[AT] Update on the MF 1155

Sun Feb 24 18:53:29 PST 2019

Cecil: I'm sure you are right... This 1155 probably came from about 3 or 4
states west of here. My dealer friend made his fortune buying tractors and
combines and other equipment farther west and bringing them back here to
sell. He also deals in some local stuff but most of the stuff comes from
his trips west because so much good stuff here sells too high for a good
level of profit. When Scott bought this tractor he was not around because
he was busy getting ready to hit the road the next morning for a trip west
for a couple of large auctions. He has been hauling stuff back here to sell
for as long as I have known him and that has been a long time.
When Diana and I travelled west then to the north-east last summer I was
reminded of just how different farming is at different locations around the
country. We had been travelling south and east for a number of years before
that. Farmers do have a lot in common no matter where they are (especially
old tractors) but local differences can be pretty wide (and very
interesting) like different soil types, levels of rainfall and when,
erosion concerns etc. I suspect that you would be very surprised (because I
have long been surprised) at how much moldboard plowing is still done here
in Central Indiana and especially in Rush County, the next county east of
me.
I used to do some no-till but I don't see a lot of no-till around me. Here
they started switching to no-till but then moved to mulch-till and the use
of speciality finishing tools that are kind of a mix of tools all in one.
Field tile drainage is really bigger than ever here in recent years and I
can't really recall the last time I got stuck doing field work. A seed corn
and food grade corn operation about 2 miles from me just tiled a farm
nearby and they ran tile (plastic) lines about 60 feet apart all over
several fields they recently acquired. They have their own tile plow and
the tile is reasonable in cost.
I did get stuck with a golf cart this week but I should have been in a
boat.  :-)

Spencer: Son Scott is our youngest, our baby...He hates when we say that.
:-)   He is 46.
Before I bought my Deere 4020 years ago I almost bought a 806. It was quite
nice and the price was right but it was just so dang loud running. Not
exhaust noise, compression hammering... I finally walked away from it.
Everybody kept telling me that it was normal for them but I just didn't
like the sound of it.
I never regretted the 4020.

On Sun, Feb 24, 2019 at 7:39 PM Tyler Juranek <tylerpolkaman at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hey Spencer and all,
> Believe it or not, dad bought a 966 here recently. Acording to the
> serial number, it was one that came out of the factory with a narrow
> front.
> He bought it with a wide front, but found a good narrow front to put back
> on it.
> He wants to have it all painted up and all that crap that his son
> doesn't care much about. :) Lol.
> The mechanical work has all been done I think. That is what matters
> most to me. I care more about mechanicals and tires, not about the
> paint jobs.
> And Spencer, when it comes to my father, everything is for sale...
> Tyler Juranek
> IA
>
> On 2/24/19, Spencer Yost <spencer at rdfarms.com> wrote:
> > I am not sure of the age of your son Scott, it sounds like we must be
> pretty
> > close in age.  When I think big tractors I think of those Massey’s too.
> More
> > so, I think of the “six” series Farmall and IH tractors. Like the 706 and
> > 966. I still  keep an eye out for them. It’s a pipe dream, I never will
> own
> > one. Recently I saw this on craigslist:
> >
> >
> https://greensboro.craigslist.org/grd/d/coats-ih-706-tractor-plow-and-disk/6818930052.html
> >
> > If I was stupid rich or just plain stupid I would buy it.   On my puny 15
> > acres I don’t even have enough room to turn it...
> >
> > Spencer Yost
> >
> >> On Feb 24, 2019, at 10:33 AM, Indiana Robinson <robinson46176 at gmail.com
> >
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> Son Scott did buy the MF 1155. I figured that he would. He has wanted
> one
> >> for too long and this one was in too good of general condition for him
> to
> >> pass it up. He had asked me to go with him when he first looked at it
> when
> >> there was no one around. It was sitting on the lot of a dealer I have
> >> bought stuff from for a very long time. Not constant purchases and not
> big
> >> stuff. I never farmed very big, couple of hundred acres most of the
> time.
> >> The farm is a lifestyle thing, I made most of my income from other
> >> enterprises. Still it takes a lot of equipment to do the job. Over the
> >> years I bought a couple of combines from him, a 20 something foot wide
> >> harrogator, a wider set of wings for my big disk, field sprayer etc.
> >> Several years ago we bought a Vermeer round baler from him. He always
> >> treated me well. When I started dealing with him he was a small
> >> independent dealership and a farmer like a lot of other small dealers
> >> were. Today he and his sons have a huge operation with one huge building
> >> that is absolutely full of classic tractors that are not for sale. Over
> >> the years he has bought most of the farms that surround him and he now
> has
> >> his own system of private roads from one to another. We became business
> >> friends over those years and I was always impressed that when I walked
> in
> >> he always treated me the same as if I was one of the biggest farmers in
> >> the state. That is the way you should do business.
> >> Anywho... Scott had his mind mostly made up but wanted me to go along to
> >> help check it over carefully with it running and him driving it to check
> >> each function. We studied it pretty carefully for maybe 2 hours or more
> >> and if anything had popped up he would have backed away but he was
> >> confident enough that we went in a semi with a low-boy. I had to meet
> him
> >> at a local shopping center because it is pretty tough to get even a 40'
> >> trailer in to this farm and this was a 52' trailer.
> >> Everything seemed OK and they were willing to drop the price $500. He
> >> asked them to pop the duals off and load them on the truck.
> >> Kind of a funny bit of irony here... They have large industrial battery
> >> electric impact wrenches so they don't have to drag air hoses around.
> >> Worked really great but to get the duals off they had to jack the
> tractor
> >> up a little. Yep, pneumatic jack and an air hose dragged out to the
> apron
> >> where the tractor was sitting.  :-)
> >> It all went well, of course Scott loads and hauls big stuff almost
> daily,
> >> sometimes several times a day. He spends more time behind a desk these
> >> days  but he is still on job sites most days.
> >> The 1155 is quite wide. It has power adjust (spin out) rear wheels but
> >> also wide slide out axles. He is considering cutting down the axles some
> >> so the don't stick past the wheels. Thinks it might save some doorways.
> >> The duals are clamp on and don't use the axles. I doubt he will ever use
> >> the duals.
> >> I have a little Case VAC that has the wide axle option and I'm still
> >> considering chopping those... (shrug)
> >> We have 3 ways to get to the farm here, none of them semi friendly.  :-)
> >> Coming in from the north requires  going through an oddball 20' tall
> >> rail-road underpass that was built long long ago as a bridge over a fair
> >> sized creek and then back in about the 1920's people started driving
> >> around one side of it in dry weather on a gravel bar. It wasn't even a
> >> road then. Later a heavy one lane "U" shaped concrete "shelf" was poured
> >> around there for traffic. Scott comes through there fairly often with a
> >> tri-axle dump truck towing a tri-axle trailer with a backhoe/loader or
> >> maybe a good sized excavator but it is not suited for a semi at all. The
> >> other two directions are only slightly better due to utility poles in
> too
> >> close to the corners and narrow culverts. Scott  considered parking on
> the
> >> wider road and unloading the tractor and me driving it home but then we
> >> would still have had to deal with the duals and it was a cold day.  :-)
> >> He managed to get the longer trailer "buttoned" past the corners with
> only
> >> minimal damage to the road ditches which were about like quicksand.
> >> He has already been working on the 1155 for several days now off and
> on. I
> >> can about guarantee you that the first thing he did was rework all of
> the
> >> wiring.  I noticed yesterday that he has the hood off and I think the
> >> whole exhaust system. It had some minor exhaust leakage where the
> manifold
> >> mounts to the heads and I know that he ordered a batch of gaskets for
> it.
> >> I know that he was planning on putting some money in it trying to get
> >> everything just right.
> >> It is important to understand here that while this tractor will not be
> an
> >> actual "trailer queen" this pretty much falls under the heading of "a
> toy
> >> he always wanted" like his Harley or his 4 wheeler and not a tractor to
> >> farm with productively. He works very hard and makes very good money and
> >> he plans his fun stuff too. I am not sure of the value of this tractor,
> >> the big tractors (this is 140 HP and about 20,000 pounds ballasted) have
> >> never been on my wish list so I have not followed them. The 10 to 60 HP
> >> tractors are my choice and I like the smaller ones more all of the time
> >> like my Cub, Pony, VAC, Allis C etc.
> >> I don't guess he would mind me saying that he paid $7,000 for it. It's a
> >> nice tractor and when he asked me I told him that if he didn't like it
> >> after he bought it or something failed badly he could probably at least
> >> part it out for more than that...
> >> I'll have to see if I can convince him to take it to Portland. Then if
> he
> >> uses the semi he can haul a couple more for me.  :-)  :-)  :-)
> >>
> >>
> >> .
> >>
> >> --
> >> --
> >>
> >> Francis Robinson
> >> aka "farmer"
> >> Central Indiana USA
> >> robinson46176 at gmail.com
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
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> >
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-- 
-- 

Francis Robinson
aka "farmer"
Central Indiana USA
robinson46176 at gmail.com
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