Evening All

[CurlyBen]

Though I should probably introduce myself rather than simply lurking!

My name's Ben (funnily enough) and I live in England, where I help my Dad out with the 4-5 acres my parents have. He's got an old David Brown 885 (an English manufacturer, there are a few in the States I believe -they eventually got bought out by Case). It's a mid-70s agricultural machine, with about 50hp and a loader. It's overkill for what we need, but far cheaper than buying a newer utility tractor, over here at least, and the power's handy for pulling trees out of the river. A chipper, mower and link box rounds out the kit.

I've done a bit of work on farms with a variety of kit (up to a 365hp Steiger which was good fun!) and I design telehandlers for a day job so I've got a bit of an idea what I'm doing with hydraulics and the like. Already got some useful info out of the site so thanks for that!

Cheers

Ben

 

[Bob77064]

Welcome Ben

 

[300UGUY]

Hi Curly!!! My neighbor has a DB 885. Nice tractor, they just didn't have a big sales network here. You will like this place!!! Stop by the Good Morning thread, I don't think we have anybody from England.

 

[creekbend]

Welcome aboard from North Carolina.

 

[Wagtail]

G'day and welcome to TBN from Downunder.

Enjoy the site!

 

[mguitas]

Welcome to the tractorbynet.

 

[DT86]

Welcome!

We too have an old 885 dad bought used in the 70's. They were pretty common locally, there was a dealer about 30 minutes away and he pumped this area full of them.

 

[CurlyBen]

Cheers guys!

It's interesting to see how a big manufacturer in one market really can't get far in another because they just lack the dealer network. The DB is a cracking bit of kit though, although I do curse the valve chest on a regular basis!

 

[DT86]

...I do curse the valve chest on a regular basis!

The 3 point hitch is a major PITA. Ours hasn't worked right in years, despite a rebuild.

 

[CurlyBen]

Ours works, but the spool is worn and there's quite a lot of leakage past it. I'm a bit annoyed as it wasn't too bad, but I tried to rotate the spool and it's now a lot worse! I'm up for giving it a rebuild but I haven't found much info on how to go about it, and we have the Narrow version and it's not obvious how to get the valve chest out. A problem for a warmer day!