Interesting experience today. Though never a true farmer, I've been around old tracotrs all of my life and have operated many, mostly for bush hogging my property that is steep and heavy in some places.I have usually used Fords, e.g., 8N with Sherman combo, 860, 961, both 3 and 4 cylinder 4000s, all gassers. I usually use the 8N with 5 foot mower to cut in an area because it is nimble and slow in low/underdrive. Then I switch to the 860 with 6 foot cutter to finish it off. This past fall/winter I bought 2 MF 35s with Perkins diesel engines, one because I wanted the equipment that was with it and the owner would not separate it, the other because I knew the owner and thought it was a good deal. The first, a FE-35 I bought from a 82 year old gentleman who told me that he had farmed with both MFs and Fords and his FE-35 would "do more work than my 860 Ford." Yeah, yeah, 38HP verses 45, but I wanted the equipment so I bought it thinking that I would go over it over the winter and sell it in the spring and keep the equipment. Being a tinker that can not leave well enough alone, I thoroughly went over the 35 this past winter, fixing and adjusting everything that I thought needed attention, changing all of the fluids, and replacing the few worn parts that I found. In so doung, I discovered that the tractor appeared to have very low hours (tach and cable both broken) as there was no perceptable wear in the original spindles or bushings, hydraulic cylinder bore or rings, etc. Additionally, one of the 14.9x24 rears though worn down to 60% or so appears to be original. Over the winter I drove it around quite a bit while working on it but had no opportunity to really work it. Today, I made a For Sale sign and list of work that I had done to it in preparation for parking it out by the road to sell it. Then I hooked it up to my 6 foot cutter to try it out so that I could tell any potential buyer that everything seems to work well. Quite a revelation! The old fellow was right. This tractor will out perform my (really good) 860 Ford. I expected it to be a 5 foot tractor but put the 6 foot cutter on it to make sure that the lift would lift it OK. By the way, I shut it off around 5:30. It is now 9:33 and the Damn tail wheel is still a foot or so off of the ground! Though I have limited experience with diesel tractors aside from my 20 HP Kubota lawn mower, I am a good mechanic as well as an engineer and understand the relationship between HP and torque. I was, nevertheless, quite surprised by the performance of the 35. I set the throttle to 1600 RPM and headed for the thickest orchard grass on the place thinking that I would need to use low range second or even low when going up the steepest slopes. In these conditions, my (really good) 8N with 5 foot cutter would be working hard in first gear underdirve and my (really good) 860 with 6 foot cutter would work up a sweat in third and I would probably need second at times. I use the very low first gear in some of the most thick and steep conditions when doing the first cutting. Surprisingly, the 38 HP 3 cylinder Perkins diesel 35 handled the 6 footer easily in low/third with no perceptable change in RPM regardless of the terrain or thickness of the grass. It would pull it in high/first also but ground speed was a bit too fast for conditions. What a dilema! I really planned to sell one or both of the 35s this spring/summer but now just can't do it. Maybe, I'll make up a sign for the 8N and 860? Those things sell very well. Thoughts? Dean
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