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motorv8N
10-18-2007 18:21:24
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Well, continue to live and learn and enjoy the benefit of all this experience on the road to my first tractor.
Regulars may remember my conundrum a week or two ago regarding a dealer selling a 49 8N traded in with no fan belt. General consensus was to either run away or lowball his $2,250 asking owing to inability to run it more than a minute or so.
I was comin down heavily on the run away option but...don't the dealer call me back last week saying they had worked something out with the owner about putting a belt on it and I could come up anytime. I thought about this a bit, remembering the various points of view then came to the decision to give it a try. Widget here had suggested the tractor buying process is something not necessarily to be rushed and getting exposure to multiple units in varying conditions is actually a useful exercise. Seems like good sense to me, so off I went.
I arrived with my Alberta farm boy father-in-law who's steely eyed gaze and lack of sentimentality was sure to keep me on the straight and narrow.
I must admit I did appreciate the dealer's attitude which was to drive it around front and say, "Have at 'er and let me know if you've got any questions" before getting outta our hair and going back inside.
So, I pulled out my John Smith buyers list and then the fun began.
At first glance I was encouraged to see the straight tin, lack of rust, almost perfect rad and gas tank although all covered by an admittedly inexpertly applied paint job (rad hoses, plugs, wires, all gooped up).
Then it was all downhill from there. By the time my FIL and I were done an hour later, I had a real good idea of what I WASN'T going to pay these guys.
List of woes below. I'm attempting to itemize from minor to major -- input always welcome.
-headlights for show only; nonstandard units with wires snipped off just inside doglegs, no switch
-bent/loose crankshaft pulley
-missing air cleaner to carb tube
-missing drawbar
-missing lift arm height adjuster
-oil lines leaking
-oil pan gasket sweating
-mix of rotted and newer, badly installed wiring
-shot bendix? (caught only every third or fourth try otherwise jes enthusiastic spinnin noises)
-no charge from generator according to ammeter (showed drain only, perhaps the real reason for starter problems)
-rear tires leaking with deep sidewall cracks and sections bulging
-slow, jittery 3 point action due to - we discover - almost zero hydraulic fluid
-very leaky pto seal (probably cause of item immediately above? Is the PTO low enough to be the cause of almost complete fluid loss?)
-cross members under rad bent inwards, centre bolt bent, spacer cracked (not sure why then the rad and grill was near perfect)
-clutch disk didn't grab til last inch of travel
-very sloppy steering, probably 40 degrees of rotation on the wheel required to begin deflection of front wheels; left wheel begins to turn much sooner than right
And...I saved best for last...
-oily, bubbly coolant
-exhaust marks on side of head between cyl 3 and 4 left side
-30 lbs compression in cyl 4 versus 80 in cyl 3
-10 lbs oil pressure warmed at idle; 25 lbs warm full throttle in neutral, belches lots of black smoke -- no blue though
So...not insurmountable but I'm thinking closer to a $500-$800 tractor as opposed to $2000 plus? Father-in-law didn't bat an eye. "We can fix it all, easy..." Think he actually wants to...This is her...
http://www.ironsearch.com/IRONSearch/details.aspx?IWNO=889167&ImgID=1
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