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Worst tractor you owned

H

Harvey 2

Member
If this is a fair question. What tractor that you
have owned did you dislike the most and why?

Our first tractor wuz a B Allis Chalmers.
The reason I disliked it is because it was time
consuming to change it from the plow to the
culivators, hard to get on and off,it wuz geared
too fast in low gear to pull a tobbaco setter
unless the engine was set on low idle and then it
wood foul the spark plugs
Another reason it wasn't a John Deere
 
No disrespect to AC owners but the WD45 was very uncomfortable to operate.


Vito
 
My first tractor was a farmall 460 diesel.
Wasn't my favorite. Probably won't buy one to restore. My favorite is a toss up between my Case I.H. 7230, & McCormick W4.Kinda like my cub loboy to!!!
 
(quoted from post at 21:02:11 05/22/13) No disrespect to AC owners but the WD45 was very uncomfortable to operate.


Vito
Click to expand...

Really? WDs are my favorite, lol. :lol:

Never owned enough to get one I didn't like.
 
We have a super m that I hate it"s my dads and the only good thing on it is the tires.. He bought it at an auction and uses it in the brush to pull logs. Don"t want to mess up our nice deeres down in the woods..
 
Oh man, I haven't owned as many tractors as most of you , but the most uncomfortable one I've driven is the neighbor's F-20. We used it to spray our corn for a few years back when I was young and nimble. I don't think I'd last a half hour on one today. Jim
 
I've never really owned a tractor I didn't like. At least a little. :)
If you want to count it as a tractor, this Deutz-Allis was my worst.
It was absolutely worthless in mud or snow. (2WD)
Couldn't steer it at all and it didn't have enough weight to go anywhere.
Hydraulics were great, but the front was so light you couldn't lift anything
without the front wheels coming up. Hence the custom weight box.
Mower blades were identical to KK blades with two exceptions:
1) they spun the opposite direction so they were sharpened on the opposite side.
2) they cost four times as much
It did a decent job of mowing the yard, and it ran well.

17824.jpg
 
My worst tractor was the first 325 Steiger that came in to the State of Michigan. The air conditioner at it's best was just a little bit better than nothing, the hydraulic system was about on par with a Farmall M, a dry clutch was not compatible with the horsepower of the engine, the planetary hubs in each of the axles failed, banded dual wheels were always working loose, where do I end? The good thing was the engine, it was as good the day I sold it as it was new. Just was happy to see it go down the road.
 
My worst was a 1020 gas. Seemed like it always had to be worked on before it could be ran and turned into a money pit.
 
Oliver 70. Nice running tractor--if you could ever get the dammed thing started. For some perverse reason, my dad liked to run it on a feed grinder. We always parked it with a clean shot at the belt pulley so if one of us wanted to use it while we were by ourselves we could belt it to another tractor.

And if you ever killed the engine in the field, you might as well find a shade tree for an hour before you tried to restart it.
 
Mine was a 1950 Oliver with a Continental cab and fender fuel tanks. I traded my brother a 4020 that was turned up that kept pulling the head bolts. He had overhauled the transmission. I went through 2 bull gears and a axle that almost shoved the duals through the cab. The cab door raddled all the time and the neighbors hated the sound. I would love to have it back but I sure wouldn't pull anything with it. That little 4-53 was a strong runner.
 
AC WC. was dads I was about 12 and not tall enough to sit on the seat and reach the pedals. pulling a disc over a plowed field when the tricycle wheels dug in and threw me off the back. rolled out of the way, then had to run and catch it. no muffler. my ears ring 50 years later
 
Probably have to say that would have been a Cockshutt 550 that was about 95% done for when we got it. I"m sure it had been a good machine in its time, But it"s time was up.
 
My worst tractor was a 1948 M Farmall. It had the slowest hydraulic loader I have ever used. Tractor started when it felt like it. Was a huge gas hog when working it hard. Worst 9 years of tractor ownership I ever had. I had it painted and sold it to a collector. Happiest day for me was seeing leave my farm on someone else's trailer.
Kow Farmer Kurt
 
I would say our 460IH it was a real cold blooded, gutless dog and burned alot of gas. Dad would say an A jd, he started farming with an unstyled A because it was something he could afford and never had a desire to ever own another 2-cylinder tractor again, he's been retired since 99 and still hates them, he said his next tractor , a 43 SC Case was a big step up
 
The worst one I ever owned was a 560 IH diesel... Bought it used on a farm sale and drove it home. I made it to the yard before the fan bearings let loose and put the fan through the radiator. A radiator, a dozen glow plugs, 4 batteries, 3 alternators, 2 starters, 2 head gaskets, a clutch and torque, and about a year and a half later... it got traded off...
 
JD 730d with pony start. It drove nice acept for the hand clutch. The pony motor was everything they say they are and less, the flywheel came loose and cost me $1500.00. The wonderful fuel economy is only if you compare them to a G or 70 gas. I bought it to use on the corn dryer because I had always heard about how cheep they ran, but it burned 5 gal more fuel per batch than my case 830 diesel. The final straw was when I borrowed it out and it blew a rad hose and the guy filled it with water and dropped it off and it froze and broke the block. I was glad to see it go.
 
I didn't think ih could make a worse tractor than the 300u until Grandpa traded it for a brand new 574. Should have kept the 300, slightly smaller pos.
 
I had a 3020 gasser with a loader on it that I traded on a 4030 a few months after I got it. That tractor didn't have as much guts as a 2520D that I still have.
 
Minnie Mo RTU, mostly ergonomics; one foot lower than the other, just not real comfy although the idea of the spin around seat was kinda cool if I had kept it long enough to use it on a plow day, but the death blow was when I hooked it to the sled...it and it"s companion parts tractor hit the road within a week! Even delivered it for free! lol
 
1948 G Jack Sheep bought new. Most troublesome tractor that we ever had, which is why there hasn't been a JD tractor on the place since that one.
 
We had the 674. Totally gutless and it spent as much time back at the dealers been repaired ( usually engine oil seals ) as it did on the farm. The tractor it replaced was a IH B.450 which had an incredible engine and hardly ever gave us any trouble. The best IH tractor sold in the UK at the time ( late 1970's) was the 62 hp 475, why? cos it had a Perkins engine! I remember our Massey 168 had oodles more torque than the International.
 
(quoted from post at 23:02:11 05/22/13) JD 730d with pony start. I had always heard about how cheep they ran, but it burned 5 gal more fuel per batch than my case 830 diesel.
Click to expand...

Something must have been wrong with the 730D as they held the record for years on LEAST GPH consumption of tractors for several years.
 
(quoted from post at 02:08:34 05/23/13)
(quoted from post at 21:02:11 05/22/13) No disrespect to AC owners but the WD45 was very uncomfortable to operate. Vito
Click to expand...

Really? WDs are my favorite. Never owned enough to get one I didn't like.
Click to expand...

One of my favorites too. Spent many an hour in the pan seat plowing and disking on a WD back in the early 70s.
 
There are two that quickly come to mind. The first one was a 1949 M&M Z rowcrop. If you hit the slightest irregularity in the field with the front wheels, it would rip the steering wheel out of your hand with the strength of King Kong! The other one was a 1969 Case 930 gas. It was really a good tractor for the most part. But, it was utterly unbelievable how much gas that thing could burn! We didn't keep either one of them for more than a year!
 
A Ford 961 Powermaster junk when my dad bought it everytime you used it if you could get it started you would have to fix something and the power steering what a joke if you had a loader on it and tried to turn it when you weren't moving forget about it.
 
ford 4000 diesel i hated that sos tranny never stayed where it was supposed to. It did have plenty of power.
 
JD 3020 gas. I want to like it, but it"s a frustrating beast. Hard starter, floods (so far w/ two different carburetors). Fuel hog (w/ both carbs). It"s great when it starts but I"m thinking of swapping of for something that costs half as much and starts when I need it to.
 
I have always been fond of IH red but I have to say the worst tractor I have ever owned would be a Farmall 560 gas. It had 3300 hours on it when I bought it. It was 90% wore out because the previous owner thought a grease gun was for decoration. I spent my free time one winter getting it back in shape or so I thought. This tractor would pull well but it liked its gas and liked to beller like an old s__! I replaced the exhaust manifold because it was cracked . I put a aftermarket manifold on it and instead of reducing the manifold pipe down I put a 966 muffler on it . That made it sound decent. After all the work I did on it starting it up with out having some malfunction was a challenge. Usually a hose would blow or something would start leaking. I put 1100 hours on it in the 4 years I owned it . It was a happy day when the truck unloaded my 756 and the OLD POS 560 went down the road.

JJ.
 
3010 was evenworse ,,,it would run like a 2 popper for half hour,.points condensers , plugs , valve job.finally found a good plug that would run in it ,,, and learned about the winter and summer settings of manifold heat blox , but dam it took 2 to run it, one to drive and the other to haul the gas ,,, massey 210 was a gutless wonder,,12 gears , none sycronized, and the range shifter was in line and had low range in the middle ,k pitiful starter too
 
Had a JD 730 we bought since we really liked our G and 720 gassers. The 730 was a D and it was the smokiest clankiest piece of green I've ever seen. Crankshaft bent not long after we bought it and the pony motor took a dump. Would never consider another one.
 
Of the dozens of different tractors I've run the worst was an MT john Deere. It was the most worthless piece of junk JD ever built. Took for ever to mount the machinery to the tractor. heck I dropped the front wheels in a 6'deep hole while cultivating corn one real hot day and was stuck. Ground was dry, the dam thing wouldn't pull a load of hay across uneven ground in anything but 1st gear. Brakes were junk, it was worse than the neighbors 8n ford.
 
(quoted from post at 21:33:53 05/23/13) heck I dropped the front wheels in a 6'deep hole while cultivating corn one real hot day and was stuck. Ground was dry, the dam thing wouldn't pull a load of hay across uneven ground in anything but 1st gear. Brakes were junk, it was worse than the neighbors 8n ford.
Click to expand...
A 6 foot hole would stop a lot of tractors.
 
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