Colt Case Ingersoll Garden Tractors

A client/friend farmer is older and needs to be able to run around the farm tending to things and the help. I normally don't work on cars anymore , but this now "farm" vehicle and I do a lot of work for this family and helped us out a lot . They got this thing and been using it the past year . Now I have it for service to make sure it is ready for the up coming season . 2010 Smart car (gas engine ) with UTV wheel kit on it . The steering is so stiff I could hardly turn the wheel . Bottom Ujoint is seized . It is making a clicking noise when moving forward and reverse . Turns out it has a computer controlled manual transmission with a old school cable for Park and Neutral that has failed not allowing it to fully come out of Park so the park paw is clicking away on the park lock ring . So figured out what it needs and ordered parts yesterday . The cable will be in next week . The steering shaft ujoint only come as the whole column for over $600 , so will have to get the old seized one out for measuring to get a new one .
Today adventure is oil change , air filter , spark plugs , service brakes .

It's probably a comfortable little farm vehicle. It's also probably a little more complicated than I'd want for that application, but if it's working for them, then great. Also likely far less expensive than a lot of the side by sides out there now, and not much different in size.

One of my farmers, he's mostly retired now, would always say he was a poor farmer, and couldn't afford a Gator. So he would run little cheap pickups, then when used Geo trackers and Suzukis got cheap enough he'd use them for running around the farm and checking on irrigation. Man he was hard on them.

I bet it’s economical to run around the farm. Don’t hear about seized joints on the steering that often. I wonder if it was sitting a long time before he got it?