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Voting For Feature Tractor for December 2017

3K views 16 replies 12 participants last post by  propane1 
#1 ·
Vote For Feature Tractor December 2017
Who should be feature tractor?
Simplicity 7112 6 speed by SimplyRad24.76%
"Old Girl", a 1978 Roper 20T by Larrybl37.14%
1970 H3 John Deere by Propane124.76%
1976 Massey Ferguson 12 by Propane1614.29%
455 John Deere AKA "Noisey Pelacan" by Alberta Bolens12.38%
Bolens 1050 by fonz348237.14%
1965 Allis Chalmers BigTen by B10Dave37.14%
"Lucy" by John Arsenault37.14%
Ford LGT 165 by pryan051023.81%
1974 Massey Ferguson MF 14 by James Bosma49.52%
General Electric E15 ElecTrak by DH1511.90%
 
#2 · (Edited by Moderator)
Voting for GTtalk Featured Tractor of the Month for the month of December has now officially started and will end the last day of November. This month's theme is snow removal.

The winner will be featured on the GTtalk Home Page for the entire month of December and in our Featured Tractor Section for infinity.

We have 11 nominations this month. Before voting please be sure to check out all the entries in the posts below. Good Luck to all the contestants. Let the Voting Begin!
 
#3 · (Edited by Moderator)
I am going to nominate my 85 (engine is that year) Simplicity 7112 6 speed. I just got it this last Jan so haven't had too long. It came with mower deck and snow thrower. We never had any snow last winter to even try it out.

I have added a rear lift sleeve so I can also use my tiller and plow. I also have a blade for dirt or snow and have used all but the thrower.

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Added wheel weights.

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Used drag on neighbors yard.

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#4 ·
Is snow required? If not...

I would like to nominate "Old Girl", a 1978 Roper 20T. My Co-workers know that I mess with Garden Tractors, and will often tell me about ones they see while doing their work (Traffic Signal and Sign repair). Most of the time when I go to the address they tell me, it is usually a box store throw-away. One day they came back and told me about a riding mower that was located at a house that was on my way home. It was almost two weeks before I decided to drive by and check it out. I was only planning a drive-by look but when I saw her I had to talk with the owner. I normally don't knock on doors, but I had to on this. Talked with the owner and asked if he wanted to sell the GT, We agreed on $200.00, and I would come by Saturday with a trailer. I picked up a U-Haul and arrived at his house with a Air Tank, Come-along, tie downs and $200 in cash. After She was loaded on the trailer, he opened the Garage and brought out Tire Chains, all the manuals, and pointed to the snow thrower and asked if I wanted it for scrap. Of course I took it.

Restoring her was pretty straight foreword, and made a great project for Grandson and Pap time. I made sure the engine would fire before I removed it, then we tore her down to the frame. All parts were evaluated, and either cleaned up and painted or replaced. Most of the bolts, bushings, and pulleys were replaced with new. Parts carefully prepped and painted. A few minor modifications using LED lamps, and added a couple indicator lamps for the parking brake and starter solenoid.

The real challenges were replacing the mufflers. I tried a set off a Sears GT-18 no where close to a fit. I found a company that would custom make one, so I enlisted them. While they were working on this,

Took the completed Old Girl to the fabricators twice to finally get the muffler to fit under the hood, and after my neighbor did a slight modification to give a gap between it and the air filter it was finally done. After nine months, No leaks, and runs very smooth and quiet now

Her main use for now is to take to shows (already been to several), and light trailer towing.

The Snow Blower has been restored. Not sure I'll ever get to use it, but it sure turns heads here at shows.

Presenting "again" Old Girl, 1978 Roper 20T
 

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#5 · (Edited by Moderator)
Ok, I'll put in my 1970 H3 John Deere. Bought this tractor about 5 years ago. I believe it to be 1 out of 2 that are in my home province, PEI. I am the third owner.

When I got the tractor it had its original tires on it. I put the big lug tires on it because I wanted too. For traction and looks. It came with a mowing deck. I bought the tractor because I wanted to add different colour to the fleet. But that causes the wife to notice it quicker.

I liked the idea of hydraulic ports on the front. I wanted to do a hydraulic project and this tractor fit the bill. I did not have a project in mind thou at the time of buying the tractor. First thought was a wood spliter, which I have not yet done. So a snow thrower was another idea. Ended up buying one off a buddie who has a JD 317. He did not like how it worked. So I mounted on my 140. It's my favorite now. Then I figured I'd use the other ports on the front to run the top chute deflector. I mounted the cylinder and hoses. Works great.
Thanks for lookin and readin.

Noel
 

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#6 ·
Ok, I'll enter my second tractor, 1976 Massey Ferguson 12. I've had this one for six or seven years now. It came with a 42" deck, 36" tiller and a 36" snowthrower. Used the tractor mainly for tilling and some snow removal. Cut the grass with it a few times.

Then, I got the idea of a loader, these MF garden tractors look like the big brother farm tractors, so I built the loader to look like a pipe loader which would be on a 135 MF farm tractor. The loader is used a lot and is only operated by a winch. I hope to have a hydraulic one some day. So since the loader has been on and gets used so much, it rarely comes off the tractor. I knew that I would never mount the snow thrower on the front again, I figured I'd mount it on the back. It has it's own 8 hp engine to run the thrower. I added two extra paddles to the thrower and that helped keep the engine rpms up.

Works good. Looks just like a farm tractor. The tractor gets used year round for many uses.
And I get lots of lookers while I'm throwing snow with it.
Thanks for lookin and readin, even the cat helps out.

Noel
 

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#7 · (Edited by Moderator)
I'm going to enter the "Noisey Pelacan"

Its a 455 John Deere. I bought it 4 years ago in rough shape. A lot of the electrical was not working. Since I bought it I have replaced glo plugs, alternator, starter and dash. I have removed the fuel solenoid and installed a manual fuel shut off. Also a manuel push button for the glo plugs. The PO had the blo by hose run into the air cleaner, Think he was trying to hide the blo by. Glad I found that before I had a runaway. I now run the blo by into the exhaust, lot less mess. The muffler was rotten so I replaced it with a stack. The muffler is better than a straight pipe but not much. Sounds good when I get a load on it. Although I would like to find a quieter muffler. The little deisel is tired but it runs ok. Its not a great starting engine once it gets below freezing. The little garden tractor battery just doesn't have enough juice to power the glo plugs long enough to fire the engine when its cool out. I usally have to boost it even in the garage unless I have the heat on all night.

Most of the electrical parts I found as Yanmar parts on ebay. WAY cheaper that John deere parts.

With the wheel weights, loaded rear tires, tire chains and diff lock it pushes well. The hydro, power steering with hydralic lift and angle blade make it a treat to use. I do have a snow blower for it, which works great. Most of the time we don't get enough snow here in one shot to warrent a snow blower that big. I bought the blower last fall, I had it on my 425 last year and used it twice just to try it out. In the 20 years I have lived here I have only used the blower on my 1050 Bolens about 3 times. Our snow fall is usally 2 to 8 inchs at once, it can total 3 to 4 feet total over the winter, of light dry snow. Although we can get larger dumps, nothing like the mountians or east coast.

This summer I never took the blade off I used the tractor for some light landscaping and other work. I do have a 54 inch deck for it. I used my 425 for mowing this summer.

Photos are from tonight, 1st time I have cleared snow this year. Certain won't be the last.
 

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#8 · (Edited by Moderator)
I would like to nominate my Bolens 1050. This tractor has been worked hard for many years! It's been in the family for @ 25 yrs and has been used for mowing, my small landscaping business and most of all snow removal!! My dad bought the tractor in rough shape when I was 10yrs old. We worked on it together and got it all fixed up. We then used the heck out of it while doing regular maintenance and repairs as needed. I mostly used it because I loved riding and working with Bolens tractors. I used it to maintain our house and then I mowed and snowblowed 4-6 houses regularly in my neighborhood. The tractor also got called to duty to mow very tall fields/grass to setup a plot for my parents new house to be built. The tractor has never let me or my dad down! It always started and got the job done!

12yrs ago my Dad finally built a new house and moved onto the 30 acres of land he bought and the Bolens had maintained over the years. My dad upgraded to a international cub lowboy and set the Bolens aside. I eventually moved out, got married and bought a house. I knew the old Bolens was still sitting so I asked my dad for it. It had been sitting for 4-5yrs and needed some work. I brought it home and went through it front to back. Spruced it up a little and it's still a strong runner today! Original engine has never been rebuilt and this tractor never ceases to amaze me! Here are some pictures of it blowing some major snow after a large snow. Its been in my collection now for 7 yrs and I will never part with it! It's Family!! Enjoy!
 

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#9 · (Edited by Moderator)
I will nominate my 1965 Allis Chalmers BigTen for featured tractor for December. I bought this tractor from a friend about 13 years ago. It came with a deck; rototiller;snow blower and front blade. It is mostly original with some paint touch up over it's working life. The engine and all the rest of the drive train is original. I had to put in an axle tube soon after I bought it but nothing else has broken in all the years I have owned it. So; except for the usual belts wearing out and oil changes it has been a reliable trouble free machine.

I used it to till my garden until this year when I put in raised beds near our greenhouse. It had grass cutting duty for the last six years on an acre and a half until this year when it was retired from that chore as well. But; it has cleaned my driveway of snow every year since I bought it and will do so again this coming winter.

I believe Allis would appreciate being "Tractor of the Month" for December and I would be proud see her get the honour........Dave

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#10 · (Edited by Moderator)
For the 3rd consecutive time in a row I would like to proudly nominate "Lucy". When it comes to moving snow this is what this tractor was resurrected for. Originally our/my plan was to build a winter tractor for my wife, having tried a few tractors out previously from modern to vintage we have learned a bit along the way and have built a criteria. First was a hydro driven tractor, that was easy because there are many options these days but I have had a foot operated hydro and was not as pleased with those as a lever driven hydro. The lever driven hydro does not requite constant pressure you just put the lever where you want it and relax while the tractor just moves along to where with the foot pedal you always have to maintain with it. Driving it with your hand is also great when you got snow boots on and snow everywhere. We had one other lever driven hydro in the past so knew that is what we wanted. Great tractor but very hard to steer, the worst part was that the clutch pedal was on the right and I have a bad knee so anything with a right hand clutch has now been ruled out, our/my options for our criteria are now a lot thinner. Now we are looking for a vintage garden tractor with a hydro drive and the clutch on the left. Oh and to top it off I am now picky to what design belt drive I get I have learned that the one with bends and twist in them do not last long I have tried those on my modern and vintage tractors and have never had much luck with belt wear. Constantly searching craigslist, ebay, my local paper I found an ad for some "old sears garden tractors". As I clicked on the ad and started looking at it I saw that there was a hydro with this odd shaped devise on it called a sickle mower, I notice a few mower decks a snow blower a manual driven sears just like the hydro drive and then one more completely shredded apart tractor they called a parts tractor with all kinds of crap and stuff welded to it, it was scary.

Well as you know I bought it yep the whole lot of stuff that I don't even know what it is yet. My wife is looking at me like I am crazy carrying home all this rusted junk, I could see she was wondering if I got paid for hauling home this "old junk"

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I Immediately go at it like a gold miner that found his first nugget. Not sure if it was the pressure of proving to my wife that I didn't just pay a decent amount of money for a few trailer loads of junk or if it was because I saw the quality of the steel I was hauling home.

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I got to working on the manual first because it had all its parts and I wanted to get at least one together.

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I got the plow finished up and got that one moving along that winter and started to fall in love with it right away, this was the manual tractor I was looking for , its strong yet nimble steering, comfortable ergonomic I couldn't ask for a better simple vintage tractor.

I knew I was going to have to get back to the hydro driven one specially now that I have driven the manual drive and loved it so much.I also have a manual drive wheel horse and at the moment is our bread winner. With a 12 hp Kohler this this shoots snow.

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Well now we get the Sears Hydro running and blowing snow, and right off the bat we were very impressed with this tractor, my wife falls in love with it and names it "Lucy" She also stakes claim to the patina and says I am not painting it she likes it just the way it is.

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She ran great the whole winter with out a hick-up, I did put new seals in the hydro and the axles changed all fluids took a few things apart and lubed it up but made sure not to clean up or touch her paint job. The following year I started having issues, I had a carburetor crap out and an ssi went on me to, I ordered an aftermarket ignition and was able to keep "Lucy" running off the only one I had left and was starting to shop to a spare because this is our go to tractor, the one we want to put our hard work and effort into keeping, she mows great she snow blows great I found a tiller for the her, We are ready to commit and invest.

Well I get the shopping cart together and find that my parts are just insane for a few small items I can just about buy a brand new engine. I have done a lot of research and have read about engine swapping on the Suburbans so knew that it was something that could be done so started researching engine options.

Picking the right engine is not easy , you first have to find one that rated for what you would like to do with it and then you have to figure out how your going to make it fit and hope that the specs you get are accurate because its a big investment if it don't work out there is also no support on this.

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Well I went with a Subaru Robin EX40 and it fit, had to do a little cutting to the hood and swapped out the front grill with another tractor I got along the way for parts but it fit , we were not happy losing the look of "Lucy" at first but this one is starting to grow on us. What we gained was great , this engine is so smooth, so quiet, so fuel efficient and so powerful, starts great as it does have an electric start but to add to the happiness it also has a recoil back up. This engine was/is exactly what we needed, yeah we strayed away from the original vintage part and I'll be honest you cannot knock a Tecumseh engine that are strong beast they only got beat out by supply and demand. However since having this engine installed I have grown fond of the very strong starts although the tecumseh always started even in the coldest of winters they always seem to crank kind of slow.

Well this year we have upped the anti and even added more to this old girl.

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Taking on a new look and a new engine , we also got a new blower

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And one of those fancy rubber seats I see you all using.

Next nit picking thing we could find was a clutch/brake pedal so we added on one of those.

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My wife is also impressed with her new weight ballast it does not hit and clank against the seat no more and is removable with just a few nuts (4 to be exact) I also welded on a tab so that I can pull my wood trailer with it still attached for convince. Its very sturdy I can jack the whole tractor up by listing the tank or I can put all my weight on the tank and it don't budge a bit. Perfect for something I only want to use winters.

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I also have a few videos.

Lugging wood at engine idle

Crawling at engine idle

Putting some RPM's to it

This last one is a video of last year before we put in the new engine, the cushy seat , the brake pedal, the larger snow blower , the upgraded weight ballast, got the head lights working, new belts, and several other small things I am sure. you name it this tractor is ready to blow!



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BTW I have learned in life that anything that makes a woman smile like that is worth investing in, its ok to assume that she is wearing that same smile while she is snow blowing because she is.Its just that you can't see it with her face mask, so I had to show you a summer photo so you would see what I am talking about.
 

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#11 · (Edited by Moderator)
I would like to nominate my Ford LGT 165.

This tractor was first originally bought just for the mower deck as I did not have one for my Ford LGT 145. I bought it sight unseen and had a friend pick it up for me so I had no idea what I was getting. When this tractor first came home I knew that it had to be brought back to it former glory. It was put in the back yard under a tarp with the intentions of getting back to it in a couple of years. But then I came across the a Miller bobcat welding machine that the welding side no longer worked. And you ever google searched Ford LGT Diesel the first tractor that come up is skyryder2s Ford with a diesel. Right away I knew this is something that I would like to take on. I started by asking on this forum if and how it could be done and I was told that it could be done and has been done.


That is the welder that the motor came out of.
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This is the tractor when I first got it.

The blower came with my first tractor a close side LGT 145, it was rebuilt last year with new bearing, chain, sprockets and a fresh paint job. I used it a little last year during the test stages of building the tractor and seemed to work very well. The motor is rated at 14.9 KW or 21hp so chewing up snow should be a blast with this machine.




I just installed a new seat so the tractor is pretty much done. But I sure there will be something else that I need to change!
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Here is video that was taken today in the first snowfall of the complete tractor.


This post has been promoted to an article
 

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#12 ·
This is my 1974 Massey Ferguson MF 14. It is the second one in my collection of Massey Ferguson Tractors.

I got started in Massey's by fluke, Got a package deal of all Massey MF 14 attachments and a Cat 0 plough since the included tractor has a 3 pt hitch for a price that couldn't be beat.

After fixing that Massey up I decided it was now too nice for snowblower duty so I was off looking for another MF 14 or 16.

I purchased this Massey MF 14, it came with a wide MF550 tiller and home made snow blade.

Last year the original set up to rotate the shoot on the snowblower was giving me a real hassle, so I came up with a great solution, had a old wheelchair crane type lift so took the controls and motor from it and adapted them to rotate the shoot, now its just a touch of the button on the control box mounted on the hood and she will rotate.

Just this weekend did some much needed repairs to this beautiful tractor.

I upgrade to a nice black high back seat from the boat seat that was on it when I purchased her.

The lights were getting in bad shape so it was time to rewire and replace the tail lights, now everything works great on this old girl.

In another Massey package I got this year I got the foot rest extensions so I decided to install them on this tractor while I was doing the pre winter check up, I like the improved look.

Cant wait for this winter to hit now, suppose to be more than average snow fall this year, yippie more seat time for me

James Bosma
 

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#13 ·
ElecTrak

General Electric E15 battery powered snow plow. I got this a few yrs ago took it all apart repaired, repainted and replaced the original control circuits with a modern electronic controller. Tractor is used for as many different jobs as I can, grass cutting, garden plowing, cultivating, leveling out the driveway, it has gone to plowdays and tractor pulls.

In the winter I plan to use it for plowing the snow off the driveway. Tractor has Loaded AG tires, 250lbs of suitcase weights, 30lbs front wheel weights and 50lbs rear wheel weights. Factory 48" blade that has electric lift and hand control angle. I also have a factory snow thrower and back blade for it. Takes 15 minutes to switch the snow plow to a snow thrower. Hopefully we get enough snow that I can give it a real test to see how it does.
 

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#15 ·
ElecTrak

General Electric E15 battery powered snow plow. I got this a few yrs ago took it all apart repaired, repainted and replaced the original control circuits with a modern electronic controller. Tractor is used for as many different jobs as I can, grass cutting, garden plowing, cultivating, leveling out the driveway, it has gone to plowdays and tractor pulls.

In the winter I plan to use it for plowing the snow off the driveway. Tractor has Loaded AG tires, 250lbs of suitcase weights, 30lbs front wheel weights and 50lbs rear wheel weights. Factory 48" blade that has electric lift and hand control angle. I also have a factory snow thrower and back blade for it. Takes 15 minutes to switch the snow plow to a snow thrower. Hopefully we get enough snow that I can give it a real test to see how it does.
What is the overall weight of that garden tractor? The batteries along are a lot + all your ballast weight!.

I have always loved those G.E's, how long do you get off of one charge?
 
#16 · (Edited by Moderator)
With 6 x 6volt batteries they range from 800 to 950lbs.pluss attachments and added weights.

I bought a new set of batteries this yr and they are 43lbs heavier than the ones they replaced, I bought a better quality battery.

Just driving around you could go all day, 3hrs cutting grass with the mower on, 3hrs pulling a moldboard plow in the field.

Times will vary as the load or conditions change.
 
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