the have done it since 1950. With limited oxygen supply in the tire the oxygen gets used up and the rim won稚 rust even when exposed to salt water. Just like metal artifacts at the bottom of the ocean that are preserved do to lack of oxygen. I think for everyone there maybe a different answer. I like those tires that just have rubber fins between the rim and the tread and you can see through them. They don稚 have much weight though. I was just pointing out I have seen aftermarket rims for jd tractors similar size to mine that negate the whole problem. Buy a rear tire online and for $50 more it would come installed on and aftermarket rim. My rims are over 20 years old. I sanded and painted it and put it back on. I am not sure how much more I can expect. Especially since this tractor has probably sat outside most of its life. I can almost guarantee you the steal rims on my Chevy 1500 wont last 20 years without needing to be sanded and painted and they only have air in them.