Quite often the 3020 vintage diesel did pretty good on fuel, but the price differental on the purchase would buy gasoline for a long time. Today with diesel even more expensive it may be harder to justify the diesel. A lot depends on actual hours run per year.
You can help the fuel consumption in your 3020 gas, I did for my 4020 gas. I cut its consumption from 400 gallons a year to 250 doing the same amount of field work. Good plugs (AC or Motorcrafft) and (copper) wires are vital. A new float needle valve and seat and a known good float in the carburetor are essential. Proper ignition timing is important and for light loads slipping it a few degrees more advanced can help so long as it doesn't ping too much at a heavy load, but hay making isn't a heavy load.
I found the choke cable wasn't opening the choke all the way because the sheath wasn't anchored near the carburetor.
I found the top of the Donaldson precleaner was doomed down instead of up, that acted like a partial choke. Then its important to go through the entire intake plumbing and filter and clean out the birds, the bird's nests, and the mud dauber nests that all act to restrict the air and make it run rich wasting fuel. Good thermostats are important because the engine is more efficient at 180 than cooler. It would be more efficient running even hotter but water and oil don't like it much hotter.
Plus, I know how to tune a gas engine and its lots cheaper for points, plugs, condenser, and even wires than a set of injectors and an injection pump rebuild that many new generation JD tractors have needed by now. When I bought my 4020 gas about ten years ago, I figured the price difference to a similar condition diesel, about $4000, would pay for 14 years fuel, then gas went up but I saved on fuel by tuning well. And now I've gone notill for the grain crops and reduced my annual fuel to about 38 gallons for both tractors (4020 and MF-135 that doesn the planting and the mowing and the preplant spraying).
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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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