No rhyme or reason on why I picked the 2020D. I had researched for a couple years and knew that pound for pound the yanmars were the best bang for the buck. I placed a few ads locally in Craigslist wanting a yanmar. Shortly thereafter a guy contacted me that was in the Coast Guard Station near by, and shipping out to Louisiana. The Coast Guard would not pack and ship his tractor for him. It had all the features and functionality that I wanted like power shift, a decent size engine, and loader. It is a VN recon but done a long time ago and had 190- hours on it. It had one small leak in the front axle and I think I did really well by buying it for $4000 including a brush hog and a back blade.
I would definitely recommend the power steering kit although expensive. I have a really bad shoulder that's in need of surgery and the tractor steering was taking a toll on me. Yes you can use it while the tractor is at a standstill but it is really dependent upon the rpms. I did upgrade to the 9 cc pump and did notice a difference. The reality is that without power steering the loader gets all of the hydraulic fluid first so that even at low rpms the bucket raises and tilts pretty normally and quickly. With the power steering kit added the fluid is routed to the power steering first so that makes the Loader responsiveness much slower and non-existent at low idle. It takes a little bit to get used to but when you want the bucket to raise fast you have to increase rpms. My loader valve just kicked the bucket (no pun intended) so I'm going to replace it with a two spool with regeneration float and power beyond. I'm going to replumb the tractor so that it utilizes the power beyond and feeds the 3 point from there. I don't know if it'll make any difference but I sure hope it does.
I also put a suicide knob on my steering wheel and I absolutely love the ability to steer the tractor with one hand especially when looking backwards and checking the rear implements or back blading. If you need any help with the installation of the power steering kit please let me know and I will gladly lend a hand and provide any pictures or advice you may need.
