Tractor Newbee Lesson Learned

I took the tractor into a ravine yesterday to dig out a big rock that I thought would look great in my cactus garden, and got the dang thing stuck. Dug a huge hole with my rear wheel, and couldn't get back out of the ravine no matter how many rocks I put under the wheel for traction. I finally got fed up and just left it there overnight.

Woke up in the morning thinking, "Hey, I'll bet I didn't have the 4-wheel drive engaged." Checked the manual, and yep, that's what was wrong. I stuck a couple planks in front of the wheels, put it in 4-wheel drive, and motored right out of the ravine, no problem.

Almost embarassed to admit to that one...

Tractor Repair is Expensive!

A month or so ago I bought a VERY used Ford 1900 tractor on Craigslist. I paid only four grand, so while it runs great, there were some minor repairs I wanted to make right away. First and foremost, I wanted to replace some worn hydraulic hoses. I started with two that run the bucket. You can see they were pretty trashed:



I pulled them off, took 'em to Hose-Man out in Oxnard, and they made up a couple new ones for me faster than the guy could write up an invoice. And just that fast, I was out $125!

Clearly, I'll have to parse out the hose replacement project over a period of time!