Which kind of tractor to get -- Ford 8N or old Kubota Subcompact

Lets us know what you get; I have to admit that to my eye there is nothing more pleasing to the eye than an 8N and I am actually looking for one myself to restore for parades and such.

I would second Paul's point though to be careful of falling for the shiny paint.

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www.salmonslayer-simplelife.blogspot.com

My first tractor is/was a Bolens 19 hp about like the one you had pictured. It doesn't pull stumps well but pulls a 6 foot mower or a 4 foot bush hog easy. I have a one bottom plow for it. It burns a gallon of fuel a day no more no matter what. The tractor is a Japanese tractor made by Iseki. Iseki sells tractors under various brands. White AGCO Massy depending on what year and how big.

I have a 35 HP Mahindra and it can tip over trees in the 12 inch range and less.

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"put new rings in the engine, overhauled it" If he overhauled it of course he put new rings in it, and a whole lot more. If he just put new rings in it then thats a patch job to buy time. Different people say things different ways, but this throws a flag up to me.

I have used and continue to use a Ferguson TO 20 to do much as you describe for 17 years. Yea it get's it done and it's easy to work on but boy oh boy plowing my 950' driveway with a back blade is a big PITA. Not much power in reverse with these tractors either nor is there much control in many respects. Get good enough with one and well I guess its "good enough". Still you can get crazy trying to do something like drilling post holes again due to the lack of control over everything. These things were the marvel of their day 60 or 70 years ago compared to horses and oxen but the world moved on.
Kubota makes very nice machines but for my money they are too nice in the $$$$$ department. There are some other nice small 4wd makes out there that are better priced and will run circles around the old relics...... If you ever drove a tractor with a loader without power steering , I own one and it is as close to useless as it gets. Better than a wheel barrow, turning radius of a supertanker and with no downpressure you couldn't dig into anything harder than a pile of sand..........................Get a good one and take care of it if you are going to be doing a lot of this sort of stuff.

Thanks for the advice everyone. The refurbished 8N was the cats meow, the guy had a pole barn dedicated to rehabbing Ford tractors, and I believe it was a ground up restoration but in the end the lack of new tires (some of them were checked and weather worn) and his higher price had me go with the older 8N tractor. For some reason I must have copied the wrong pictures over from a different Craigslist post -- it does not have the front headlights but is in similar overall condition. Has 12V conversion and starts right up.

I need to watch some YouTube videos on how to grade a driveway. Any tips would be appreciated. It has a front ball hitch on the bumper guard and I was able to pull out some downed trees that have been bothering me for a long time. Thanks for the help!

Been using my Massey Ferguson 50 for 22 years now. 1963 model with PS and loader. Has dual range tranny, 3-point hitch, spin-out rears, wide front. I paid $3 grand for it with loader, paid $300 for a used Woods 6-foot brush mower back then, too. Runs like a champ, everyone says get it restored but I tell them no because then I would worry about scratching it!

These old tractors never go down in value. I can get $3,500 for it now, even with the hours I have put on it. There's a reason!

Do not balk at a front end loader. You will wonder how you ever lived without it!

I can always tell the small farms with the 8Ns on them because there is no dual clutch on those (unless it is retrofitted). That means you cannot stop the tractor and leave the bush hog spinning. So all those farms have the corners busted out of their fences. LOL. I jest, but barely - a lot of them do! 8Ns are stout but are hard tractors to use in a practical fashion, once you are spoiled by a better design.

UNDER EDIT: Well, I just saw you made your choice and I hope I didn't offend you!

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Jim Steele
Sweetpea Farms
"To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing." -- Robert Gates

Jim S. -- no offending! I knew what I was getting into when I got this... it is good enough but not great. I think she will do for a while until I figure out more of my needs and can save more money. It has already been very useful dragging felled trees and grading some roads. Once I hook a trailer up to it I will be able to drag my log rounds for splitting and stacking. Very handy.

Good thing I don't have any fences up yet!

For those who use tractors for stump pulling, read this newspaper story. Be careful.

Man dead in tractor accident » Region » Traverse City Record-Eagle

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Nappy, thank you. I have heard from multiple folks sobering stories of what to do/not to do. I will heed the warnings.

You never exactly grade a drive way with a tractor. You go out and drag some dirt around and wait for it to rain again to see what you done and if your not happy you drag some more dirt around.

With enough time and practice you can do a fair job. You have to minipulate the blade up and down a bit as you go to get the humps knocked of and the low spots filled in.

From your pictures it's hard to tell if you bought an 8N or an earlier 2N with a front mount distributor, also by looking at the other side from your picture, if you find two levers on your hydraulic control, you'll be in luck--you will have a position control which will keep your back blade in one position instead of moving up and down with every up and down movement of your wheels as they go over the terrain..... If you need a position control(which the earlier N's didn't have) you will need to get a "Zane Thang", an ingenious invention by Zane Sherman.....of Talagada, Alabama which will do the job for you.The Zane Thang Please do not link to any pictures if you find any--the folks on the N-Board(Yesterdays Tractors . com) have a tacit gentlemen's agreement to allow Zane to sell his invention without having to go through the patenting process--please give him that courtesy--he doesn't make much more profit above his material and shipping costs.

For safe operation of a rotary bush hog, you'll want to get an override clutch, which attaches on your PTO shaft that will the allow spinning blade to rachet over the PTO gear when you stop the tractor's forward movement with the regular clutch. Otherwise the spinning blade will be the flywheel which motors your tractor forward, no matter how hard you step on the clutch.....(Don't leave home without it)

The most critical item on the N" is the OIL PRESSURE! Watch it carefully as the tractor warms up and works...... You can easily spin a bearing and have to split the tractor and do an overhoul.......(as much or more than you paid for the tractor)

Take a look at: Antique Tractors - Yesterday's Tractors : Antique Tractor Headquarters This is an excellent site for all kinds of tractors and such. It also has an N-Series discussion board--full of experts with answers to more than you'll ever need concerning your new to you tractor. Also, go to the parts link, to buy the repair manual.....

Happy(and safe) tractoring!

geo

geo, thanks for the heads up.

I believe it is an 8N because it says it on the side of the frame and it has 4 forward gears (although I can't get into 2nd?). I'm not sure I understand Zane's device, I did research what it looks like. When i drive around with the PTO engaged and the blade raised it stays put. Will this do the same thing but not require the PTO to be engaged?

The oil pressure looks good. I will keep an eye on it. Also, thank you for the forum reference. Book marked!

No, it's when you are using it to grade or move snow.... If your back wheels go over a rise, your back blade will follow upwards, without the device to keep it level. Same way going down a depression--blade will try to dig in. The only way to keep it level and in one position is to anticipate and move the up/down lever to counteract it. Study the Thang after you have run the blade and you'll get how it does that......

BTW, the second most important thing is the hydraulic oil: 1) It uses 134-D, and not 80/90 wt... 2) You need to make sure the rubber "boot" is attached at the point where the gearshift lever goes into the transmission---and/or keep the tractor out of the rain.....water will get into the transmission, messing up the hyd fluid and possibly freezing in the winter....not good.
Third.... when you leave it sitting for long periods of time, you should block the clutch down by putting a wooden block between the clutch foot lever and the frame of the tractor... sometimes the clutch will stick together when it is worn(of course yours isn't, since it has been overhauled--no sense splitting a tractor to overhaul it without refurbishing the clutch at the same time)

But all this is covered by the N-board on YT...

geo

Geo, mine doesn't have the rubber boot. Looks like I need to find one! BTW I did not buy the rehabbed tractor so the clutch is worn I am sure. I will cut a piece of wood to block it soon. Thanks for the tips!

For grading a gravel driveway, angle the blade (left/right) - more is better.

Pull the gravel into the middle of the road. Make several passes, more is better. Always pull gravel to the middle.

If you keep the blade straight - 90 degrees to the road, it will follow dips up & down, and actually make those worse. Your road will become a washboard. With the blade angled, it keeps itself a lot more level as you go over bumps and dips, filling in the low spots, shaving off the high spots.

If you have a low spot, muddy, in the drive, you can't bring in a bladefull of loose stuff and leave it there. Those low spots need to be shaved down and leveled off and built back up again - with the angled blade, many passes. It gives better results.

To finish off leveling something, you can turn around the blade and use the 'wrong' side of the blade to smooth things over. It will create a nice smooth surface without digging in.

To create a crown on the road, you can use the little crank on the lift arm of your tractor 3pt - cranking it will make your blade lower on one side, so it will create a slightly beveled cut. It's good for a road to be crowned, or beveled, higher in the middle by a couple inches.

It can be tough to use a blade in reverse. Most swing around so you can blade things backing up; but it tends to bite into the ground much more that way, and a heavy push or hitting a stump or something is more likely to bend your 3pt hitch as you are pushing with the arms, and they are designed to pull. There are times using the blade in reverse is a good thing, but typcally on softer loose dirt, in small bits.

When driving forward, if you lengthen the top arm on the 3pt it will make the blade more agressive. If you shorten this arm (most have a turnbuckle type screw longer or shorter) then the blade will not be as agressive, sliding over the top more.

If previous owner didn't ever use the top link screw adjustment, or the right-side raise/lower adjustment, they can easily be frozen in place with rust & dirt. It is well worth using some penetrating oil & a little work to get them operational again.

--->Paul

I have had a Zane thing for about 12 years. It works and it helps but remember one thing. No matter what anyone says it's not going to make your older tractor have live pto, period. It's still going to be a pain to get a blade to hold any particular position and if you are using a mower deck it will sometimes want to drift up and downwards a bit as you go. Once you are used to dealing with the old type 3 pt drift you will find it's easier to manage it on your own than fight the added drag of the Zane thing.

Rambler Paul -- you sir are a grading genius. I plan on doing some work this weekend -- can't wait to try it out!

Drizler -- thanks for the info. My 3 pt lever is more like an on/off switch... it has very little fine control. I will need to get more used to it to be good with fine detail. Our area for brush hogging/ mowing is relatively small so if I ever get a brush hog/finish mower I think it will take of the job.

Thanks for all of the help!

It's a balancing game, always wanting to rise or fall slightly or slowly. A good idea for hogging is to put a couple stay chains on it so it can't go too far down if it becomes a problem for you. The overrunning clutch is a helpful item here too as the hog doesn't keep trying to push you along. You can do without any of it but it will wear you out quick and safety aside it's just a major PITA you don't need . Remember you don't control the PTO speed with a dead pto tractor. You find a speed that the tractor moves over the ground and will cut happily and that;s it, it;s all you get. It's all you need really but if you try to force things you just get irritated. 2Nd gear for my TO20 and 5' hog or 6' mower deck PERIOD. It will do more but I find the damage I do to everything far outweighs any accomplishments . If it's ugly and unknown stick to 1st gear. I've done 15 acres plus for years like this for many seasons but always watch the water temp and fluids as you are really working it.

Drizler, thanks for the advice. I will be borrowing my friends brush hog soon so your advice is very timely.

Here are updated pics. Just as a recap, it has been converted to 12V which is why you see the aftermarket solenoid in the pictures. I think I will give it a paint job this summer.

Your PTO shaft is what turns the hydraulic pump. With the PTO lever thrown to disengage, you've no hydraulics.

You do have a rubber boot on your shifter. Looks a little loose around the lever, which is where the water will enter. It will travel down the long shift lever and into the box. It will settle at the bottom and in the winter can freeze, shattering the hydraulic pump.