I completely rebuilt the JD 4020 diesel that my Grand Father bought new. I do mean completely. Completely bare to the casting. All new bearing, seals, engine kit and etc. If any machined holes where egged shaped they got bored out and a bushing made so the hole was back to factory. Control rods either replaced or welded up and machined down to fit tight. I kept track of all the parts. I did the labor record keeping like you would a shop ticket. I had just under $22K in parts and 460 hours of labor. This was over the winter of 2004-5. So the parts would be higher today too. If you just paid yourself shop mechanic wages that would still be $20-25 and hour. So that easily could be another $7500-10,000 in cost.
I pondered the cost and such for some time. Then I decided to do a JD 4440 two years later the same way. My reasoning was that each of these where working tractors not show pieces. The actual paint job was just the factory paint with some hardener in it with me spraying it. So very far from perfect. How I looked at it then and now is both these tractors where just about the same as new. I had less than 50% of the cost of new in them. Neither one has any electronics or pollution equipment on them either. So in the case of these two I can/could argue that there is a good business reason to due the work and cost.
Doing the same thing on a collector or parade tractor really would rarely make good business sense. How I look at those deals is the person doing it is fulfilling his/her enjoyment of doing the work. So it is their hobby/interest. It would be no different than the people that buy high dollar fishing boats or motorcycles. Would be like people that take trips around the world too. It is all in how people chose to spend their time and money.
Then maybe an answer your indirectly asking on tax deducting the expenses. Well I do. I can not speak for others. Since I do have farm income I consider it a farm expense. If you do not have farm income I am not sure on how you would do it.
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Today's Featured Article - Grain Threshing in the Early 40's - by Jerry D. Coleman. How many of you can sit there and say that you have plowed with a mule? Well I would say not many, but maybe a few. This story is about the day my Grandfather Brown (true name) decided along with my parents to purchase a new Ford tractor. It wasn't really new except to us. The year was about 1967 and my father found a good used Ford 601 tractor to use on the farm instead of "Bob", our old mule. Now my grandfather had had this mule since the mid 40's and he was getting some age on him. S
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