Looking at a Yanmar YM1510 D
- Thread starter cjet69
- Start date
I've heard the term before, but I don't really know what that is.
"grey market tractors are used tractors imported into the US. The only advantage is price. They usually sell for less than a similar model. The biggest drawback is that even though it might be a name brand you may not be able to find parts"
Just a copy and paste on my part..
A buddy of mine bought a grey market kubota. Fantastic tractor. I can't remember what broke on it, but it took him nearly a 6 months to find the parts he needed to fix it. He ended up modifying the part for the US model to fix his. The tractor was a very similar model to a state side model but the little differences added up. He got it fixed and is still running it. Pretty good machine, until it breaks an odd ball part again.
The reason I asked is because most grey market tractors come from Japan where they are used in the rice paddies. Consequently they spend a lot of time in the water. A lot of seals running under water. Not unusual for them to have problems with FWD assemblies if they haven't been serviced regularly.
Yea I sincerely doubt servicing is one of top priority's..
The Yanmar is back in service. Dad tried it out on the bark/mulch for the yard. We get some wheel spin, but we plan on adding some weights to help that out. I used it to mount the Cub power unit on an engine stand. I think we are going to get some use out of it even though its not 4WD now.
Good that's it's working for you..
Even without the 4wd you're going to find it invaluable..
Make yourself a weight box for the back and you'll be set.
Maybe load the rear tires too.
Just tried them out. Big improvement. We have some rear farmall cub weights that we could mount up on the 3 pt hitch when needed.
You could always get another pair of those weights and stack them. You'd not likely ever need 4WD then!
Well the wheel weight exposed another problem. We knew the left rear would leak down in a day or two, but now the tire was noticeably flat with the extra weight. When I put air in it leaked out pretty fast around the valve. I was going to try a new core, but while inspecting I could see the whole metal valve was loose in the rubber of the stem. It didn't take much to just pull it out so It was time for a new tube. We had an old pair of 7.50-18 implement wheels which I broke down and got one good tube. Then it was on to the yanmar tire removal. It had some calcium in it so there was quite a bit of rust. After pounding on the beads with the slide hammer breaker for about 1/2 hour I got the tire off. Had to break out the big sandblaster to clean it up. I welded a small spot around the valve stem hole and ground it down. Then treated it with some Ospho(phosphoric acid) and will let it dry overnight. I should get it painted and mounted tomorrow.
We still run calcium in our loader tractor on the farm. It still has the original rear rims and the tractor is 30 years old. We repair everything as needed, but they will still start rusting and need repainting after about 10 years. It helps if you balance the ph level of the calcium. A good paint will help also.
Concrete bridge. It was installed in Sept. of 2017 as part of a big "Save the Salmon" in this state. They took out 2 culverts and put in this bridge. We put the wood chips on it because the cows wouldn't cross it after the change. With the wood chips it only took a couple days for the first of them to cross, but it was about a month before the whole herd would go to the back pastures.
Looks like she turned out to be a good worker!