The price is attractive. Yet for about $2K to rebuild the engine and get it up to par isn't worth it for a 2-cyl.
I'm not a fan of the Yanmar hammer 2-cyl loud noise engines. The mellow noise 3-cyl is nice to the ears.
Your location should see many more as the ports of landing are out there. Out here in the far reaches of the mid-west, its odd.
"Runs but needs overhaul". For casual use I think it would be worth the gamble to just run it as-is until the day you can't get it started. Then swap in your truck battery to see if that will crank it better. A $100 battery and a starter rebuild might give you several years use. I think difficult starting is the only significant issue it is likely to have if its 'worn out'.
Brakes are NBD. Swap leading/trailing shoes, clean the actuation levers that tend to get stuck, good as new!
I was the final owner of numerous cars when I was young and poor. Buy someone's problem, diagnose and fix, and I've won the gamble many more times than I've lost. (But the $100 Mercedes with tempered steel timing chain fragments throughout everything was a lost gamble. Lost $50 on that one.
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The YM240 I've owned since 2003 would meet the description of that unit you posted. A stuck brake, idiot lights dangling by my knee, a 'rebuilt' (amateur!) starter that would hardly crank it, and worst of all, years-old high sulphur rancid fuel from the guy's abandoned farm tank that would hardly burn, the fumes scalded the eyes. On a tractor that was fundamentally sound after remedying years of user neglect. After a month of minor tinkering back then, its been dead reliable for near two decades now.
Yeah the racket from these is aggravating. The Sound of Raw Power! Today I spent a couple of hours on the YM240 backhoeing out dead stumps in the orchard. HF's better ear muffs were essential, without that I would still be deaf from the clatter.
Location? I think the importers, then later VN retailers, were located everywhere a small utility tractor was suitable, along with anywhere with huge suburban lawns. California has only a little of the latter and almost none of the former. Ag here is corporate, industrial scale, they buy new. Likely lease. Craigslist Yanmars are rare around here.
www.tractorbynet.com
