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Tractor of the Month - December 2016


SmilinSam

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Tractor of the Month Contest

 

December 2016
This months contest will be :
"Money Pit Tractor"

 

Show us your biggest money pit tractor you have and tell us in detail how it has been "bleeding", or bled your tractor funds dry

 

Contest limited to the first 8 entries

 

Voters will choose the best overall entry and its presentation

 

Open to
All Simplicity and Allis Chalmers lawn & garden tractors as well as all other names made by Simplicity and/or Allis Chalmers

 

Please Note:

 

All pictures submitted to Tractor of the Month contests should be sized to 640x480 to maintain consistency and neatness in presentation

Also: If contest criteria calls for multiple tractors, please put all the tractors in one picture, rather than posting a series of pictures showing individual tractors. Its the only way to get all your winning equipment, for such a contest, in the picture on the Club home page

Tractor of the month contest guidelines

1. For club members and registered users, or those who have access to use the Show and Tell forum. This also includes all officers, moderators, and administrators.

2. The selection committee will determine each monthly contests criteria. Equipment that does not meet theme criteria will be disqualified by the committee and removed from the submission topic.

3. The tractors submitted can be a restoration, an original, a rescue, a modification, an extensive repair/rebuild - or as specified by the committee.

4. This contest is open for owners to enter their own tractors, or by having someone else nominate them - upon which owner must accept and post entry.

5. The contest is limited to the first 20 entries submitted. This due to the poll system only being able to accommodate 20 entries. Following the 20th entry, the contest topic will be closed to further entries. Votes will be taken in the normal time frame as stated below.

6. Post your entry as a reply to this topic. Narrative and pictures are required - This to tell its story, and to convince voters why it is deserving of being the next Club's tractor of the month.

7. You can enter a tractor/equipment multiple times (months), but it can only win once per year. Once that tractor has won, you cannot submit that tractor again for a year on any subject.

8. Each contest will have a entry submission period beginning the 15th day of each month and lasting to the 15th day of the following month. Once the submission period is over, the current nomination topic will be locked and the next opened.

9.Following each months submission period, a poll topic will then be opened and members will be asked to vote on the nicest tractor listed in the nomination topic. All members and registered users are eligible to vote. Vote will last for a period of two weeks , from the 15th day of month to the last day of each month. The new winner will be declared on the 1st of each month.

10. Wining tractors each month will be posted on the club home page for a period of one month, 1st day of the month to the last day of the month, and a Contest winners hat will be sent to the winner.

11. Please post only entries/nominees in this topic -- any other replies will be deleted.

12. All pictures submitted should be sized to 640x480 to maintain consistency and neatness in presentation. If contest criteria calls for multiple tractors, please put all the tractors in one picture, rather than posting a series of pictures showing individual tractors. Its the only way to get all your winning equipment, for such a contest, in the picture on the Club home page

13. Final vote results will be posted to Poll topic at the time the Poll topic is closed. These posted results are the official, and FINAL results that will determine the winner each month regardless of any further votes cast After the polls have been closed. This is stated because while replies cannot be made after a poll topic is closed, apparently votes can continue to be cast. Its a technical issue that we have to work around at the present time.

14. In the event of a tie, the following procedure will be in effect. The tied winners will share having their pictures posted on the Club home page, each having an equal amount of the months time in the spotlight. There will only be one hat awarded though, and so there will be a run-off vote between the tied members for the hat. This vote will last 2 weeks. The winner of this second run-off vote will receive the winners hat.

If a tied winner has already won a contest and a hat, the hat for the tied contest will automatically be given to other tied winner who has not won one yet.

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Well to kick off the topic, I guess I'll enter my 1976 Simplicity 7013h. This was my first large frame Simplicity that I had to work all summer to purchase. It cost me $75 without a motor and unknown condition of the transmission. Don't really know what happened to the motor, but the tractor originally came from Ann Arbor, MI then ended up in Auburn, IN and then to Wakarusa, IN at a flea market. Cosmetically its in decent shape and the transmission and BGB are in great shape! I love the Vickers in it! This tractor could be considered rare since typically, the Baron had a shuttle transmission. According to some here, Simplicity found an old crate of the Vickers trannys left over so they just put them in the 7013's. Nice thing about these Vickers is that they came out of the factory with a bushed pintle shaft so no leaky messes! I have only seen 2 other Simplicity 7013h's. One on MFT and one on Youtube. Anyways, It was just a rolling frame for a little while until I got its first motor which was a late model 9hp Briggs I got for $175. I didn't want to cut the frame but my dad decided to up and cut it without my consent.lol Any how, the 9 hp went in. Being new to the large frames, I didn't know how to connect the drive shaft properly which resulted in plenty of trouble, plenty of times. The motor didn't have the booster fan on it so for starters, I ran 5/16" bolts into the flex plate and crooked into the holes on the flywheel. Didn't go well... Bent the drive shaft, bent the bolts, and ruined the flex plate. Finally after consulting with a gentleman, I was able to get the parts I needed and hooked up correctly... $100 later though. The wiring was all cobbled up mess and for a while, it sported my homebrewed wiring harness with no kill switch. You don't even want to know how many coils and condensers I've been through on that tractor trying the get the kill wire hooked up right. Finally got it...2 coils and 3 condensers later. All great until the drive shaft bolts snapped off inside the booster fan. $60 dollars to get em out at a machine shop so decided not to get it done. Ended up and just got a new booster fan for $25. Back in business!!! A few years ago, I finally got the wiring straightened out and working correctly with the OEM harness that was in the tractor with a few modifications. No change until just this August. It got a 16 HP repower with correct muffler and oil pan for the RBTS. I made a patch and welded in a new piece of metal where the hole was and got it painted up and matching perfectly. So, this is the long story of my 7013H that was in total almost $500-$600 dollars dumped into it. Its got 3" offset rears with 23-10.50x12 Terra Tires which were also an added expense, There is probably many things that I forgot to list that I've added or needed to have to get it up and going. Thank You for reading!!

 

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Elliott's iPad 462.jpgFirst Drive

 

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Current(Except for the muffler)

 

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16HP Repower and Frame Welding

 

EDIT: 

Just found the parts receipts for the 7013 so I'll itemize it for you. 

Tractor $75

Condenser(x3) $35.01

Coil(x2) $64

Rear Tires $20

New Front Tires $130

Light Bulbs $15

9hp Motor (my bad was actually) $125

Misc Driveline parts (booster fan, flex plates ,starter etc) $100

Booster Fan $25 

Carb $30

Carb Rebuilt at dealer $60

Engine/ Driveshaft mounting bolts $15

Flywheel key repair (at dealer) $75

Battery $86.99

Battery Cables $20

Totals about $900! YIKES 😧😧😮

 

 

 

Edited by Simplicity7013H
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1999 Simplicity Landlord DLX.  I bought this tractor for $325 delivered off of craigslist.  It was not running. The seat was bad. The deck needed work. Cosmetics were average. I found a loose ground wire in the electrical harness (I don't think it wasn't supposed to be there but it fixed the problem). After tinkering with it some more I found when mowing the PTO clutch would kick off after it warmed up, maybe ten to twenty minutes of cutting. I robbed the PTO switch out of my older Landlord and it fried it out. Determined the clutch was at fault. I had to order a new clutch from Simplicity to the tune of about $210. Also had to get two new PTO switches (one to replace the robbed one). Put a tube in the left front tire and installed new wheel bearings and a seal. It needed new traction drive idler pulleys. I found some at Deere that worked after swapping around the inner bushings. I think I had around $30 worth of pulleys into it. Next  up was the noisy transmission. I got a new trans filter from Deere, $33 compared to $60 elsewhere, and also replaced the main hydraulic filter. Put Mobil Synthetic in the trans. The oil and filter change ran probably $70 for materials. The trans still whines just the same. It also needed the lever for the seat base and the sight gage (now NLA ) for the fuel tank. That was around $20. I replaced those. I finally put a better seat on it that I bought on eBay for around $70 shipped. This tractor had manual steering. I picked up an orbit control steering motor (OEM for this model) from CarlH for a song and then bought a couple of different steering support items and a coupler. We made the steering gear from a regular one. Had around $100 into the power steering conversion. Next up is the mower deck. The deck was very rusty and the front quick attach support was worn badly actually tearing the hole in the front of the deck. I had that welded up. Purchased a new front support for around $60. All three spindles needed to be rebuilt. I used the better Koyo bearings. I replaced three out of four spindle pulleys and used new upper bearing housings on all three spindles. Also installed new grass shields. I sourced new taptite screws for the housings.  Installed a new OEM Simplicity PTO belt and new OEM Simplicity blade to blade belt. New tensioner springs on the deck. Also replaced one of the idler pulleys on the deck. I ended up taking the foam gaskets back out of the spindles and resealing them with RTV because the gasket was not water-tight. I also installed a full anti-blowout baffle kit on the deck, these are around $100. I still have to install the new light switch and roller bar, and deflector chute but I have them. Also needs a $60 front axle bolt that is causing play in the front end. All total I now have about $1300 into this 600hr jewel and still needs the deck sandblasted and painted and the crank seal is leaking now. So I now have about $1000 over purchase price invested. Doubt its even worth that.

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This sage begins 7 years ago when I spotted a Simplicity 4212, and other assorted tractors in a local classified ad.They were asking $375 for a 1988 4212LTG, which when I arrived was seat high in a weed field (prompting Zippo to tag her "Field Queen"). Having neither truck or trailer, they wanted another $25 to toss it on their tilt bed and dump it off (litterallly). It came with 36" deck and 42" dozer blade/hitch/hitch adapter. On arrival, the lift rod must have fell off the truck on the way! NOW it could be seen, all 4 tires were flat and suffering badly from side wall cracking. Of course the seat needed to be replaced, another $53 (TSC) .Needed a battery $37 (Walmart). Gas cap ($19). Over 1-1/2 hour round trip to the Simplicity dealer that originally sold it, who had an abundant stock of NOS parts. My luck he had a lift rod and the required fittings (set collars, spring, end fitting) ($85).

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From here it does go down hill. Now to get her running... But need to share my attention to this project,  keeping an eye on a roofing contractor replacing 4000 square feet of roof, and work 40+ hours at night at Walmart. I think I better concentrate next on the carburetor, removed the bowl to find a vanilla like jelly in there. I guess I better visit the local dealer (and order a rebuild kit). Gave it a good overnight soaking in cleaner, and then physically cleaned out any scale that was reachable. Flushed the engine with kerosene, added new oil, And gave her a try. Could not get it to turn over. Interlocks (nanny switches) acting up. Had to bridge the solenoid terminals with an old screwdriver to get the starter to go,  found issues with both the seat and PTO switches. Turned my attention to the frozen front axle spindles, removed all wheels, filled both with slime ( bought 2 gallons to be sure), Took fronts to local (8 miles) Western Auto for tubes ($25 each) , Rear tires too far gone to get a seal, salvaged front tires from abandoned EZ-GO cart, but they also needed to be "slimed". The next area of interest was the totally frozen steering, caused by critters packing the open steering gear with shredded rags, and the nylon bushings adhering to the rust on the shaft. Local dealer had to order same (anothet 3 week delay), The challenge now was to tear apart the console to remove the open steering box that held the sector gear. I had to ruin that box, and order another to restore another. at the steering wheel end of this was the first attempt to remove the steering wheel. This brought me up to the layoff from Walmart, and the six month rehab from a triple bypass. (photos of this period lost to a hard drive failure on my desktop).

 

MORE LATER!!!

 

 

 

Edited by GrincheyOne
add more information and photos, move from old club site
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  • 2 weeks later...


IMG_0364.JPGmy father in law started this B-112 12 years ago and never finished it passed away in march so i took on the project and finished it for him. $1200 in parts and paint dont tell my wife. RIP OLD MANDSCF1030.JPGDSCF1039.JPGDSCF1038.JPG unnamed.jpg

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Edited by marksr
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Ok, like Mike I probably don’t want to tabulate this but…I thought I would put my hat in the ring. 

I bought my 9020 about 5 years ago for $2200, with the deck and snow blower.  The first thing that went out was the hydro neutral switch for the ignition.  Instead of paying $35 from Simplicity, I bought a $4 switch at Ace, not bad.  I picked up a tiller for $400 and could just use it, or I thought.  The front bearing doesn’t have an oil-slinger to prevent the gear lube from draining out, which I hadn’t noticed and blew out the gears, another $100 for rebuilding. 

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The snow blower worked well but at one point something “wasn’t right”.  I opened the hood and found that the front PTO was rubbing the battery, “that’s not supposed to happen” …found that the PTO had been installed with the wrong shim.  New electric clutch $150.   Also, at the end of last season the chute motor was no longer working properly, ate the gear in the motor.  Found a Delco replacement from eBay for $55 (to be installed before Winter….)

Typical for an older tractor, replaced the front-end bushings for the wheels, belts for the deck and of course, one tire kept going low so put a tube in (can’t remember what that cost).

I found a dozer blade – missing a few parts – but all the main items were there, just doesn’t have the control rod and connection for moving the blade side-to-side, rack up another $200.  My long-term plan/goal is to add a couple of motors and lead screws for the left-right and put a rotating plate on for a left-right tilt. 

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The tractor ran well but started running roughly at some point last year.  I put a new coil, plug wires, point and condenser “kit” including shaft, and it ran well again.  Then, of course on the coldest day of Winter, I had to move it and it wasn’t happy starting and needed a little starting fluid.  It fired up and was running and I opened the door for the canopy I kept it in but it died.  I restarted it (sans starting fluid) and it backfired.  I quit there and ordered a Honda GX-630 kit from Repower Specialties ($2500).  I had Radix Collision swap the engine for me since I had absolutely no room in my garage for this.  Doug (owner) decided that the tractor needed new paint (as a gift), which meant putting new tires up front ($120) and of course, since it had new paint, I needed new decals ($120).  the seat is from a Bobcat.

 

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With the tractor looking so good, I couldn’t have the deck looking like it did, so a complete rebuild, including one NOS spindle later and another $550 in all the parts (rollers, bushings, SS hardware, bearings, etc.), it’s been sanded, beaten straight, including a new leading edge sheet metal reinforcement on the inside front of the deck and painted. 

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Found that the front electric clutch was nothing like a modern clutch for mounting.  Had a new clutch shipped out, (note I’ll end up swapping a new one in at some point since the one I have is either ½” or 5/8” and ends up having a larger diameter for the outside of the pulley).  

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Exhaust on the Honda was different enough (who makes a 1 3/8” outlet???) that caused some headaches.  I ended up using 1 ½” flex tubing until I could find 1 3/8” tubing, ($10)

I went through some other fun with the engine swap, including the rear double pulley being out of round, but I could pick one up from the obso warehouse but another $120.   

While running found the hydro hot light would come on and doing some troubleshooting realized that my tractor was missing the lower pan and the cooler shrouds ($60 plus hardware and paint).

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I haven’t added everything up, too scared, but other than some things I “want” to do.  I still need to repaint the tiller and snow blower and finish the work on the loader and see about digging up a post hole digger….

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It started out as a simple hydraulic lift seal fix. Although not my favorite tractor, it is the one that has cost me the most out of pocket. We're talking about my 3212V that I restored 9 years ago. So...Lets add things up.

$400 Tractor

$250 Paint and primer

$400 Tires

$75 Hydraulic lines

$160 Misc engine machining, gaskets etc.

$70 Variable drive belt

$50 Single groove mid PTO swap from double V

$80 seat

$55 Regulator

$35 headlight brackets

$150 3 NOS Headlights w/wiring

$100 misc parts from parts tractor.

Total: $1825.00

And I had NO intentions on restoring this machine! Oh...forgot the dual wheel adapters...add another $55, then another $110 for the hubcaps that are on The Hoss now. So now we're up to $1990.00. Back to the story. My Brother Chris came over while I was fixing the hydro leak and said...you've got it that far apart, may as well restore it. Well....I shouldn't have listened to him lol. In the photos, I've since installed the correct steering wheel, 16x6.5x8 Firestone Tri Ribs on front, seat and hubcaps. The last photo is how The Hoss looks today, some 8 years later.

 

 

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Edited by ZippoVarga
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Dang! I can't compete in this one!
My DA 1920 was a freebie.
So far I have $250 in it, runs great, does what I want.
Not that I'm complaining!!  :)

 

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Submission period is now closed. Proceed to the vote at:

http://simpletractors.com/forums/topic/55822-vote-december-2016/

 

As a note to those whose replies to this topic have been deleted, Please refer to item # 11 posted under the Contest Guidelines above.

I generally leave these non-entry posts to stay until its time to vote. When the vote begins I delete all non entry posts to keep the submission topic clear and easier to navigate between the submissions.

Thank you for your understanding.

Edited by SmilinSam
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  • SmilinSam locked this topic
  • SmilinSam unfeatured this topic
  • 3 weeks later...

The vote is now closed.

Official results at the time of closing were:

 

Simplicity7013H and his 7013H - 6

Chris727 and his Landlord DLX - 4

GrincheyOne and his 4212 - 2

marksr and his B-112 - 6

ACT816 and his 9020 - 6

ZippoVarga and his 3212V - 11

Hick and his Duetz Allis 1920 - 0

 

Congatulations to ZippoVarga and his 3212V for winning this months contest

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