Made a HUGE Mistake

Inno

Well-known Member
Elderly neighbor up the road has been bugging me to put a stereo in his tractor. It's orange in color, imported, name starts with a K, I think you know the type. Well I blew the water pump out of my 202 last week and needed to get some fill moved before we got rain. He offered me the use of it so I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone. I went down and picked it up, drove it home and went to work on the stereo. Got that all in and working and went to work moving my fill.
Well that was it, spent 2-3 hours in the climate controlled cab, making it move back and forth with small, delicate movements of my foot, operating the loader and back blade, weaving in and out of trees and fence posts with the utmost of ease, listening to music the whole time. It sipped fuel like a wine connoisseur at a fancy dinner party and didn't make me feel like I'd been beaten up when the work was all done and I got out of the driver's seat.

Someone needs to give me a stern talking to and perhaps a cuff up the side of the head to snap me out of this. I think I want one of these things! :?
 
Friend of mine did the same thing,
Borrowed a orange tractor that starts with a K,
Said it was so smooth powerful, went on and on, did not want to take it home,
 
Hi, have a good idea of the one you mean. Yes, very pleasant to drive. You are definately a case that needs
treatment. Doctor P recommends a similar 2-3 hours work on a cabless tractor with a noisy exhaust and NO power
steering doing the same work on a rainy day with drips of water running down your neck and cold hands!!!!!!!!
If that doesn't work you'll just have to buy one of those dream machines!!!!!!

DavidP, South Wales
 


Go look at the price tag and then picture yourself driving something that cost as much as your first and second homes together into a soupy manure pile or through thorn apple and prickly ash while bush hogging. I've got some neighbors with the fancy orange, green and red rigs. You never see them loading manure or pulling stumps with the fancy stuff.
 
Oh Bret... you live in the last place on the planet where people are prouder to work hard than work smart... so i had to leave incase it was contagious !! and the 'new' orange is smart... well, i was into AC for many years, and sometimes i think that was smart too... jury's still out on that one...
My cousin was getting sick of his collection of antique Dorfs, and saw a 50 horse 4wd bota with loader....in Delaware of all places, he went down with his trailer, and he came home with it, not a bad deal at all either. More than enough tractor for what he usually does.
i bought a 1976 B225? a couple years ago- just to help an old friend out of a money pinch, I was thinking i just threw away nearly 4 grand... no i didn't, and that thing is impressive. Fuel, power, traction, ease to work on... loader is limited compare to a 65 sorta thing, but impressive for it's size... Miner will tell ya, all my neighbors in Oklahoma just can't stop themselves from borrowing the thing! hey there ain't an antique Kubota Club out there is there???
Just yesterday i used a 1970's Bolens Iseki garden size i got as non running junk a while ago, never really tried it on a 'farm job' before... wow. for something the size of your bathtub, it could keep up with a TO30... cat zero hitch is the bad part, but yeah...
here's where you get yelled at Inno... in my book, sounds are what keeps you 'in-cinq' with the machinery. I want to hear every noise the tractor and the implement is making. The quicker you notice something odd, the sooner you can hit the kill switch... that's how you save enough money to be able to buy a K.....
 
Boy is that the truth! I was running the backhoe the other day and noticed the engine sounded more "rattly" than usual. As I turned myself around to have a better listen, it stopped. I thought "wow, never heard this thing run that quiet". It was in that moment that the smoke started rolling from the fan belt and I realized that the water pump had seized. I can't remember it ever not having a slight rattly noise. I think the water pump had been on it's way out for years!
So if I end up with something orange in the yard, it's the 202's own fault!
 
I am getting an old Massey Ferguson 65 running again. I have nothing against K tractors but...if you ever get on a wet grassy hillside with a heavy trailered implement like an orchard sprayer and the implement starts pushing the tractor down the hillside then having something old and heavy saves your life.

I had a friend in a peach tree orchard on wet grass get out of control. The sprayer slid down the hillside, then stopped and transferred the spinning momentum to the tractor which broke loose and spun around the sprayer until it was pointed down hill at which time the momentum shifted back to the sprayer. He completed three complete turns without rolling either the sprayer or the tractor over.

He went home, explained to his wife what had happened, then with her encouragement bought a much larger 70 hp tractor. I am old school and go for any Ford or Massey that is 6,000 pounds and heavier. Think a 65 and up or a Ford 5000 and up. A Massey 185 or a Ford 7600 are just about perfect. When operating a mid-range hay baler in hills I would much rather be one size too big rather than one size too small.
 
My only advice would be if you're going to buy new, at least give Massey a fair shake and try out one of their new tractors with cab also. Nothing against K but I'd buy a new Massey if I was in the market.
 
Those monthly payments, and all the other electronics that come on a new tractor is a good deterrent for me. Better off staying with a simple, easy to fix, already paid for tractor.
 
The Massey 65 is equal to the Ford 4000 in the blue models and not the ford 5000. Either the 65 or the 4000 can have the 13.6-38 rear tires and both are about 52 HP.
 

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