How many years you got with Case tractors?!

[Harry]

Gerry I’ve gone through what you were saying. Get it home and it dies. Hang in there I’m sure you’ll get to them in time and be beaming from ear to ear. The sense of perseverance and satisfaction of a job well done. I’m sure it will happen were all pitching in for you. Harry

[Eugen]

Yeah, I don't think any of the Case tractors I ever got worked well when I got them. Some with bigger problems, some smaller, but they all needed work. The good thing about them is that they're simple and quite easy to work on. Well, unless you need to do anything on the TCV. That's just a personal opinion, a pain to get that out. Draining the hydraulic oil... yuck. I find that unpleasant.

[Harry]

I seen a CL ad back in 2016 for a 644 lbh. I posted it on the other site noting, nothing I’m interested in. A few members mentioned how much power the hoe has on these machines. That got me thinking. I figured I owned a 646 loader I don’t need a loader backhoe. I called about it just to go and check it out because I had never seen one before. At the time I was doing some welding inspection work in the suburbs of Buffalo and found out I was driving by it everyday. I showed up at the address the seller told me, but it was a cemetery. So I called him and he told me to drive in and go to the metal building in the back. The 644 lbh was inside the building, the guy said his Dad had passed in Pittsburgh and he found it in his Dads barn. He trailered it to home had the Kohler rebuilt and was digging graves with it. It took so long with the hoe to dig a grave so he upgraded to a larger machine and wanted to sell the 644. He started it up drove it outside and showed me everything worked like it should. He wanted $4000 for it but that was a little high for my price range. I told him I liked it and was interested in buying it. He came down to $3500 immediately and was firm he said. I told him that was a bit high and I would have to think about it and started to leave. He said how much are you looking to pay. I said $2500 and he said no way, it’s worth more than that. I then told him I had a 646 and didn’t really need it. I know you want it he said so I told him how about $3000. He countered with $3200 we shook hands on it and I picked it up the next day. I posted some pics on the other site and someone commented, what happened to nothing I’m interested in? I replied it was to cool not to buy it. After looking it over really good I found many problems with this machine, which I have fixed. This was my fourth Case tractor and my wife never questioned it. She just knows I have a lot of them. I have never seen another Case lbh near me for sale and it is a cool tractor. Sorry for the long morning ramble. Harry

[Eugen]

A 600 series lbh would have been my dream tractor if I could find one in the last couple of years. Great story @Harry !

[RoamingGnome]

Thanks @Harry and @Eugen - it's been good reading about other peoples adventures buying old equipment and then finding and fixing things previous owners have ignored...

I would love to stumble across a good deal like your LBH Harry,

[Harry]

A friend of mine who is a little older than I repairs anything with an engine on it. I stopped in one day back in 2000 to shoot the breeze. I noticed he had an Case Ingersoll 226 with a lot of other GT’s. He said the church he attends owned it and it needed a coil. A couple of years pass and he calls me up and asked me if I wanted it. What do you think I said? If you can deliver it I replied. A couple of weeks later he drops it off. It had a craftsman 30” blower on the front with an electric rotation motor and chains on the back. Just to get rid of it I gave him a Honda self propelled mulching mower. The engine ran great but the deck was rotted and the tranny was wore out. I’ve looked at the 226 a few times but still couldn’t figure why it wouldn’t crank over. I leading towards a bad neutral safety switch. It’s currently in the back corner of my lean-to. It’s a good project for another day when I get caught up on my other GT’s. LOL! I have a mowing deck that needs to be gone through from the 444 acquisition, that could go on the 226 as a back up mower. This is the last of my Case GT’s and the end of my story, or is it? Do you think I have a Case problem? Harry

[MattA]

I got started with my Ingersoll 4016 back In 2016. Back in the mid 90's we had a new neighbor move in next door. He was a banker and rode the train into Boston every day. He had a friend on the train tell him about a friend of his selling a hydraulic drive tractor. I recall my dad talking to him about it and he went to look at it and came home with it. It was an Ingersoll 3012 with an RM38 deck, hydravac and SB38 snowblower. That tractor did an amazing job cutting and bagging the lawn and it moved an incredible amount of snow compared to our 10+ year old 5HP walk behind snowblower. We also used it to pull small saplings out when clearing the neighbors side yard and man was it fast in high range.
So in 2016 when I bought my house, I needed something to cut my 60,000 square foot overgrown lawn when I moved in. I visited 3 different cub cadet dealers looking for an XT2 model with a 54" deck. All they had was 42" and 48" decks. I took one for a ride and man did it drive nice compared to the craftsman we had from the mid 90's. But I didn't buy one.
My sister and brother in law had that craftsman tractor which I grew up with. They had run it into the ground and bought something else. They dropped it off at my house and I had something to cut the lawn. I ended up rebuilding the steering, replaced the front axle which had broken the weld holding the spindle in, replaced the wheel bushings which they had never greased and were worn out, replaced the blade brakes, belts and the blades with splitting tips with a set of gator blades. I had that old craftsman running great but I kept looking.
I remembered the Ingersoll 3012 my neighbor had and started looking. I looked at an early 4020 with an RM60 deck but it seemed over priced and I wasn't sure it would fit in the garage. I kept looking and eventually found my 4016 with 55hrs, the SB48 snowcaster and cb34 cab in upstate NY. I contacted the seller within hours of his add going up and made arrangements to go get it. I brought it home in a uhaul truck and on the way home I picked up another SB48 snowcaster and rm44 deck which I had found with a wanted add. Eventually I upgraded to a RM48 deck, sold the second snowcaster and rm44 deck.
Then I found out my parents neighbor wanted to sell his 3012. I bought it, kept the pto and hydravac selling the tractor and snowcaster.
In the summer of 2018 I added the Berco to my garage + a large Ariens? weight box + 2 link chains. In 2019 I replaced the weight box with three 42lb suitcase weights. So that's where I'm at today. Some day I home to have an RM48 deck in better shape and a higher HP tractor... or a pair of higher HP tractors... one with a RM60 deck dedicated to lawn work and one dedicated to snow service + a building to keep them in... I can dream right...
Enough rambling... the kids are asleep now. I didn't realize I rambled so much lol.

[Harry]

Matt, I enjoyed reading your story. I especially liked how you kept buy keeping what you wanted and selling off what you didn’t need. That’s the way to do it. Harry

[MattA]

Matt, I enjoyed reading your story. I especially liked how you kept buy keeping what you wanted and selling off what you didn’t need. That’s the way to do it. Harry

What stops me these days is time. Work, my wife, 2 and 4 year old girls consume my free time. At least four 4020 tractors popped up forsale on marketplace within an hour from here this past summer.

[Harry]

Matt, I enjoyed reading your story. I especially liked how you kept buy keeping what you wanted and selling off what you didn’t need. That’s the way to do it. Harry

What stops me these days is time. Work, my wife, 2 and 4 year old girls consume my free time. At least four 4020 tractors popped up forsale on marketplace within an hour from here this past summer.

All in due time Case brother. I’m retired now but it wasn’t that long ago I was working full time. So I can relate to the time situation. Harry