In Japan, that is a BIG tractor. Here, it is a tiny tractor. Yanmar
and satoh (and kubota) are pretty well made. Unfortunately, the kubota
is 95% 'merkinized, with lotsa advertising and marketing overhead. (and
prices reflecting that) Yanmars are now almost all painted green, also
with big advertising and marketing overhead. Satoh seems to have
disappeared. I's love to have a real little Japanese tractor, with the
plates still in Japanese, not one made for the "merkun market with 3
point hitch to use as a garden tractor (not a lawnmower)
Some of the IH and MF diesel garden tractors from the 70s are great
little japanese tractors, but a lot of them don't have 3 pt hitch or
PTO. Once in a while I see a little kubota garden tractor for sale,
but most of the sellers want silly money. Most of the used "garden
tractors" for sale now, are not; They are just glorified lawnmowers.
If you really want a lawnmower, the zero turns are best, or the really
old one like Curt has is good.
A little 10-15 hp japanese 2 cyl diesel garden tractor with a tiller,
disk, harrow and planter makes gardening for a family easy. The 3 pt
bushhog is a good thing too, especially if you don't have a 40 to 125
HP tractor to do that stuff.
If I were looking for something more recent, I'd look at Mahindra.
Mahindra is the former International Harvester India. Their 15-40 hp
tractors have much in common with the old IH A, B, C, H and M tractors,
with quite a few parts still interchangeable.
I ran a 45 HP kubota pulling a PTO air sprayer for a day. The fan alone
takes 45 HP at the PTO, so the poor thing was overworked. I ran the
engine full bore all the time and drove it with the hydrostatic trans
lever and the brakes and steering wheel. For being so underpowered (30
GPM pump takes another 10-15 HP, plus a couple HP to move all the weight
over the ground) I was impressed with how well it did. On a downhill
run I could get full RPM on everything, on the level it was maybe 90-95%
rpm, and doing uphill, because it was a Diesel, it was maybe 80% rpm. '
Most of the time we ran that sprayer with a 1530 JD that was also
underpowered (45 HP) but most of the time we could keep the fan speed at
100% with the JD. I pulled the same sprayer with a MF 275 one year (75
HP and it was great, except for going downhill was scary. It had the
equivalent of a TA, so the tractor would run away going downhill, unless
you could hold it back with the brakes. (No engine braking) Most of
the time I kept under a half tank for the hilly part, and if you
remember to do it before starting downhill, there was a lever to lock
the TA, so you would have engine braking. One time the ground was
really wet and I remembered to lock up the TA. I started down the hill,
and the engine was braking. Then the RR tire started spinning in
reverse due to the open differential as we peeled off the sod and slid
downhill. I was really busy trying to make sure the thing did not
jackknife and roll the tractor. To keep it from jackknifing and
rolling, I finally quit trying to hold it back, pushed the clutch and
let the whole thing run away to the bottom of the hill, where I was able
to get control again. That was a scarier ride than when I rolled a
tractor.
The next year I pulled the same sprayer with the yanmar (JD 5500) (80
HP, with MFD). It was a much lighter tractor with much smaller tires,
and in place of being 7 ft wide, it was barely over 4' at 50" wide. I
was amazed at how it pulled the sprayer uphill and down in conditions so
squishy that the tires pushed the sod down 4", but never broke the sod
like the MF did. It was a wonderful tractor. It took half the fuel of
either the MF or the JD 1530. With $5.50/gal fuel, I really appreciated
that fuel economy. The MFD was a pain at row ends, because it would
not turn tight enough to turn into the next row, so I had to turn
partway, then back up and go at the turn again to get into the next
row. That wasted a lot of time, but all in all the benefits outweighed
the pain of not being able to turn tight enough. In some blocks, I
could develop a pattern of skip a row or 2, then pick up the skipped
rows by skipping 3 or 2 at the other end.
Peter Frederick via Mercedes <mailto:mercedes@okiebenz.com>
February 22, 2018 at 8:17 PM
I think a lot of Japanese farms use those little tractors, so they are
like the old John Deeres -- tough as all getout and reliable as rain.
If I were rich.....
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