Eric is happily making peat and moss in the damp weather while Rick is chasing tumbleweeds...
I was out yesterday for several hours watering trees planted this year, plus grass seed put down. Not much in forecast either.
Good morning America. A warmer 44 going all the way up to 70 today, no snow here... :thumbsup:
But almost as much dust as Texas; rains have been less than half an inch when they have come at all.
Decided to buy the little IH Super A built the year I was born. Local Kubota dealer used to be IH, and sold hundred of these tractors.
The service mgr personally worked on them for years and their parts dept still has everything needed. I just need gaskets and tires; the latter
the tractor dealer wants no part of.
And then when this one is fixed up (no paint though...keeping the old patina aka rust) then my neighbor has a 140, the slightly larger and newer brother, sinking into the dirt in the weeds for at least ten years. There is really no functional difference, when the Super A changed from an A apparently that's when full hydraulics came in, and the offset body layout to allow you to see the action down below. I think the 140 has five more hp, probably made a difference when they tried to plow with these little tractors.
Unit comes with the fertilizer bin but not a planter, and I did get him to throw in the three point hitch accessory which you can still buy online new for over 700 bucks. I'm unlikely to use it but it should stay with the tractor. Seller said he also had a box of sweeps and other goodies he would give me. He's a collector...and must be a bit hard to give up anything. But he has another one of these, a Cub and a 140. He laughingly said that was one too many of very similar tractors other than to have a show.
He was a local CC professor and minister and I think needed some money for Christmas. In this case I was happy to oblige. Normal asking price is at least a thousand more, he knows the tractor needs work, and has the oil leak. So I told him I had to put 800 bucks worth of tires on and get that leak fixed, which means cracking the block, and in that discussion the three point hitch was thrown into the deal... He's an honest man and so am I, we figured that out right away.
I was worried that cracking the block on this was a huge deal but everyone kind of smiled and said no, it was really easy and folks seem to love to work on these things
because you can actually see what is going on. Endless YouTube videos, I watched one about cracking the block to see what was involved. Seemed like a lot of work, but I guess if you've done it dozens of times, you know exactly in what order to take things off and put them back on. Something I rarely get right myself...
Apparently you can have this thing apart in an hour or so. Of course the allegedly newer clutch may or may not be oil soaked by a bad seal that sits right on top of it, learned that on YouTube.
So you never know when you open things up what you find. Clutch engaged ok, but I don't have much to compare it to. I know the band brakes are worn out/oil soaked, the left one going first because another seal inside drips oil where it shouldn't. Even the seals are less than ten bucks. So the exact opposite of trying to get parts for my 20 year old Japanese Massey; in this case it's super easy.
I think the Kubota service manager was actually looking forward to working on it a little himself. Something different than orange, plus they have all the parts.
Normally they tell non Kubota customers to go somewhere else.
