To The Resident Dealer Owners/Mechanics

In your opinion, what model of any vintage of tractor is/has been the cheapest as far as parts/labor to repair after the warranty was up ? Thanks

Agree with Mack. If you bought a new series 4 gasser, changed the oil/filter faithfully, weren't brutal on the brakes, didn't grind gears etc, you could expect 3500 to 5,000 hrs out of the engine and probably only bought one battery, fan belt, PS belt and several sets of spark plugs/points and an air filter all that time. And when you did overhaul the engine, didn't even need to regrind the crankshaft (at the first OH).

In my opinion Id say your correct with a 17 gasser- but I know several 180 diesels out there running with 15000 + hours on them, one has been overhauled and  were primary tractors on the farm plowing to hay

Edited by DougG - 02 Jan 2021 at 8:51am

My Dad's D17, a 1961 model he traded for in 1973 and used for 20 plus years (until 1997) as his do everything tractor on his dairy farm in Minnesota winters, loader, cultivating, mowing, raking, baling, disking, some planting, etc etc, a tractor that rarely went a day without being run, had one over haul, one governor replaced, and just normal items like tune ups and the like..... one manifold..... it just didn't ever need much money ever stuck into it. It wasn't overhauled until 1992 which I did for Dad in the garage. It truly is a low cost tractor to own. I think a WD would fall into that same category.

Edited by Lonn - 02 Jan 2021 at 11:29am

While the WD45 was a great tractor as well, I've seen a PTO or two ripped out of one of them and never on a D-17 s3 or s4.

Talking with my 80 year old dad today, he agrees with the D17 being low cost to maintain but he thought a WD and he added the WC as just as low cost, if not lower cost. Back when these tractors were being used he just never heard of a WD or WC having trouble. They would just go and go and being abused a bit didn't seem to affect them much.

D17IV.... the issues after many hours - front pivot (seldom greased) wear, power steering pulley loosens, orings in the special fittings eventually leak, hyd spools,  draft spool sticks, orings in relief valve wear, lift cyls packing, and the most numerous - brakes - especially the left on as this is the one that locks for parking and forgot when resuming work if not really set hard :-)  -  throw in a starter, voltage regulator and resistor & lights- and that is about repair issues one ever finds on a scale to remember.  That is SMALL compared to every other tractor we service.  There are dozens we know of  - even mine, that have 15,000 + hours and still run great. If ALL the tractors had a 12" shift lever ........... :-) :-) !!! 

They had a rubber grip ??  :-)     On second thought --- I dreamed many times of a way to fix an electric fence  shocker to the seat of our tractors so when my brother and others pushed in the clutch and ground the gears....

Dads series 1 D17 had 30000 hours on it when he got rid of it. It had been overhauled 3 times, it needed the power director rebuilt and had started coming out of 3rd. The guy that bought it completely rebuilt everything it needed, repainted it. He even replaced the steering wheel. I'm sure it will be good for another 60 years. Although I liked it growing up, I liked my series 4 diesel better.

Yeah, the number thrown out was about 30 million.  Engine division did not take the hit - tractor division did. Been discussed here ad nauseum.. low compression , slow starting , tremendous clutch thrust loads... Took about year and a half to conquer the issue with front thrust brg - then wider thrust brg/crank surface... pins did not want to stay in differential - hyd was in rear end and if the level got low - many a wipe out when the spider pin cam out and hit the top PTO shaft and some blew out the bottom of the housing.  Then the face some did not know there were 2 compartments for  oil and many a tranny planetary seized....  but these units were sold in great numbers - AC actually got up to 20 per cent market share - highest in modern history for AC... high torque, peppy great fuel efficient  engines sold the tractor...

Yes but didn't them old A John Deeres eat clutches, especially when equipped with a loader? Didn't they also have loose flywheel issues? M Farmalittles, they had rear axle problems and cracked head troubles and one or more of them Farmsmalls routinely broke cam gears off. I know when I worked at the AC dealer I was told by the older mechanics that Farmsomes M, H etc would break axles while plowing. Dad remembers a neighbor with his Super M sitting in the plow furrow with a broken axle. An IH mechanic I knew said that the IH/McComical dealer he worked at once kept axles in stock and they had a 1066 axle on hand at the time (1990's). Not that a 1066 was ever in the running as being trouble free. 

Edited by Lonn - 03 Jan 2021 at 6:56am

The 2-bangers were pretty much obsolete and outdated when they were brand new...……..

T Bran, What causes the pin to come out, low oil or is there no reason, just random?

Edited by AllisFreak MN - 03 Jan 2021 at 9:01am

Operator not using diff-lock when plowing and other heavy loads .          MACK

MACK wrote: Operator not using diff-lock when plowing and other heavy loads .          MACK

I didn’t know you were supposed to use diff lock to plow. Huh! So, my plow is a lot for my tractor, I should engage diff lock each pass?