Best 100-140 hp work horse?

All companys had their issues. Some deere wrench turners tell you there was not a smooth PS in the deers till the 55 and later series tractors. Also with the earlier ones its kind of hard to buy the tractor back again after a PS rebuild, One piece in most of them that fails is to the tune of $6000.
Not even going to touch on the AC of Deutz. Never been around them enough to say much about them. IH had thier problems in the TAs and also differncal problems in the 86's. Then Massey and Ford also hard their multi power and dual power that cost alot of money to fix when they give up the ghost. White/ Oliver ran the 2 and 3 speed over under units ahead of the trans. Good sound unit, but as with anything more moving parts are more pron to fail. Only seen 1 and head of another 3 speed over under totally blowing up.
Then Case tryed their had at a power slip trans like all the rest too. By the time the 90/94 series came around they had it down pretty good. But, like all power shifts MAINTANCE IS THE KEY TO A LONG LIFE WITH THEM.
But, what would fit your bill real nice like would be a 1170 or 1175. These still retained the 8 speed manual trans with about 125 hp. Like most cases they are cheap on full and can be had in the 3000 - 6000 range. Also there was some 90 with teh 8 speeds too. I know of a 2290 that has the big 504 motor that is a manual. That one turns out 185 hp.

Bob