Hello from Chesterton Indiana. My name is Rick Demkovich. I have a TO 20 that has been a fairly decent piece of equipment when it runs. In 1993 I bought a little 10 acres that had been an old hobby horse farm. There was a ternplate shed stable filled about three feet deep with straw, hay, manure, plus another four foot pile of manure out back. The field behind was overgrown in sumac and thorny roses, hawthorns, and anything else ponies wouldn't eat, even though there probably had not been a pony on the land for ten years. and the fencerows were full of trash and old car parts from probably the 50's on. So I went looking for a tractor to deal with the mess. First, I found an International A with a small marure bucket. It had a "3 point" lift, but very light duty, as you can imagine from the size of the tractor. One good thing it did have was a crank starter, since it was rare that the battery and generator were working at the same time. That summer, though, my wife, who normally wouldn't support such a frivolous purchase, told me that there was a tractor in town with a heavy duty bucket and a scraper blade for sale. I think she was tired of trying to mow with a small rider and a hand mower, and she knew that the Farmall wouldn't really pull a decent mower. The owner of the tractor was a little strange (and has since been arrested for various nefarious activities), but we made a deal and two nights later I drove the machine over to the "farm". I thought it was a TO-30 from the nameplate on the hood, but it was pretty beaten up. It had last been painted red, and parts of it were yellow below the red, and finally the Ferguson gray beneath that. He'd used it for gravelling driveways, and there were a lot of dents everywhere, and signs of ill-use and poor service. But I was a rookie at tractors, and with the big front bucket I thought it was super. It worked pretty well. I moved the manure pile with it, my 15 year-old son and his buddies cleaned out the three feet of straw, etc. from the stable with it, and I bought a 4 foot bush hog to clear the wild roses and small brush from the field. But I didn't really do much with it after that (my laziness), because of the press of real work, and getting the house ready for the new renters. We had a bitter cold winter that year, and sometime around February I started the machine, and tried to use the PTO pump hydraulics for the scraper blade. The thing didn't work, though I heard some noises. Once everything finally thawed, I opened up the box to take a look, and found a shredded pump!. Enough water had gotten in the machine's trans case over the years, and settled and froze over the winter, that when I tried to engage the PTO it worked against the ice, and I wound up with the pump in few pieces bigger than my thumb. Well, I discovered a number of very useful things. First, This was a TO-20, not a 30, by the design of the machine, despite the nameplate on the hood (obviously a spare part found somewhere else.) Second, never run a hydraulic system without periodically draining the water from it, especially if the machine has been through a number of seasons (condensation on the inside of the trans case, if nothing else, collects water). Third, learn about tractors before buying a used one. That's a lot easier than learning, like i did, from the repair manuals. Fourth, never let your emotions buy a tractor. (You don't bargain very well that way). But I still use it. It has second hand rear tires now (the originals were cracked and starting to go flat), and I took off the loader, since I could barely get to the points or see the flywheel for timing with it on. It pulls a brush cutter quite well, and is hell on snow, pulls my boat around the field and into the shed, and is a lot of fun to drive. I still have to rebuild the steering box, and it still needs new paint, but that will come sometime... By the way, Fowler Massey, in Fowler, Indiana, found the parts for the hydraulic pump. Good folks, and quick service. Myers Implement in Elkhart, Indiana, has a number of old Fergusons (20 acres of tractors and parts--a great place to spend a day) and parts for same. That's where I bought tires, etc. Regards.....Rick
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