Frank's random auction purchases/ daily driver work trucks thread.

Outlaw

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I guess I've been being too cheap on the sickle mowers. I've missed out on three of them throwing $300 bids, I guess I was wrong after doing a quick CL search. I'll pay up for the next one. "The Gang does Agriculture" snapchats are going to be unreal with us trying to figure this shit out with a bunch of 70 year old machines.
 

FESTER665

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That's pretty much what I'm doing now that I've got the land. Most of my bids are for flips, but there's a tractor, two sickle bar mowers, a hay rake and a few other odds and ends that I'm planning to utilize. The kids that we have cut and bale our fields are swamped with other work right now so I'm just going to do it myself now that I've got the tractor. There really aren't any balers at this auction that look halfway decent, so I'll probably source one from marketplace. I'll also be a lot more comfortable buying one from someone that's used it to make sure its in time and such since timing a baler can be a 12 hour job depending on how fucked up it is.

The "ideal" hay setup is 50 horsepower tractor, a haybine (essentially imagine a grain head on a combine with sickle bar, with an auger feeding two rubber drums called conditioners that squish/flatten the hay as it goes through to dry it out quicker), a rake and a baler.

I will be doing this with my 27 horsepower utility tractor for sure, potentially another small tractor if it goes cheap enough (Farmall Super H, less powerful than my Case 310 but enough power to run the sickle mower, rake and pull a hay cart), a sickle bar mower which does not condition or windrow the hay since they take fuck all for power to run, a rake which is ground driven off its own wheels and only requires the tractors pulling power, and the baler. Being that I'm on flat ground my tractor SHOULD run a smaller square baler without too much issue. Baler most likely won't have a kicker to toss the finished bales and pulling a wagon behind the setup will probably be too much for my tractor, so I'll have to hand stack them on a trailer.

With our lack of rain, I don't think I'll suffer to much not having the conditioner that the haybine would've provided, and I can always buy a conditioner separately and run it in-line with the right sickle mower, or just add a step and condition the crop after being cut and windrowed.

So yeah, this whole agriculture thing is escalating quickly lol. I would like to get a Farmall 400/450 which is right at the bottom of that 50 horsepower requirement, or something like a 706/756 which is 73/80 horsepower respectively and can do a hell of a lot of work pretty effortlessly.

I'd love to be running green machines, but fuck are they pricey. Year for year, horsepower for horsepower, option for option, hours for hours you can get the same damn tractor painted red for a fraction of the cost because they made so damn many of them. A Farmall M/ Super M turned up will get you mid 40 horsepower all day, and if you're patient can be had for next to nothing because they made 100,000 of those fuckers and they're damn hard to kill. There was a Super M locally with new rear tires, 3pt conversion (able to run damn near any implement made from the mid 50's to present), aftermarket governor (power increase), rear hydraulic remote and a clutch in 2017 for $2,000... For some patience and another $400 I could've found a wide front for it to make it a true 4-wheel tractor instead of a V-wheel. The shit is insanely cheap if you're willing to work with old stuff.

Ill definitely be picking your brain if this all happens..

How much land do you have again?

Do you have a utility bed or dump bed truck you leave up there? I imagine you’d want it to be as bulletproof a truck as possible if you’re leaving it for decent amounts of time between being there and being down here....
 

Outlaw

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Well everything I'm doing hay wise is down here. GF has 10 acres in Harvard, all of the aforementioned areas I'm talking about are in or around Harvard, IL.

In Hayward I have 160 acres. Most is timber, 35 acres cleared field that hasn't been touched in about 80 years. That's a long term goal.

All I have for trucks right now is my Yukon and my 7.3. None of them live up there, daily the Yukon and use the 7.3 when I need to tow. By the end of the auction I may own an 08 Ram 3500 Cummins 6-speed 4x4 with a 9' flatbed, which would be handy, but not necessary.
 

Outlaw

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I'm doing all of this on a budget just to see if people actually follow through with having me do their fields. If they do, I'll scale up and invest in better shit. If you don't include my Case 310 loader tractor, I'll probably have like $3,500 into the basic hay setup for the Farmall H I just picked up, a sickle mower, rake and a baler. Used conditioner can be had on CL or Marketplace for $700 or so if I end up needing one.

The H can run the sickle mower and the rake. My 310 CAN run a baler, but I'd prefer to use something different for the sole reason of it's about the minimum required power for the baler, and I really don't want to beat the hell out of that one because tractors with loaders are expensive and if it goes down I'll have nothing for doing any sort of lifting because I don't intend on owning more than one anytime soon. Lots of bidding left to do today, I may walk away with a Farmall 350 diesel or a 2010 Deere which would be good for that job.
 

FESTER665

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Well everything I'm doing hay wise is down here. GF has 10 acres in Harvard, all of the aforementioned areas I'm talking about are in or around Harvard, IL.

In Hayward I have 160 acres. Most is timber, 35 acres cleared field that hasn't been touched in about 80 years. That's a long term goal.

All I have for trucks right now is my Yukon and my 7.3. None of them live up there, daily the Yukon and use the 7.3 when I need to tow. By the end of the auction I may own an 08 Ram 3500 Cummins 6-speed 4x4 with a 9' flatbed, which would be handy, but not necessary.

In a perfect world, if you were going to buy a truck to leave up North, what would it be?
 

Outlaw

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You want the doomsday prepper answer? Or the practical one lol.

Prepper would be a 12v or similar mechanical diesel powered something that can run off a single wire, be run off veggie oil, etc.

Practical is a 99-06 GM 2500HD with a 6.0 gas and floor shift transfer case lol. That's the one that will probably happen sooner or later. I'm waiting for them to not be selling for $7,500 with rocker rust and high 100k miles at auctions due to the inflated prices.
 
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FESTER665

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You want the doomsday prepper answer? Or the practical one lol.

Prepper would be a 12v or similar mechanical diesel powered something that can run off a single wire, be run off veggie oil, etc.

Practical is a 99-06 GM 2500HD with a 6.0 gas and floor shift transfer case lol. That's the one that will probably happen sooner or later. I'm waiting for them to not be selling for $7,500 with rocker rust and high 100k miles at auctions due to the inflated prices.

Was thinking more if I buy land in SW Missouri, what could I leave down there that was pretty much bulletproof that would be useful on the land as well kinda thing, though I do like where your head is at with the doomsday prepper answer as well. Hahaha

Been watching videos and it seems like a utility or dump bed works great for wood and all kinds of other uses to move shit around.

Im sure I’m still hell and gone from making this all happen, but am enjoying the planning stages as well.
 

Outlaw

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Dump beds are awesome, but they sit so high up usually they're annoying for pretty much anything else. I'd prefer to just have a normal pickup with a dump trailer. Lower loading height, most have ramps for equipment and a higher payload capacity usually.

Anything is useful if you're hilbilly enough. You bet your ass if I need to I'll be pulling the hay rake with my Yukon in 4-HI.
 
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Outlaw

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I love/hate utility/service beds on trucks. I don't enjoy them every day, but for a spare vehicle they're awesome set up correctly with tool drawers, fluid cabinet, on-board air, etc. By the time I end up loading one up they're fucking heavy before I even put a trailer on them though, so that gets problematic with the DOT when I'm towing a loaded trailer with a truck that's 13,000#'s on its own. I've found that I can do everything I need usually with a pickup truck with a well organized tool box, so that's what I've been sticking with lately.

A 3500 Dually with an 8-9' flatbed is perfect IMO. Throw some 3' boxes underneath for storage, square tank up top and some stake sides when you need to keep stuff contained. That's what I'm working on getting myself back to.
 
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Outlaw

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Lost the Farmall 350 Diesel Utility. Price wasn't bad, but I was pretty much planning on keeping it long enough to clean it up and put it in a Mecum farm sale and make some $$ to buy a useful machine. It's a utility like my Case 310 so it has the power or the row crop tractors, but in a compact size and lower to the ground, so not ideal for my uses. It was a rare piece though, so I knew there was money to be made.

Here's the 350 Utility I was bidding on.

7045.jpg


VS a 350 row crop with a wide front. They were majority V-wheel though.

a90fa835659d3599c49b053fda657f9d.jpg
 

GTPpower

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I'm behind here, but instead of a center ramp, just get the tractor close to the trailer and drop the clutch. ;)

Seriously, have you used those ground-driven rakes before? Ours is pto driven, and I've heard that ground-driven doesn't work well, but I bet that's just for really heavy alfalfa.
 

Outlaw

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I'm behind here, but instead of a center ramp, just get the tractor close to the trailer and drop the clutch. ;)

Seriously, have you used those ground-driven rakes before? Ours is pto driven, and I've heard that ground-driven doesn't work well, but I bet that's just for really heavy alfalfa.

I've never used a rake this style before ever, PTO of ground driven. I think for grass it'll be just fine, I can always weigh it down a bit as well. I've got like 400#'s of rectangular weights from an old home gym so I can just weld some pipe on it somewhere and stack the weights until it cooperates. I paid $400 for it so if it sucks I'll drop it in the next auction lol.

I just remembered I have a 60" trailer ramp laying around, I'll just weld some tabs on my trailer quick tomorrow before I go grab it. I've got a fucking wedding soon so I'll be doing this on my phone in the church lol.
 

Outlaw

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GTPpower GTPpower

I WON THE FUCKING 4020

"FACTORY WF, FACTORY FRONT WEIGHTS, 18.4 X 34 REAR TIRES, 3-SETS REAR WHEEL WEIGHTS, ROPS, DUAL HYDS, 3PT"

Estate machine, under 3,000 hours. $12,000. I think there's some good money left on the bone with that machine. I watched a 7,200 hour machine sell last weekend that wasn't as nice for $13,500.

From what I'm seeing, some polish and cleanup on the original paint it should be worth high teens/low 20's pretty easily with how optioned up it is.

5971.jpg


5971-3.jpg
 

Rdrnnr

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That's pretty much what I'm doing now that I've got the land. Most of my bids are for flips, but there's a tractor, two sickle bar mowers, a hay rake and a few other odds and ends that I'm planning to utilize. The kids that we have cut and bale our fields are swamped with other work right now so I'm just going to do it myself now that I've got the tractor. There really aren't any balers at this auction that look halfway decent, so I'll probably source one from marketplace. I'll also be a lot more comfortable buying one from someone that's used it to make sure its in time and such since timing a baler can be a 12 hour job depending on how fucked up it is.

The "ideal" hay setup is 50 horsepower tractor, a haybine (essentially imagine a grain head on a combine with sickle bar, with an auger feeding two rubber drums called conditioners that squish/flatten the hay as it goes through to dry it out quicker), a rake and a baler.

I will be doing this with my 27 horsepower utility tractor for sure, potentially another small tractor if it goes cheap enough (Farmall Super H, less powerful than my Case 310 but enough power to run the sickle mower, rake and pull a hay cart), a sickle bar mower which does not condition or windrow the hay since they take fuck all for power to run, a rake which is ground driven off its own wheels and only requires the tractors pulling power, and the baler. Being that I'm on flat ground my tractor SHOULD run a smaller square baler without too much issue. Baler most likely won't have a kicker to toss the finished bales and pulling a wagon behind the setup will probably be too much for my tractor, so I'll have to hand stack them on a trailer.

With our lack of rain, I don't think I'll suffer to much not having the conditioner that the haybine would've provided, and I can always buy a conditioner separately and run it in-line with the right sickle mower, or just add a step and condition the crop after being cut and windrowed.

So yeah, this whole agriculture thing is escalating quickly lol. I would like to get a Farmall 400/450 which is right at the bottom of that 50 horsepower requirement, or something like a 706/756 which is 73/80 horsepower respectively and can do a hell of a lot of work pretty effortlessly.

I'd love to be running green machines, but fuck are they pricey. Year for year, horsepower for horsepower, option for option, hours for hours you can get the same damn tractor painted red for a fraction of the cost because they made so damn many of them. A Farmall M/ Super M turned up will get you mid 40 horsepower all day, and if you're patient can be had for next to nothing because they made 100,000 of those fuckers and they're damn hard to kill. There was a Super M locally with new rear tires, 3pt conversion (able to run damn near any implement made from the mid 50's to present), aftermarket governor (power increase), rear hydraulic remote and a clutch in 2017 for $2,000... For some patience and another $400 I could've found a wide front for it to make it a true 4-wheel tractor instead of a V-wheel. The shit is insanely cheap if you're willing to work with old stuff.

Ok so I got a couple close friends in the hay business. One owns a feed store out west he supplys himself and the other a grinder and does most of the feedlots around and my neighbors literally restores old tractors and I spent half my life puttin tires on em so I know some things here. First off dump the damn chloride out if the tires and fill em with washer fluid with a 4 wheeler sprayer pump. It'll take a while but youll thank me (plus havin a 55gal barrel of blue methanol is cool and not as expensive as you think. Need a source let me know I can get it in full mix and have a few hundred gallons in a bulk tank left over here I'd sell for beans.) You guys are dead on with everything you've said so far tho but Heston and vermeer are pretty big players around here in the hay stuff too
 
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Outlaw

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Ok so I got a couple close friends in the hay business. One owns a feed store out west he supplys himself and the other a grinder and does most of the feedlots around and my neighbors literally restores old tractors and I spent half my life puttin tires on em so I know some things here. First off dump the damn chloride out if the tires and fill em with washer fluid with a 4 wheeler sprayer pump. It'll take a while but youll thank me (plus havin a 55gal barrel of blue methanol is cool and not as expensive as you think. Need a source let me know I can get it in full mix and have a few hundred gallons in a bulk tank left over here I'd sell for beans.) You guys are dead on with everything you've said so far tho but Heston and vermeer are pretty big players around here in the hay stuff too

I have to do that on my 310. It has chloride in the tires and I want to get it the fuck out of there.
 
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