first thing ya throw away

it sure seems as i get older i wish i could go back to the simple tractors i had growing up.like most people any obstacle could be overcome back then.dead battery,no problem just crank it,only one lever to adjust hydraulics,when ya sit down thats what ya got,no constant fiddling with the seat to get comfortable.and very few things could go wrong.im sitting here wonderin what the driver would say if i had a new tractor delivered and pulled a pair of wire cutters out of my pocket and started makin things simple again :shock: :shock:

He'd probably tell you that you just voided the warranty and good luck.

Very Good answer rrlund.When you live in a tractor-combine several hours aday,the comforts are more than nice.

Ya,when I'm baling hay and the air quits working,it's time to head for the house and see what's going on.

Maybe not throw away but the seat switches would be the first thing to get disconnected.

Grandpa bought a new NH workmaster. It will shut down when you get off the seat unless the brakes are set or the high low shifter is out of gear. It will beep at you too if you get off the seat and the brakes are not set. Brakes have to be set to use the PTO while not on the tractor. Nice simple tractor otherwise but the safety's are getting carried away

I don't remember it like you do. What I remember
is tractors that would not start, moisture in the
distributor cap etc. Or if the engine was warm it
would flood and not start. I remember very clearly
one Sunday afternoon we were going on a picnic
after church. The 1947 Frazer balked and wouldn't
start. OK. says dad, we'll take grandmothers
Studebaker. Wrong. It wouldn't fire off neither.
We ate our picnic at home. Yes, both cars started
later on their own to run in the car shed. If a
car had 20,000 miles on it it was worn out. Tires
didn't last 10,000 miles. Spark pugs and points?
My road vehicles don't have either one and of
coarse not the diesel tractors. We rebuilt
tractor engines every winter. No, I'm not going
back.

I worked with a guy back in the mid 90's that pulled about that same thing. He bought a real nice 2 year old Dodge pickup with IIRC the 318 V-8 and auto trans. It had air and all the emissions on it and of course mostly early OBD 1 computer controls. He was always b---hing about the fuel mileage and power output. I told him on several occasions to take it to the Dodge dealer and have them 'plug it in' and see what's wrong. He finally told me one day that he had a guy that was going to 'hop the engine up'. I told him that probably wasn't his best option, but what do I know? So Henry had the guy 'work his magic' on it. This entailed ripping out the A/C, changing the ignition to some after market something, pulling the whole exhaust off and putting on headers and glass pacs sans the cat and O2 sensor, tweaking the fuel system in ways I don't know how and other 'improvements' that Henry couldn't explain. What Henry ended up with was a nice looking Dodge that got half the mileage he was getting with less power than it did have and it sounded real bad (as in lousy) when it ran. Henry had to take it to another garage and have cats put in the cobbled up dual exhaust system to pass Pa inspection. At least they didn't ping him on the O2 sensor. Long story short, he finally ended up selling the truck to a salvage yard because it was basically undrivable and nobody would touch it because of the screwed up wiring and other 'improvements' that were made.
Them spiffy chrome valve covers and custom air cleaner also made a BIG difference.

Yup, grandpa's old's was an amazing car in the day because with painstaking maintenance, it made it to 100K miles. My dad would tell me about taking 2 spare tires in the 50's to get to his uncles farm an hour (40 miles of country road) away, and sometimes you needed a third.

I'm ticked off now if a car has major problems before 200K miles, or if my tires don't make 50K miles.

I second the seat switch thing. In fact, I'm about to figure out how to bypass mine on my new Farmall 55A. I haven't messed with it yet because it's still under warranty and I don't want to void anything, but I can't even turn around in the seat to see what's happening behind me without taking enough weight off the seat to kill the motor. The government needs to stop being our babysitter.