A recent bigger project I picked up last week was another mid-larger size tractor. A late 70's Massey Ferguson 1155 for $3000.
One of these, if you don't know what that model looks like. https://www.tractordata.com/farm-tractors/000/8/3/833-massey-ferguson-1155.html
~155 HP 12 speed multi range transmission and the ever so cool Perkins 540 ci V8 diesel!
For the most part solid but as with any 40 year old machine owned by farmers it has a bunch of small stuff that's just worn out or aged to death or for me justifiably worth doing modern updates to.
Now as for the price well that's sort of interesting midwest market oddity and due to that this is now the fourth tractor in this size range we have picked up. The thing is they are not worth much for two reasons. One is they are now too old and too small for the modern big farmers (If its more than 5 - 10 years old and not 300 - 400+ HP its too old and too small) and the other is they are seen by most as too big for the little hobby guys, and I have to admit for the work we do with them they are about double the machine capacity we need as well but oddly due to the high demand for the smaller machines those 60 - 80 HP machines easily bring 2 - 3X the price these low-ish ~150 - 200 HP ones do even if beat to death.
The nice part about these bigger than needed machines is, unlike the old farmer mentality I grew up with around where you figure out exactly what size tractor you need then buy one that 80% of that capacity, and then run it in flat out overload until it's dead because it saved you 10% on the purchase price (but costs 50% more in repairs in the long run than the bigger tractor would have for the same work done), going the other way has proved to be far far cheaper on the long term.
Anyway. As I started with, It's solid but needs a good updating all the way around. To start the lights are poor. fair for 1970's machines but compared to today's tractors that have the full stadium lighting packages its pretty dim. So for that the 6 ~35 watt standard bulb lighting system is getting upgraded to an eight 55 - 65 watt halogen field flood (extra wide flood pattern compared to automotive floodlight) system.
Now to do that it of course does not have the needed alternator capacity to keep up so the old and tired 63 amp system (0 amps until half throttle and maybe 30 at full now because the alternators half cooked) it getting a brand new 140+ amp commercial unit and a total primary current handling side electrical system upgrade.
But to get to there, the junk batteries had to be replaced (2 ~120Ah group 31 heavy duty commercial rated) and the rotten old 2/0 and 2 ga and who-knows-what chewed up braided ones (I really hate what old farmers do to battery cables to make things half way start most of the time rather than fix it right.) had to be replaced.
So in my typical update and overkill fashion I went with all brand new 4/0 fine strand commercial cable, that just because I had it, it also got run inside heavy silicone impregnated kevlar fiber sleeving too. They look pretty indestructible cool now but they are miserable to work with due to the size and less than user friendly flexibility the sleeving added. (You could probably tow the actual tractor with a single cable and not hurt it, They are that robustly made!)
Beyond that, and given the much larger lighting loads plus getting updated to the bigger alternator, all of the original 8 ga charging circuit wiring is being upgraded to 2ga. Also in relation to that, being orgionaly the engine used a either assist for cold starting that cold start system being redesigned to use a custom built high output multi glow coil intake air preheater that consists of four 50 amp continuous duty rated commercial glow coils.
One in each intake manifold and one above each of those in the intake tubing. Two would be fine but since I ended up with something like 100 of them some years ago, hey,why not overkill there too?
I've done that conversion on two of the other three big tractors now and it works super to the point that they can start down to ~0F (if they have to) without needing to be plugged in.
So far since I got the tractor home I came up with a list of about 20 smaller things that needed fixing or improving on and I now have about 1/3 of them done and parts for most of the rest coming.. (Spent ~$1000 up to today and I still have not yet started the tractor since I got it home a week ago.)
One of these, if you don't know what that model looks like. https://www.tractordata.com/farm-tractors/000/8/3/833-massey-ferguson-1155.html
~155 HP 12 speed multi range transmission and the ever so cool Perkins 540 ci V8 diesel!
For the most part solid but as with any 40 year old machine owned by farmers it has a bunch of small stuff that's just worn out or aged to death or for me justifiably worth doing modern updates to.
Now as for the price well that's sort of interesting midwest market oddity and due to that this is now the fourth tractor in this size range we have picked up. The thing is they are not worth much for two reasons. One is they are now too old and too small for the modern big farmers (If its more than 5 - 10 years old and not 300 - 400+ HP its too old and too small) and the other is they are seen by most as too big for the little hobby guys, and I have to admit for the work we do with them they are about double the machine capacity we need as well but oddly due to the high demand for the smaller machines those 60 - 80 HP machines easily bring 2 - 3X the price these low-ish ~150 - 200 HP ones do even if beat to death.
The nice part about these bigger than needed machines is, unlike the old farmer mentality I grew up with around where you figure out exactly what size tractor you need then buy one that 80% of that capacity, and then run it in flat out overload until it's dead because it saved you 10% on the purchase price (but costs 50% more in repairs in the long run than the bigger tractor would have for the same work done), going the other way has proved to be far far cheaper on the long term.
Anyway. As I started with, It's solid but needs a good updating all the way around. To start the lights are poor. fair for 1970's machines but compared to today's tractors that have the full stadium lighting packages its pretty dim. So for that the 6 ~35 watt standard bulb lighting system is getting upgraded to an eight 55 - 65 watt halogen field flood (extra wide flood pattern compared to automotive floodlight) system.
Now to do that it of course does not have the needed alternator capacity to keep up so the old and tired 63 amp system (0 amps until half throttle and maybe 30 at full now because the alternators half cooked) it getting a brand new 140+ amp commercial unit and a total primary current handling side electrical system upgrade.
But to get to there, the junk batteries had to be replaced (2 ~120Ah group 31 heavy duty commercial rated) and the rotten old 2/0 and 2 ga and who-knows-what chewed up braided ones (I really hate what old farmers do to battery cables to make things half way start most of the time rather than fix it right.) had to be replaced.
So in my typical update and overkill fashion I went with all brand new 4/0 fine strand commercial cable, that just because I had it, it also got run inside heavy silicone impregnated kevlar fiber sleeving too. They look pretty indestructible cool now but they are miserable to work with due to the size and less than user friendly flexibility the sleeving added. (You could probably tow the actual tractor with a single cable and not hurt it, They are that robustly made!)
Beyond that, and given the much larger lighting loads plus getting updated to the bigger alternator, all of the original 8 ga charging circuit wiring is being upgraded to 2ga. Also in relation to that, being orgionaly the engine used a either assist for cold starting that cold start system being redesigned to use a custom built high output multi glow coil intake air preheater that consists of four 50 amp continuous duty rated commercial glow coils.
One in each intake manifold and one above each of those in the intake tubing. Two would be fine but since I ended up with something like 100 of them some years ago, hey,why not overkill there too?
I've done that conversion on two of the other three big tractors now and it works super to the point that they can start down to ~0F (if they have to) without needing to be plugged in.
So far since I got the tractor home I came up with a list of about 20 smaller things that needed fixing or improving on and I now have about 1/3 of them done and parts for most of the rest coming.. (Spent ~$1000 up to today and I still have not yet started the tractor since I got it home a week ago.)
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