Vintage Lawn Tractors

[meyer4589]

Does anyone know anything about vintage lawn tractors, specifically older craftsman models?

 

[bullet]

What do you want to know.

 

[dice dealer]

What do you want to know.

^^^^This ^^^^

 

[meyer4589]

well I got this old craftsman lawn tractor late 60s early 70s im guessing from my neighbor. the engine is junk, but i was wonder if its worth anything ill just throw a new engine on it and keep it the way it is if not i was going to make a little project out of it, like and old hot rod kinda theme. flat black red rims kinda thing

 

[westfork]

oh boy you are in trouble now. old garden tractors are surprisingly easy to work on and find replacement parts for. i picked up an old wheel horse from a gentleman on ingo last summer, put less than a hundred bucks worth of parts, fluids, etc into it and now it is a snow plowin beast.

if nothing else i'd say if it is free and you have a little spare time maybe you ought to just snatch it up, tear into it, and see what you come up with? hard to offer much other advice than that without laying eyes on it myself.

maybe it just needs some fresh gas?

 

[bullet]

Any pix? I don't think the sears garden tractors are worth a whole lot. Or as least the don't fetch the prices the old John Deeres, Wheelhorses and Cubs do.

They are still worth fixing up, they don't make them like that anymore. I believe the Sears, Craftman and Ropers (maybe a few others) were the same btw.

 

[RichardR]

If you need parts or a whole new engine my best advice is to hit up the Tri-State Gas engine show in Portland Indiana.

 

[schafe]

I've been using a 70's Craftsman garden tractor for about 30 years. I bought it used, and smoking badly, and a bad pulley. The rebuild I did was less than even a used motor.

It occasionally needs some maintainence, but never anything fatal. Parts are still available for the motors, and a lot of parts are still available for the tractors. As was said before....they don't make 'em like that anymore.

The only real drawback to using one of these old timers, as I see it, is that the old mower decks don't cut as well since they are low vacuum designs, but they keep on cutting. Just my opinions.

If you can find the attachments, these old things will plow, disc, cultivate, plow or blow snow, and even level gravel.

 

[dice dealer]

Depending on the model Some of the old Craftsman mower are collectable ...

Whats wrong with the motor to make it "Junk"..Some pics would really help

I have picked up several old mower that were "JUNK" and put a bit of time into them and a few bucks and made good monet off them ..

 

[meyer4589]

the engine is all locked up and wont turn other than that everything is there and complete it could just use a little tlc in the form of paint and new belts and stuff like that

 

[westfork]

take the head off and examine the piston. might just need to soak the piston in pb blaster or something similar to free it up. a little exploratory surgery will likely uncover the problem and you can go from there. if the cylinder isn't scored or chewed up you may be able to replace a handful of parts in there and get it going...