1977 ford 7700

Thinking about buying one of these old girls,any pros or cons?

I would take time to test the Dual Power circuit pressure, both in Direct Drive and DP, with the PTO on and off; all combinations. THese are good old tractors unless you need a lot of hydraulic flow.

I'd try to ascertain the condition of the engine... and how well it starts on a cold morning, oil consumption if possible and hours. Also look at the smoke screw and see if the seal was broken and how far it may have been backed out.
There's a pretty good tolerance in those engines to make about 100 at the shaft and live doing it provided someone uses some common sense and keeps them cool.
Most of the 77's (10s) around here were wound up pretty good, along with mine, but there is a limit.
Those are some of the probing things I'd want to look at... but if the tractor fires up and runs fine I wouldn't worry about it if it was turned up some.
It's just that you make a mental note that many were and not all were looked after. You've got to weed them out...

Rod

Got ours when it had 666 hours on it. That was alittle scary....

Getting close to 6000 now. Been a pretty good tractor. Worked it hard, was the main tractor here for a decade or more. Now it does round baling, planting, & hauls 25000 bu of crop to town, as well as the other utiliy things around here.

Dual power/ pto can have hyd pressure problems once the pump(s) run down, if you don't fix it in time might as well wait until the pto doesn't work at all, as it's all hosed pretty quick & will need new clutch packs. Someone else mentioned that.

If one of the rear drive shafts that run the pump wears out in the '77 model, NH discontinued them, new style & you need to replace a lot of bits to bring it all up to the new design. Not bad, but $$$$. Actually, my mechanic has had a nightmare finding the 'right' parts for it - there seemed to be a lot of transition & parts changes going on during this period of Ford building.Not a bad problem, but if you shop junk yards for replacement parts, you need to get real specific as to what you need. More than once he's had to wait for a 2nd part, as the first one was a different size/ design as to what my tractor used.

Cavitation is always an issue in Fords - pinholes in the water jacket.

I just put $2000 into mine 2 years ago, figure it is worth it, I like the machine.

--->Paul

They are pretty good tractors overall.

They have a few problems like any tractor. If the PTO doesn't work -they are a pain to fix because you will need to do a rear split.

The other problem besides hydraulic pump/pressure issues, is the shaft that goes into the flywheel. This shaft comes from the rear of the tractor and goes through the tranny and into the flywheel hub. I think this is the one Paul is referring to. The PTO hub disc and this shaft are no longer available in 15 splines, so you must buy both a new hub and shaft (21 splines) for $$$! However the worst part is that you must do a double split of both the rear housing and the clutch housing to tranny split. No fun at all!

I want to thank you all for the replys, this tractor is at a dealership, I spoke to the previous owner of the tractor, the only thing he used it for was loading round bales, and he has owned it since new. He said he was stuck twice last winter while feeding and opted for FWA. He assured me it was a sweet tractor, it has a westendorf loader on it they are asking 13 K Thanks again Animal