I think its, "sell 1, buy 2," right? Since September I've bought 4 and sold 1, math was never my strong suit in school and apparently still isn't now lol.
While I was browsing CL last Saturday evening I came upon this 20-G listed on the Eastern WV CL, but it was located in West Friendship, MD.
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The ad said the engine suddenly didn't turn over and some of the gears didn't work, but it came with a 50" mower, a snow blade, and overall was in pretty good cosmetic condition. 2 years ago that would've worried me from a mechanical standpoint, but I'm at the point where I'd take on a PTO clutch job if the price was right. It'd been 2 hours since it was listed, so naturally I figured it was already spoken for, but I figured I'd take my chances anyway. Low and behold, about an hour later I got a call back, and boy was I a happy camper after that!
I took a short trip up to West Friendship on Monday afternoon to pick up the tractor. The sellers were a very nice couple. 2nd owners of the tractor, with the original living right down the street. They said they'd literally put thousands of dollars into it in the last few years, and basically now they just didn't want to deal with it any more, even though they loved the build quality and durability of it. I loaded it up and head down the road. It sat on the trailer until Thursday when I finally got a chance to look at it.
First things first, why won't it crank. Well, turning the key to start did nothing, but jumping the starter solenoid terminals together made it crank and fire off the carb cleaner I'd sprayed in the intake. Alright so we knew it cranked. I started looking over safety switches and noticed the fwd/rev pedal was pivoted fwd so that the switch was just slightly not engaged. I flipped it back and to my surprise it fired off the rest of the carb cleaner. Ok, I go grab my IV tank, strap it to the hitch, turn the fuel on, turn the key, and the engine cranked right up with a little choke at idle. Ran a little rough for about 30 seconds but smoothed right out. I hoped on the tractor to move it, backed up fine in rev and fwd in H-1. I then stuck it in H3, no go, the pedal almost went instantly to fwd with no effort. The fwd clutch was waaaaayyyy out of adjustment. Adjust that, hop back on, engage, and were moving, I was shocked. I got about 20' and it died in the driveway. That's odd, I said.... No spark, hmm, I let it sit until today. I suspected the key switch, so I went ahead and ordered a new one last night, should be in tomorrow. Today I tested the switch, I wasn't getting continuity to one terminal, so I swapped in a good one from another tractor. Turn the key and it came back too life, wooo! Drove it around the yard a bit and then into the shop so it can get some service.
It's going to need the accumulated oil/grass blown off the trans and engine, and all of the normal fluid and service adjustments. The deck has a hole on the left side, but is in otherwise great shape. The snow blade is almost brand new with no wear. The front tires are new, rears are original. I really was interested in the tractor for the trans driven hydraulics. Overall, this thing is in excellent shape. Engine runs really nice, everything still feels smooth and tight. Cosmetics are excellent garage kept shape.
So, on to what some may be wondering...what did this set me back? Well, I won't flat out say it, but I will give a hint that it involves the model decal number, and it wasn't 4 figures total. I'm not bragging about that, honest, I'm just floored at the deal that it was and the simple things that "we're wrong" with it that really weren't that caused the sellers to be done with it. I hope to think that it's good karma for Steve being able to get that unique loader equipped 18-G that I posted about in the FB group.
What do you think?
Thanks for reading!
Rick
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Sent from the MTF Free App
While I was browsing CL last Saturday evening I came upon this 20-G listed on the Eastern WV CL, but it was located in West Friendship, MD.
The ad said the engine suddenly didn't turn over and some of the gears didn't work, but it came with a 50" mower, a snow blade, and overall was in pretty good cosmetic condition. 2 years ago that would've worried me from a mechanical standpoint, but I'm at the point where I'd take on a PTO clutch job if the price was right. It'd been 2 hours since it was listed, so naturally I figured it was already spoken for, but I figured I'd take my chances anyway. Low and behold, about an hour later I got a call back, and boy was I a happy camper after that!
I took a short trip up to West Friendship on Monday afternoon to pick up the tractor. The sellers were a very nice couple. 2nd owners of the tractor, with the original living right down the street. They said they'd literally put thousands of dollars into it in the last few years, and basically now they just didn't want to deal with it any more, even though they loved the build quality and durability of it. I loaded it up and head down the road. It sat on the trailer until Thursday when I finally got a chance to look at it.
First things first, why won't it crank. Well, turning the key to start did nothing, but jumping the starter solenoid terminals together made it crank and fire off the carb cleaner I'd sprayed in the intake. Alright so we knew it cranked. I started looking over safety switches and noticed the fwd/rev pedal was pivoted fwd so that the switch was just slightly not engaged. I flipped it back and to my surprise it fired off the rest of the carb cleaner. Ok, I go grab my IV tank, strap it to the hitch, turn the fuel on, turn the key, and the engine cranked right up with a little choke at idle. Ran a little rough for about 30 seconds but smoothed right out. I hoped on the tractor to move it, backed up fine in rev and fwd in H-1. I then stuck it in H3, no go, the pedal almost went instantly to fwd with no effort. The fwd clutch was waaaaayyyy out of adjustment. Adjust that, hop back on, engage, and were moving, I was shocked. I got about 20' and it died in the driveway. That's odd, I said.... No spark, hmm, I let it sit until today. I suspected the key switch, so I went ahead and ordered a new one last night, should be in tomorrow. Today I tested the switch, I wasn't getting continuity to one terminal, so I swapped in a good one from another tractor. Turn the key and it came back too life, wooo! Drove it around the yard a bit and then into the shop so it can get some service.
It's going to need the accumulated oil/grass blown off the trans and engine, and all of the normal fluid and service adjustments. The deck has a hole on the left side, but is in otherwise great shape. The snow blade is almost brand new with no wear. The front tires are new, rears are original. I really was interested in the tractor for the trans driven hydraulics. Overall, this thing is in excellent shape. Engine runs really nice, everything still feels smooth and tight. Cosmetics are excellent garage kept shape.
So, on to what some may be wondering...what did this set me back? Well, I won't flat out say it, but I will give a hint that it involves the model decal number, and it wasn't 4 figures total. I'm not bragging about that, honest, I'm just floored at the deal that it was and the simple things that "we're wrong" with it that really weren't that caused the sellers to be done with it. I hope to think that it's good karma for Steve being able to get that unique loader equipped 18-G that I posted about in the FB group.
What do you think?
Thanks for reading!
Rick
Sent from the MTF Free App
