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I think its fairly safe to expect the rear end of a 4020 to last two engines or longer, EXCEPT that if its towed even a few hundred feet with the transmission in any gear but TOW, the top shaft will be toast from turning thousands of RPM with out pressure lubrication. That abuse usually shows as a locked up transmission. The gears get welded to the shaft. There are reports of 4020 running 15,000 to 25,000 hours. I know my gas has a bunch more than the 5300 on the tachometer because the generator pulley sides were worn parallel. The water pump pulley was worn too but not as much. There are NO laws requiring tachometer hour readings to be accurate or to be maintained. You have to read the teeth of the horse to determine age, there is no assurance the tachometer is right. Cables and tachometers have been known to fail and not be fixed for a decade or two. And hour meters reset. As for gas vs diesel, if the gas is $3900 and the diesel is $8500, thats $4600 for gas. At running 8 hp-hr / gallon gas or 12.5 hp-hr / gallon diesel and $2.50 fuel, that money will buy decades of gasoline. Working hard the gas will use 11 gallons per hour, the diesel 8 gallons per hour. 3 gallons extra for gasoline per hour plowing balls to the wall. $7.50 per hour, $4600 / 7.50 = 613 hours. Working 24 acres I used 33 hours per year, that's plowing, disking twice, field cultivating once, planting, rotary hoeing twice, cultivating twice, and miscelanous mowing around the place. I've gone notill, and use the MF-135 for most work and the 4020 is down to under ten hours a year now probably. 30 hours a year makes 600 hours take 20 years. And a gas tune up costs less than 20 bucks, whilc a diesel injection pump rebuild runs $500. Yah, I might do more gas tune ups per decade than injection pump rebuilds but I KNOW how to do gas tune ups. I've know how to do that for at least 50 years. That gas 4020 costs less than the INTEREST on Buickanddeere's 6603. Gerald J.
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