Farmall MD

[Anonymous-0]

Hi, I'm going to look at a M diesel tomorrow. I would appreciate it if you could give me some hints on what to look for? The asking price is $2000 so I don't know if this is a fair price or not. I wish I could give you more info but I have not seen the tractor yet.

Dave

 

[Hoss In ME]

Darn good price,even if it needs rubber.Ask him to start it for you though. Could be deal of the century.Good luck,Hoss

 

[Red Mist]

Beware of a cracked cylinder head. This is a weakness of M diesels. Great tractors, though.
mike

 

[RichH]

Yes, make sure he starts it and runs it on diesel. Then after it runs for a while see how slow it will idle before it stops. If the diesel system is in good shape it will keep running at a VERY low RPM. Then if you do buy it warm up and cool down before and after you work it is VERY important to keep the head from cracking and other parts working right. I have a 49 MD that was our workhorse for many years and never cracked a head or block. It ground many tons of feed after bigger tractors took over the field work...two ton of feed with 1/2 gallon of diesel fuel. There great old tractors. Good luck.

 

[ihc49er#2]

another thing is they will fire right up directly on diesel when you stop them and restart it. and no you dont switch to gas once its cooled off just shut it down.many people think you should run on gas before shut down because it cleans the carbon out of the plugs.simply not true,there is never any diesel combustion at the plugs. if you dont believe it then remove them while your idling on diesel. if those tiny gas valves are doing there job you will have 0 compression leakage .

 

[SheldonS]

(quoted from post at 21:54:53 02/26/08) another thing is they will fire right up directly on diesel when you stop them and restart it. and no you dont switch to gas once its cooled off just shut it down.many people think you should run on gas before shut down because it cleans the carbon out of the plugs.simply not true,there is never any diesel combustion at the plugs. if you dont believe it then remove them while your idling on diesel. if those tiny gas valves are doing there job you will have 0 compression leakage .

I copied the page a few weeks back from an original TD-6 owners manual (same D-248 engine as the MD) that states to switch back to gasoline when shutting it down for ease of starting next time.
What you do have to make darn sure of if you do, is that you seat the valves back down to prevent warping (pushing the compression release valve back forward again). This is stated right in the original owners manual as well.

 

[Andrew Kappers]

A lot of the diesels had cracked heads so thats one thing you should check.

 

[Janicholson]

Though you may have had one that did, Mine would not do it at all. It was 12v. and had lots of CC Amps to work with. It would not bring a piston over center on diesel (hot or cold). It did start great on Gas, and ran well on Diesel. And the starter was fresh, and cables 00. JimN

 

[RichH]

I will have to disagree about not switching it over to gas before you stop the tractor. Almost every time I stopped mine I switched it over to gas, set the diesel throttle to off and then pulled the switch over lever back to diesel. It started much easier the next time I used the tractor and even more so during the winter. I really don't know why but that is the way it seemed to work. Even in the worst of cold if I could get it to turn over it would start. Sometimes it would have to run on gas for quite awhile before it would be warm enough to run on diesel. They are a low compression diesel engine. Never could start it on diesel with the starter, but pull started more than once.

 

[Chad Lorson]

i have a super MDTA and i always shut the tractor off on the diesel side because the cold gas entering the head could crack it over time