If you're shopping for a tractor, if you've
never owned a tractor before, and if you're reading the pages of Homestead.org, then I'm going to assume that you're in the market of a
pretty cheap tractor; a VERY used tractor.
This is not such a bad position to be in, because
unlike when you're looking to purchase a car, the mere fact that the
tractor you buy may be older than you are doesn't automatically mean that
you'll wind up with either a museum piece or a pile of junk.
Tractors are tools. They're built like
tools, and the older they are, the more so. In this age when you
have to buy a whole box of screws at your hardware store, just to get the
one you want, you can still buy just the tractor parts that you need
rather than a whole assembly or worse yet, the dreaded rebuild kit.
Not only that, but in my state, you don't even have to pay sales tax on
tractor parts.
In fact, you'll find that as often as not, quite a few of
your tractor repair parts might even be considered
cheap. After all, they've been making head-bolts for your 9N
for the last 58 years. If you harbor a few vague notions about how
the internal
combustion engine works, you can probably fix your tractor yourself with simple
hand tools.
Try that with a new car.
Probably
the preeminent cheap-and-easy-to-repair older tractor is the Ford
9N-2N-8N series (see top of the page photo) but you can also still find parts
readily available for other older-model domestic makes such as Case,
International-Harvester, Massey-Ferguson, John Deere, Oliver and Allis-Chalmers, although you'll probably be dealing with differently-named
companies. (John Deere is the only one of those mentioned doing
business under the same name.)
So relax, you don't have to be a mechanical engineer to
buy a used tractor, you just need to know what you want to do with your
new-old machine and look for a few particular things.
When it comes to older tractors, the most important
thing to look for is a hydraulic system, otherwise known as a three-point
hitch. This consists of three arms extending from the back of the
tractor which are hydraulically operated to lift and hold in place
whatever attachments you want to use. In the center of this linkage
is a power-take-off or PTO, which is a rotating shaft that connects to and
drives such attachments as a mower or tiller.
The first three-point hitch was introduced on the Ford
9N in 1939, so you'll find plenty of old tractors so equipped to choose
from. While there are still tractors sold that don't have
hydraulics, notably the older Farmalls and John Deeres, these are mostly
used as glorified
lawn mowers. You get so much more functionality with the three-point
hitch system that you really shouldn't consider anything that doesn't have
one.
The next thing to assess when buying an older tractor
is the age of the machine. This isn't as easy to determine as one
might suppose. First of all, most tractors look pretty much the same
from one year to another and have only seen distinct model changes every decade or
so, if that often. The best way to determine the exact age in years is to find the
serial number of the tractor you're interested in, and look it up on the
internet. You'll find no shortage of web sites listing dates of
manufacture by serial number for all the major makes, but a good place to
start is the
Yesterday's Tractors Registry online.
