Tractors

Farm tractors on tyres and crawler tractors with a blade:

share a name and almost nothing else. A farm tractor earns its money by pulling and by driving implements through the power take-off. Compact models, the small Kubotas and John Deeres, suit orchards, hotel grounds and fincas of a few manzanas. The mid-size utility tractor is the workhorse of a cattle farm, the mower, the harrow, and the fertiliser spreader and hauling a trailer between jobs, and the big four-wheel-drive machines belong to cane and rice country. A crawler tractor, the Caterpillar D-series, a Komatsu or a John Deere crawler, pushes. It works on ground where tyres spin, clearing scrub, cutting finca roads and building up pond banks, often with a ripper on the back to break hard ground. If the job is digging rather than pushing, a pond scooped out or a drainage channel, one of the excavators does it faster, and for light clearing around buildings a skid steer is easier to move between sites.

An old mechanical Ford or a late-model tractor with electronics:

that is the real choice on most used farm tractors. The older machines from Ford, Massey Ferguson and the John Deere 2000 series keep working because they are mechanical: a rural mechanic can rebuild the clutch, and the injection-pump shop in the nearest town can sort the fuel system. They give you heavy steering, an open seat and a hitch with fewer refinements in return. A late-model tractor brings a shuttle for quick changes between forward and reverse, which matters with a front loader, a cab for long days, and an electronic engine and hitch that need the dealer’s diagnostic equipment when they fail. Before buying one, find out who can service it within reach of your farm. With crawlers the same split shows up in the steering. Older Caterpillars steer with clutches and brakes worked by levers, while newer machines and the John Deere crawlers use hydrostatic drive, smoother on a slope and dearer to repair. Pick the size for the work: a small dozer for finca roads and ponds, a D6 or larger for contractors moving real volumes of earth.

The PTO, the castings and the sprockets on a used tractor:

tell you what an hour reading cannot. On a farm tractor, hitch an implement, engage the power take-off and let it pull: it should take the load without grinding and stop cleanly when you disengage it. Look for weld beads around the loader brackets, the front-axle support and the joint where engine meets gearbox, because a cracked casting there means splitting the tractor in two. Chapea work packs grass seed into the radiator screen, so ask whether it has overheated. Check the tyre sidewalls for sun cracks, and match the serial and engine numbers to the papers. On a crawler, the undercarriage is where the money goes. Sprocket teeth worn to points or hooks, a track hanging slack between the top roller and the idler, bushings worn flat on one side and rollers that will not turn or weep oil all point to an expensive rebuild. On a clutch-and-brake machine, turn hard both ways and see that it pivots cleanly. Look for cracks in the push arms and the blade frame; a worn cutting edge is cheap to replace, a cracked frame is not. Seals and bearings for older machines turn up among industrial parts.

A tractor listing that says whether it rolls on tyres or tracks:

saves both sides a wasted call, so put farm or crawler in the title. For a farm tractor give the hours, two- or four-wheel drive, cab or open station, whether a loader is fitted and which implements go with it or are sold separately. For a crawler, photograph the track side-on so the sag shows, the sprocket close up, the blade and the ripper, and film it pushing a pile of earth. Say what has been welded or rebuilt, and have the papers ready. Leave the chapeadora hitched: a cattle farmer driving over from Orotina wants to watch it cut a paddock, not idle in the yard.