Garden Tractor

[PeteD]

I have been referencing this thread while perusing CL - lots of good information, thank you!

This one might be a bit of a novelty, but price certainly seems right.

http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/grd/5031858054.html

[rcsoundn1]

that is cool. Id be all over that.

[lti_57]

I have one of these,a MTD 990 ( not me on the tractor) 52 in deck always runs i got 1.5 acre to mow PTo hydrostatic they cam under a bunch of different names. Its actually to big to mow my front yard with.

[M-technik-3]

Put money down on this today.



Came with snow blower and tiller but no cab. 23 hp OMAN engined older with lower hours on hobbs gauge. 702 hours and was made in 1984.

48" mower deck and cost less than a fancy one at home depot that will fall apart in 8 years.

[flyboyx]

wow! that is about as pretty as it gets. the p.o. took amazing care of that. either it was restored or it certainly never spent a day of its life sitting outside.

i am pretty sure it would have been the top of the line tractor for its day. 23hp is a ton of power for a rig that size. if you wan't a cab, keep your eye on eBay. something will come up eventually.

sounds like you spent less than 2k on it. if thats the case, it was a steal-especially with those attachments.

my dad has a pretty good sized john deere that he uses to cut his grass. i don't think its as big as this one, but it also has an onan engine. oddly, his is liquid cooled.

[M-technik-3]

The 400 was the big daddy at the time about the size of that MTD which is quite nice.

I found this site and did some quick research before pulling the plug.

http://www.mytractorforum.com/

[PeteD]

Very Nice! I didn't realize the 318 had 23hp. I looked at a 316 and it had 16hp, I thought the 318 was 18. Good to know.

[M-technik-3]

Some are and some are not. This one was.

[squidrope]

Very Nice! I didn't realize the 318 had 23hp. I looked at a 316 and it had 16hp, I thought the 318 was 18. Good to know.

Some manufacturers will market the higher end model with a higher HP #. The "lower" end model will be marketed with a lower HP #. Even though both models have the same engine and the same HP (higher #). I learned me this when I purchased my previous Toro.

[quickervicar]

That Onan will outlast the Kwaks in modern Deeres, even with a 700 hr. headstart. Pre-1987 they used the B43G engine in '87 they switched to the slightly larger P218 model. Both were rated at 18hp, both by Deere and by Onan, according to my specs.

Well bought, sir!

[flyboyx]

Put money down on this today.



Came with snow blower and tiller but no cab. 23 hp OMAN engined older with lower hours on hobbs gauge. 702 hours and was made in 1984.

48" mower deck and cost less than a fancy one at home depot that will fall apart in 8 years.

still an amazing tractor but tractor data shows 18 hp

http://www.tractordata.com/lawn-tractors/000/0/3/36-john-deere-318.html

its the same as my dad's

[M-technik-3]

Maybe seller replaced it with bigger one. When I get it home will snap some more photo's.

[BillBrasky]

318's only came with the 18hp Onan as far as I know. 317's and 318's were also popular for many engine swaps. That's a nice 318. Take good care of it and it will last forever. The one thing I love about John Deere is parts availability. You can look up the part diagrams with numbers at jdparts.deere.com. It's the same luxury that we have with BMW's that we can look up our own part numbers and still buy them at the dealer.


I'm currently in the market for a clean 318 with a bagging attachment for my house. I have a '79 317 that I use at my shop. 317's are good tractors as well, but you have to make sure that it has the updated Kohler series II engine or an Onan replacement. Series I had lubrication problems on inclined surfaces and most of them blew up. Mine is a very early 317 and the motor was replaced in '82 with the 2nd serial number Series II off the assembly line. I can only imagine what a 23hp Onan would be like in that chassis. Mine is 17hp and it will pull a wheelie if you rev it full throttle and jam it in forward. I think I could get a speeding ticket in a school zone.

[PeteD]

I threw a $3,000 offer on a JD GX255 with the vacuum bagger and snowblower attachment. He wants $3,500. I feel I need to step into something bigger, such as 4x4, after $3,000.

Thoughts?

[chadthestampede]

If you can afford it go for a 20-30hp kubota with a loader. You'll be surprised the amount of uses you will find for it.

That being said, I have an older 2wd kubota b6200 with a 60" belly mower and a plow that I picked up cheap a couple years ago. While a 4wd with a loader would be far more useful, around here even junk 4wd tractors with loaders are fetching around 6-10k. I plowed my driveway all last winter with it and had very few problems, even with the heavy winter we had. Properly ballasted you can do quite a bit with it. With the 60" mower deck cutting 2 acres of lawn goes pretty quick as well.

You have to know what you are getting into though. My tractor is gear drive, which can be annoying at times but it gets the job done. In the future I'll definitely be purchasing a more powerful hydrostatic tractor with a loader, but for what I do now this works. And the price was right.

Do some research. Check out orangetractortalks.com for info on anything kubota, and any tractor you look at check out the specs on tractordata.

If you do decide to get a garden tractor my vote is for a jd 318.

My ideal setup would be a heavy duty older garden tractor or zero turn for mowing, and a bigger kubota with a loader for everything else.