Found a deal too good to pass up on Monday. Found a 34HP 4 cyl diesel 1987 L2850 Kubota 4x4 tractor 1700 hours with loader and fairly new tires, implements it came with were a 6 foot JD finish mower and a 6 foot rotary brush mower and a box scraper and cultivator, package deal for $4500. Can sell off the mowers and other stuff and recover close to 2K there alone.Tractor and implements all in super shape but the project portion is that the engine has a bad knock. I did not start it to not cause any further damage but did crank it over to confirm it does have one.

So I plan to drop the oil pan shortly to inspect and see what broke and what direction I want to go.

Win win for me no matter what, tractor with loader is worth $8-10k and worst case I wind up putting a reman engine in I have found them for the $3k range or a complete rebuild kit for $750 plus whatever extra broke like rod or damaged crank shaft and machine work and overhaul it myself all depends on what I find damaged once oil pan is down, if all looks good I will overhaul it myself.

 

Cool project! Heck of a price on the little guy too. Wanna sell it?

Probably going to hang onto it for the in-laws farm, will work perfect for whats needed out there and it will fit in the barns that the JD 4020 will not, big enough to handle round bales with a bale spike mounted to the loader bucket. That way I do not need to haul B2150 kubota out there all the time to do barn and general road and yard work.

Probably just sell off the mowers and box scraper to pay for the overhaul and then enjoy the sweet deal.

3 hours ago, Wild and Free said:

Probably going to hang onto it for the in-laws farm, will work perfect for whats needed out there and it will fit in the barns that the JD 4020 will not, big enough to handle round bales with a bale spike mounted to the loader bucket. That way I do not need to haul B2150 kubota out there all the time to do barn and general road and yard work.

Probably just sell off the mowers and box scraper to pay for the overhaul and then enjoy the sweet deal.

Boooooo. I'm looking for a smaller tractor with a loader. The 4020 we have is okay, but is a little bigger than we need. The 1466 turbo we have is just way too big.

I am feeling like I won a raffle with this deal, I never find great deals like this, just listen to everyone elses good luck most days lol.

9 minutes ago, Wild and Free said:

I am feeling like I won a raffle with this deal, I never find great deals like this, just listen to everyone elses good luck most days lol.

Welcome to my world!

i have a deere 2210 and love it. it's small. but it sure is handy, 4' wide i can get into people back yards with ease. strong enough loader to lift more then it should, (back tires come off the ground), and i have a gannon for the back. great little machine. i'd like one a little bigger though for the tougher jobs.

 

Congrats on the find. i'm sure once fixed it'll treat you well for many many years.

That's just a size or two bigger than the one I worked on last. IIRC the last one was like 26 HP but a 3 cylinder Kobota tractor. All I can say it was sure a project getting the front load and all the stuff off to split the engine from the transmission. Once your get the engine out there isn't much to them. It sure amazing what those little tractors can do.

These tractors are truly amazing. Here are the comparisons between the two I have. One is a smaller "B" series and the latest project is the next chassis size larger "L" series.

 

New big brother.   http://www.tractordata.com/farm-tractors/001/2/9/1296-kubota-l2850.html

Little brother.        http://www.tractordata.com/farm-tractors/001/2/6/1263-kubota-b2150.html

 

 

I will be going down that road of splitting my 1993 Kubota b2150 in the near future, Its got the 4 cyl. that still purrs like a kitten and I have never had to do anything to that engine except fluid and filter changes, but I think the hydrostat trans. is shot, It looses ground speed and whines under load. attachments still function good, but if I have to go any distance it has to go on the trailer. I run a front loader, back hoe and log splittter,

Dropped the oil pan and found the crank shaft broke on the front edge of the #2 rod journal, the rod cap was the only thing holding it together, answers the question as to why the front crank seal hemorrhaging oil during only a few seconds of craning it over now too. Now to start pricing things out knowing what I am looking for.

Here is some eye candy of the carnage I know everyone wants to see.

 

 

Upload failed on more pics will try again.

Have several pics of the crank but upload fails on all of them.

that's a cute little machine. here's mine

http://www.tractordata.com/farm-tractors/000/1/7/174-john-deere-2210.html

 

as for the crank is it scored? or just a new cap and slip in new bearings?

Crank shaft is broke into 2 pieces if you look at the left side of rod journal in the pics you can see the clean break opened up a bit. That is the front side of #2 cylinder rod journal. I also found an undamaged spring clip laying in the oil pan at this point assuming it to be a piston pin retainer.

Found a guy in ID who may have a good fresh overhauled long block with a possible bad head he may scrap. Found good used cranks for 450 and reman cranks for 575 so far. Looking like I can be in the 2k range for my own overhaul if things keep looking this way depending on the price of the long block, he is going to do some checking and let me know in the near future.

Edited June 17, 20168 yr by Wild and Free

Got the loader off today, pulled some panels off and took the air nozzle after it and took off a layer of dirt and oil caked dirt from the years of build up, next step is to pull the rear loader mounts off and some more panels and then it won't be much to split the engine from the trans. Had to remove the front driveline to get the oil pan off so that's one more step done.

Baby steps, only reason I was not out on the water today was the 30mph winds and spent day cleaning the yard from a hail storm Thursday night, 2010 Hemi and pontoon got nailed but not too bad paintless dent repair on the hemi should get the worst of it out on that rig pontoon panels need to be replaced on the starboard side, yard looks like a war zone from tree debris, got about half of it cleaned up today.

 

Yesterday was a fun day, wife and I did an obstacle course / mud run race. Wife took 3rd overall in womans and 1st in our age bracket 51st overall of 702 racers.

Here are my results.

http://www.mtecresults.com/runner/show?race=4217&email=1&rid=1775

Edited June 19, 20168 yr by Wild and Free

Well finally got around to getting started on the engine project on the hunk. Pushed it into the shop and got the engine on the ground in about 6 hours time, had the loader and front driveline off prior when I pulled the oil pan to inspect the cause of the knock right after I got it so that saved me a couple hours.

Hopefully next weekend I can get the engine torn down to see if it will be worth rebuilding for a reasonable price or if a reman engine will take its place. I can buy a reman engine for around 3200 with a year warranty. I am looking at parts alone to rebuild @ around $1800  roughing it rebuild kit is about a thousand new crank 550 used crank would be 450 not sure on a price for a new rod plus all hoses and misc stuff one runs into plus whatever machine work will need to be done. I am thinking it will be so close that a reman will be the way to go but will make that decision when I see the inards of this one.

I have leads and feelers out there to do a swap to a bigger displacement engine as well. The current engine is a 1.7L V1702 DI and the 2.2 L engine V2203 DI is a direct bolt in according to the Kubota Gurus and will gain me about 15 HP as well which this series tractor is good for anyhow.

Edited September 7, 20168 yr by Wild and Free

What a small world, was trying to help out a member on a Kubota forum and here he sends me a message and it was our own 01cummins4ever who has his own Kubota split into pieces as well only he is into the powertrain end of his. He has the same tractor I do not the one in this thread but the smaller B2150.

Yep, it must be tractor splitting season. 

 

It it took me about 4 hours to get mine split and transmission sitting on bench, I think Kubota dealer gets a little over 6 hours for a complete R & R on the hydrostatic trans.

7 minutes ago, 01cummins4ever said:

Yep, it must be tractor splitting season. 

 

It it took me about 4 hours to get mine split and transmission sitting on bench, I think Kubota dealer gets a little over 6 hours for a complete R & R on the hydrostatic trans.

Anyone have more jack stands in use than this?

Only 2 needed one in front and one under the drawbar in back on mine but he spilt the center section out of his tractor so he needs to support the rear of the engine and the rear section, there is not much tractor to support here. I did put chocks front and back of the rear tires though so it can't roll or get bumped off the stands.

I got 6 sitting on shelf in my shop. Does that count?

Well finding a good used engine wound up being a lot longer ordeal than I thought it was going to be, between guys i was dealing with being wishy washy and or not getting back to me and tons and tons of engines out there out of refer units with way over 10K hours on them which i didn't want to spend near 2K on an engine that was near a $1500-2K  overhaul at which point I could have bought rebuilt engines for less. I finally found a supplier who had a lead on a low hour refer engine "supposedly" in the 3K hour range out of a wrecked truck and his price was really fair in comparison to most I found, getting shipped out tomorrow for a price of $1970 with shipping costs included.

It is a 2005 model engine "Which is 15+ years newer than the tractor" and is a newer style V2203 Direct injection and is 4 HP more then the engine I took out 34 jumping to 38 hp which doesn't sound like much but is actually a lot when dealing with these small tractors.I am replacing a 1.7L engine with a 2.2l engine but externally they are exactly identical and a direct bolt in unit. Hoping to have it by end of next week.

I am going to do a valve adjustment on it and have to swap the oil pan from my old engine over to it as it is designed for the front driveshaft of the tractor to clear and at that point will pull a main and rod cap to inspect the bearings just to make sure i am not wasting time installing the engine that needs work right away.

Probably be a while before getting it done now as I have weekend call at work in two weeks and will need to get other parts ordered for the engine install and then leave on vacation to Florida again right after that. So looking like its going to be a cold December project now in the unheated portion of my shop.