Garden Tractors for the Small Country Place

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The appearance of a used tractor's outsides will tell you a great deal about how the owner has cared for the mechanicals. You can be confident the machine was not left out in rain and sun if paint is bright and shiny and the seat is uncracked and pliable. If there's no grime caked on the running gear, the innards should have been well cared for as well.

Look under the shroud or hood at the engine head(s). Air-cooled engines require a constant flow of cooling air. If straw and chaff clogs the air-screen on a big engine, or is packed between the cooling vanes of any size, the head may be warped or worn from overheating.

It's a good sign if the operating manual is still around-perhaps in the tool chest under the seat-looking well enough read but not all greasy. If it is still in its shrink-wrap cover, be wary. An engine-hour meter is installed on some models, but it really won't tell you much unless it reads more than 10,000 hours-approaching half the service life of a well-maintained power plant. One thousand hours of well-maintained operation can result in no discernible wear, while 10 hours of low or dirty oil, clogged air filter, or overheating can cook an engine.

Check engine oil with a separate dip stick or an oil-level gauge on the oil-filler cap. Oil should be clear, even if dark colored. If it is thick and murky and feels gritty, it hasn't been changed often enough and you should look for another tractor or buy it cheap enough that you can afford to have the engine rebuilt and still end up paying a reasonable total cost.

Ask the owner to open up the air cleaner. If he doesn't know where it is, the engine could be toast from airborne grit. If the filter element is all clogged with grass chaff on the outside and dark-stained on the inside, similarly look elsewhere or be prepared to rebuild no matter how shiny the paint is. It doesn't take much grit to shorten an engine's life-that should last through 50 to 100 years of typical country home owner use. Rebuilding, by the way, costs about half the cost of a new engine: about $150 to rebuild an 8 or 10hp, $250 for a 12 or 14hp, and up to $400 to $800 for a big twin-cylinder 18 or 20hp.

Ask the owner if you can check transmission and differential lube. If he doesn't know where the filler plugs are (very common), he's never checked or changed lube and you should proceed with caution ...with great caution if the machine is more than two or three years old. Check carefully for leaks in the hoses and connectors in the hydraulic system.

The engine should start with a few pulls on the starter rope or cranks of the battery. If it has been sitting a while, see page 58 for a start-up guide. Expect a slow, cranky, and smoky initial start after prolonged storage. (Don't neglect to close a manual choke...then open it gradually as the engine "hunts" for more air as it warms.) Shut it off; stored or not, once thoroughly warmed up a well-tuned/maintained engine will restart instantly with out flooding with a single starter-rope pull or crank of the starter.

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