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High hour tractors fascinate me and I have read a good article about Devon contractor Michael Tucker and his John Deere 6400 which at the time of the interview had 39,800 hours on it. Adding a link to it       https://www.fwi.co.uk/machinery/high-hour-heroes-jd-6400

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20220921_120929.jpg.9c507a8c320bdd558c449555613be12c.jpgWas riding up to Melle in France, when I came across this lot by the side of the road in Burguete. There was a Fordson Major parked up, very much like the one I drove for a few weeks back in 1975.

No Massey 135's like mine, but a similar Erbo or two. The 166 was big.

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Sorry if someone has already posted this, but it's such a good video. It's also a relic of the days when tractors were relatively inexpensive and farms employed quite large numbers of (often mixed ability) drivers. Most modern farms are run by a skeleton staff or even a single individual and tractors now cost as much as a house. 

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2 hours ago, warch said:

 

Sorry if someone has already posted this, but it's such a good video. It's also a relic of the days when tractors were relatively inexpensive and farms employed quite large numbers of (often mixed ability) drivers. Most modern farms are run by a skeleton staff or even a single individual and tractors now cost as much as a house. 

Excellent video- thanks for posting.  Should be required viewing for anyone who "plays" with tractors as I sometimes do.  It certainly made me think.  

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I have a steep bank separating my garden into two levels. Local farmer flew up the slope in his tractor, whereas I never drove up it in mine for fear of it tipping over

I got him in to make a gentler slope between the two levels, so now I can use mine to maintain the trees and weeds.

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23 hours ago, Dyslexic Viking said:

High hour tractors fascinate me and I have read a good article about Devon contractor Michael Tucker and his John Deere 6400 which at the time of the interview had 39,800 hours on it. Adding a link to it       https://www.fwi.co.uk/machinery/high-hour-heroes-jd-6400

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Interesting .

Something I learnt as an ag engineer was that older tractors used to only clock an hour for every hour the engine was at rated ( pto ) speed . So one used as a yard tractor might take a whole day so clock an hour on the meter.

Whereas modern digital ones clock up hours from just being running and in come cases just ignition on .

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18 minutes ago, twosmoke300 said:

Interesting .

Something I learnt as an ag engineer was that older tractors used to only clock an hour for every hour the engine was at rated ( pto ) speed . So one used as a yard tractor might take a whole day so clock an hour on the meter.

Whereas modern digital ones clock up hours from just being running and in come cases just ignition on .

I have also been told that it is like this on older tractors but I think that from the 80's and possibly some the 90's they got accurate hour meters. But I think there is also a difference between the old tractors that some count better than others?

But it is fascinating how many hours many people manage to get on tractors in a short time. Large dairy farms seem to be good at this, a tractor that runs a feed mixer can run 10 to 12 hours every day all year round. Saw on a large Russian dairy farm owned by a German some tractors there ran between 3000 to 4000 hours a year.

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On 9/28/2022 at 9:54 AM, warch said:

 

Sorry if someone has already posted this, but it's such a good video. It's also a relic of the days when tractors were relatively inexpensive and farms employed quite large numbers of (often mixed ability) drivers. Most modern farms are run by a skeleton staff or even a single individual and tractors now cost as much as a house. 

That's a great video, thanks for sharing. From the occasional tractor and JCB driving that I have done I would agree that they are dangerous things. Just because they are slow doesn't mean that you can't get yourself into trouble pretty fast.

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The farm I work on now uses a variety of modern stuff for everything but this extremely well-used International is still on site.  Bought secondhand many years ago, it used to be their yard scraping tractor and was eventually relegated to running a stirrer for the slurry pit.  When it started overheating, it was put out to pasture, probably 10-15 years ago.

A few weeks after I took these photos, it was dragged into a nearby field by our JCB telehandler so they could resurface the track.  It'll probably stay there for the foreseeable future, no idea if it would still run but if I ever had the time I'd love to bring over a can of diesel and a battery and give it a go.  I've been told that even when it was used for scraping, it had no brakes!

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2 hours ago, phil_lihp said:

The farm I work on now uses a variety of modern stuff for everything but this extremely well-used International is still on site.  Bought secondhand many years ago, it used to be their yard scraping tractor and was eventually relegated to running a stirrer for the slurry pit.  When it started overheating, it was put out to pasture, probably 10-15 years ago.

A few weeks after I took these photos, it was dragged into a nearby field by our JCB telehandler so they could resurface the track.  It'll probably stay there for the foreseeable future, no idea if it would still run but if I ever had the time I'd love to bring over a can of diesel and a battery and give it a go.  I've been told that even when it was used for scraping, it had no brakes!

I'd use a really large battery and/or jump leads. My experience is that even really ancient tractors will usually start with enough cranking. I'd probably bung a bean tin over the exhaust in the meantime to stop water ingress. The brakes are probably just horribly out of adjustment, but they were rarely that good even in tip top condition. The bodywork and wheels have seen their fair share of cow shit, absolutely horrendous stuff. 

That's not really that old, early to mid 80s, it originally had a quiet cab. It's quite a powerful tractor, c. 80hp, so a cut above the usual yard scraper fare (Massey 35/135 etc).

 

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We used to pump up the tyres, wire rope around the front axle and then tow gently around until they started - that was a generation earlier DB and Ford stuff but there'd always be something to get going around hay/silage time that had been sat for a long time.
Mind you the old boy that owned the place was a tight as the proverbial, every summer  we'd be humping batteries out of tractors and into his shonky old combine to get that started/out of the shed for barley.

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Tow starting is probably the most foolproof method, though these are 3ton or so in weight so probably better to use another tractor or a loader not a Landrover (ask me how I know). 
 

Very satisfying fixing up derelict old machinery.

ETA. I have seen farms with lots of elderly tractors where none of them were fitted with a battery. They’d park them on a steep hill and bump start them when required. 

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