Choosing And Using A Tractor

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Before going any further in this vein, I should come out and admit that I'm not a particularly talented mechanic myself. Still, I manage to get by, and one of the ways I do that is by paying close attention to routine maintenance. Conscientious preventive maintenance is inexpensive and takes little time, yet it's the single best way to minimize wear and prevent expensive problems from occurring.

Service the air and oil filters at least as often as recommended by the manufacturer—usually every 100 operating hours—and drain the crankcase and install fresh oil with each filter change. If, as is fairly likely, you don't use your tractor for 100 hours each year (that's an average of about 20 minutes every day), service the filters annually anyway.

Every other month or so, take up your grease gun and pump some fresh grease into every fitting on the tractor. You'll find a fitting at each pivot point in the steering gear, in a couple of places on the three-point hitch, and at other wear points. Every two or three years, drain and replace the transmission, hydraulic, and differential fluids. And every now and then, when you're up near the front of the tractor, take a moment to inspect the fan beltwhich runs the generator—and make sure that it's tight and in good repair.

Most older tractors were originally equipped with 6-volt electrical systems, which tended to be short on cranking power, particularly in cold weather. Whatever you can do to keep such a tractor operating efficiently reduces the chances of your getting on it some damp, chilly morning and finding that it resolutely refuses to fire-something that's bound to happen right when some vital chore needs to be done. I may be spending more money than I need to, but each year I replace the spark plugs, plug wires, distributor cap, rotor, breaker points, and condenser. Would the tractor start just as reliably if I didn't? Possibly—but the $30 or so I fork out for ignition parts each year makes me feel a lot more confident when I reach for the starter button.

If you someday find yourself with a dead battery anyway, don't succumb to the temptation to stretch a set of jumper cables from the 6-volt battery in your tractor to the 12-volt battery in your car. That's a fine way to burn out the tractor's wiring harness by overloading it.

What if you press the starter button and the motor turns over strongly but the tractor will not start? Well, not every problem has a simple solution, but some do. Is the ignition switch turned to "ON"? It's easier to forget that than you might think. If they're honest, most tractor owners will probably admit to having vainly cranked a switched-off engine at one time or another, cursing bitterly as the battery wore down, and finally sheepishly realizing what the matter was. (A friend of mine who's a private pilot refers to that sort of problem as "a short between the headphones.")

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