about those good and bad tractors......

reading the post is ocures to me that maybe we arn't being quite fair to the old machines,a lot of varriables can interfere with these choises, like operator experience, ground conditions and weather the tractor itself is of the proper type and horsepower for the job its being asked to do, ie, if you have a old jd or farmall diesel tractor and you measure snow in feet not inches you may have cold starting problems in winter, that doesnt make it a bad tractor, or if you have a N series ford and your trying to pull 3 16's thru clay it aint happening, that doesnt make the ford a bad tractor, so lets limit the tractors to antiques made before 1970, and group them say light duty- N series fords, allis b's, and c's, farmall cub, a's and b's ect then 30 to 50 hp, then 50 to 75hp ect now lets try this again for the best and worst and what it was doing that made you choose that model for nomination , i know i cant spell, just makin talk about tractors

I have always felt that they are all good TILL THEY BREAK DOWN or ya try and do more then they can handle. About like selling a good 450 Diesel then going out and buying a F460 , just because the first number is a 4 and the second number is a 6 SURE DOES NOT MEAN that the 460 will even hold a candle next to the 450 . There was only two days that i was happy with that tractor , the day i bought it and the day it went down the road to a new home .

There has been only ONE tractor built that was a piece of junk from the get go, and that particular tractor is why we now have the Nebraska tractor testing facility, so I guess it WAS good for something. There may be some of today's Chinese imports that are also pure junk, but I will not label anything built in the U.S. or Canada, maybe even Europe, in the last 80 years or so as being bad. If you use the tractor as intended by the manufacturer, it will perform quite well and serve you for many, many years.

What tractor was that? My history knowledge is not what it could
be.
Zach

If I recall it was a tractor named FORD. Built by a company that hired an engineer with that last name so they could capitalize on the name before Henry got into the business. Forced Henry into using the name Fordson. The tractor was a POS.

(quoted from post at 13:17:23 11/11/10) If I recall it was a tractor named FORD. Built by a company that hired an engineer with that last name so they could capitalize on the name before Henry got into the business. Forced Henry into using the name Fordson. The tractor was a POS.

Click to expand...

Yes, that's the one. Built out of surplus MARINE parts if I remember correctly.

Ya mean this ?
fordson

No, the Ford he was talking about had nothing to do with the Ford Motor Company or Henry Ford- just some outfit trying to capitalize on a known name. I don't recall the particulars of the story, but many people were mislead by the Ford name, and were outraged that it was such a POS. It led to the Nebraska Testing center, as there had been no standards of comparison before.

If reasonable historic perspective is placed on the question, those old JI Case (and other makers)steam tractors started the era of traction engines. From the beginning to today each generation, and each maker (with exceptions for both little wierd imports of small consequence, and some Eastern European reliability issues) have been better and more operator friendly. Some stayed with a design too long and got behind, some models were much better than others, But I will allow that all tractors are far better than wearing the handle off of a flat stone tied to a bent stick. Jim

the company was formed by bear ewing i believe out of california. he hired a hardware store clerk by the name of paul ford to use the ford name on the tractor. it was a reverse tricycle tractor that used a giles marine engine.

have you ever owned a 460 IH?

heres a link about the ford tractor
baer ewings ford

This POS Ford tractor not the red one! LOL!
Ford not Fordson

I was going strictly on breakdowns. The three that I listed might as well have been made out of tinkertoys. CONSTANT breakage. Obviously a flaw in the design.

Now I'm really confused- because your picture looks exactly like an 8N with the sheetmetal removed! LOL

Looking at that "Ford", my first thought was, "What could possibly go wrong?" It is even more pathetic than I remember. Thanks for posting.

I enjoyed reading the good, bad and ugly about all tractors, reguardless of age and size. People should learn not to take someone else's opinion personally.

Mentioning steam engines, from what I've read there were several short-lived steam engine brands that tended to blow up. There is no gas or diesel tractor problem caould give a guy that bad of a day.

I heard one old steam guy say the reason Case sold so many engines is they were cheap, and cheaply made. I have no way to prove or dis-prove his words, but it shows the brand wars have been going on since the very beginning. Before the machine era people probably argued about ox-carts. Jim

George got any of those winter carrot seeds left like you convinced those poor kids about!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was raised on a farm and grew up in a farming community where I had the sometimes pleasure of operating a wide variety of tractors and power equipment. Some even home made. And I will say that I have never found a bad tractor as long as you operated it within the design parameters. And on the flip side I never ran one that was perfect in every way. One of my favorite 50-75 horsepower tractors was the John Deere 2020. I ran one that never missed a lick. Then there was another 2020 down the road that if you kept it running for more than 50 hours without something in the drive train breaking you were having a good time. We swore it was built either on a Monday or Friday, and I think that this is the case with all manufacturers. But I do agree with the Far Eastern built tractors. I think they are built with the intent of selling relatively cheep to the hobby gardener. to pull the little tiller through the back yard or move a little landscape gravel once in a while. You put them out to work for 10-12 hours a day and you might make one season between overhauls. There are a bunch of them around here and I get calls all the time to do repairs and when I tell them what its going to cost they first tell me I'm crazy and then a couple days later they come asking me again and I tell them that they might as well replace it and keep the old one for parts. I have two in the back right now that that I just sold to a parts recycle yard.
If your interested they are Yammer

Got a YANmurray in the garage waiting to be put together , head Gasket Became everything else problem ... IMHO ... ASian rim tractors are Hi performance /SHORT- life

No, the bull eat all of them.

So, if you are buying new, see if it has a nebraska test or not. If it doesn"t, look at a different one.

At what point do they not test small tractors?

karl f