My Ford 640 tractor came with headlights at the factory, but they were long gone by the time I took posession of it. I soon learned why; headlights tend to get whacked by low branches and such, and eventually get damaged. After a false start with fancy chromed headlights, I learned to buy inexpensive "implement lights" at the hardware store. These come with mounting hardware and have a hard rubber case which stands up okay to abuse.

I also added taillights, which weren't part of the original tractor, but made me feel better. My tractor sometimes gets parked on the road as I open gates or such, and sometimes I work until it's pretty dark. I'd hate to have a neighbor plow into my tractor because it was hard to see in the gloom.

I also put some self-adhesive plastic reflectors on it, though these mostly have fallen off. I'll try reflective tape next time.

You should probably put the lights on their own fuse to reduce the chances of blowing the main ignition fuse if a headlight wire shorts out. If you put them on a completely separate circuit, the lights won't turn off when you turn the ignition off. That's okay with me if it's okay with you, but I always forget to turn my lights off and run my battery down. You can also make it a branch of the ignition circuit, so the lights turn off when the ignition is turned off, but one fuse goes to the ignition coil and a different fuse goes to the lights.

Tractor Roll-Over Protection Systems (ROPS)

I was pleased to discover that rollover protection systems (that is, roll bars) were readily available for my tractor. I had the mechanics from the Ford/New Holland dealership install the model they liked best. This is the sort of thing you want to buy on reputation, not price.

The roll bar is very simple, but it's not the sort of thing you'd want to cobble together on your own. It needs to be strong and strongly attached to the tractor frame.

Pay attention to the safety instructions that come with the ROPS. For example, the roll bar came with strong warnings not to drill holes or weld to the roll bar, no matter how much you want to add fancy lights to it. You don't want to mess with the roll bar for fear of weakening it.

One disadvantage of the roll bar is that it makes the tractor taller. It bangs against fairly high tree branches, for example. So it's not an unmixed blessing. Still, I'm glad I have it.

Tractor Hearing Protection, Music, and Audiobooks

You should always wear hearing protection when operating a tractor. They're very loud and can damage your hearing.

I like to listen to audiobooks when using my tractor, either books on tape from the local library or digital audiobooks I download to my mp3 player from audible.com. I've been a subscriber to audible.com for four years now and have been very happy with them.

You can buy hearing protection with built-in FM radio or headphones, but I roll my own. It turns out that some kinds of lightweight audio headphones, especially those from Panasonic, have removable earpieces that are just the right size to fit into earmuff-style hearing protectors from 3M and others. It takes less than a minute to do the conversion, which can be undone just as quickly. It's much cheaper than fancy hearing protection with built-in radios or headphones, and this is important to me because I frequently damage the cords or leave the headphones out in the rain or otherwise wreck them.

Similarly, I prefer simple tape players to fancy ones. I had a tape player fall out of my pocket once while I was mowing. A trip through a rotary mower didn't do it a bit of good.

For a while I used Koss earbuds alone, since they were the stick-in-your-ear kind that did a good job of blocking outside noise. But real hearing protection is better.

Periodic Maintainence For Your Tractor

I have the Ford user's manual for my tractor and also the ITC manual. I think it's very important to do all the periodic maintenence in the book. Old tractors totally lack the lifetime lubricated bearings and other modern conveniences, and as a result you'll end up using a grease gun a lot.

I was amazed at how a tractor goes through fluids. The oil-bath air filter uses 1.5 pints of oil every time it's changed, and it should be changed every 10 hours of operation (partly because the crud and water tends to sink to the bottom, so you can't really tell if it's clean or dirty). I don't know of a conversion kit that would convert my tractor to a paper air filter. Too bad.

The engine oil is supposed to be changed every 50 hours. Possibly this is overkill, since modern oils are so much better, but tractors work in a very dirty environment and some of the dirt finds its way into the engine. Better safe than sorry. The original spec says to use single-grade 20W or 30W oil, but multi-grade oils are better. I've pretty much standardized on 15W40 diesel grade oils in all my vehicles (even though none are diesels!) because it's more than adequate for everything I have, without being so fancy that it's going to break my bank account. I don't suppose you can go far wrong with 10W30 or 10W40 or 20W50, either.

The original cartridge filter spills about a quart of oil on the ground every time it's removed. I have a conversion kit that allows it to use an ordinary spin-on cartridge. I got this from the local Ford/New Holland dealer. This will make filter changes less messy and will probably provide better filtration. Also, the original cartridges don't have a bypass valve, so bad things could happen to your engine if the element got clogged. I'll install it at the next oil change.

Don't neglect the grease fittings, which should get a shot of grease every 10 hours of operation. The purpose of this is to keep crud from penetrating to the interior of the fittings. The first time I greased the fittings, water, rust, and very dirty grease came out of some of them! Keeping the fittings greased only takes a few minutes.

My tractor also has filters on the crankcase and head, which are supposed to be sloshed around in kerosene to clean them and then be lightly oiled. Bad things happen if these clog or if the crud on the outside works its way into the engine. I keep a coffee can about half full of kerosene for this purpose.

And don't forget to check the dipsticks for the engine oil and hyraulic fluid!

All this work leaves your hands disgustingly dirty. I recommend Goop hand cleaner. They must have reformulated it, since I seem to remember it stinking to high heaven when I was a kid. It's odorless now. It takes the grease right off, isn't harsh, and even works great at removing stains from your clothes! I need to find a wall dispenser for it, since it's hard to open the jar with greasy hands.

In addition to all that daily/10-hour maintainence, there are longer-term tasks such as occasionally draining and refilling the transmission and rear end. I was surprised to discover that my transmission had very clean oil in it, but the differential had dirty oil, and the drain plug came out with a slurry of very fine metal particles on it! Some previous owner had skipped a lot of routine oil changes.

I went through about four gallons of gear oil when changing those two sets of fluids. Gear oil isn't very expensive, but the sheer volume was impressive.

Fixing the Cooling System

I'd had the tractor for years before I realized that it was abnormal for the temperature gage to stay at the "stone-cold" level unless I was working it very hard. Obviously, the thermostat was stuck open, and had been when I bought the tractor.

Replacing it was a bit of an adventure. The thermostat itself is an ordinary Ford thermostat, and while Napa didn't have a gasket for my tractor, the guy at the store gave me some gasket material gratis, and I cut a new one, using the thermostat housing as a pattern. The problem was that the housing, gasket, and thermostat refused to stay aligned while put the assembly back into the engine. In the end, I glued it all together with silicone sealant, waited for it to try, and had no difficulty putting the now-monolithic unit back on the tractor.

I also replaced the radiator cap on spec. this turned out to be a mistake. As often happens with older machinery, one problem masks another, and a working radiator cap meant that the cooling system could build up pressure, and this in turn cause water to leak out of the weak seals on the water pump. The right thing to do would be to replace the water pump, but leaving the radiator cap loose prevents any leakage. So far, the loss from water steaming off hasn't been noticeable.

Replacing the thermostat was a good idea, though. The engine now gets up to temperature even at idle, and it runs better. The higher engine temperature means that the oil gets up to temperature, which will boil any water from the oil and extend the life of both the oil and the engine.

I once backed my Isuzu Trooper into the tractor and damaged the radiator. The radiator shop in town had no trouble repairing it very reasonably, which is worth knowing. New radiators are also available.

Mobile Repair for Tractors

I don't have a trailer that can haul my tractor, so if it breaks in a way that I can't repair, the mechanic has to come to me, or I have to arrange haulage by someone with a trailer. The local Ford/New Holland dealer will send a mechanic out to me, and I've been happy with them. But I prefer John's Mobile Tractor Repair of Lebanon, Oregon, because John's just as good as the dealer and charges less.

When my starter stopped working altogether, John appeared with his trailer and took my tractor away. Replacing the ring gear on the starter involves separating the front and rear halves of the tractor. The frame of the trailer is a big hollow casting with the transmission on the inside. The flywheel is also in there, and the ring gear is bolted to the flywheel. Most of the teeth were chipped an distorted, to the point where it became impossible to start the tractor.

This is not the kind of job you want to do outdoors during a rainy spring, so John took the tractor to his shop. It turned out that the clutch also needed rebuilding (which didn't surprise me at all), so I got two overhauls that required separating the tractor done at the same time, which is just as well.

John also fixed up several little things as he noticed them, which I appreciate, since I tend to let little things ride, meaning to fix them and not actually doing it.

There are varius kinds of mobile repair out there. Some of my neighbors use mobile auto repair services. It's very inconvenient to take cars into the shop when you live far from town, and often the mobile repair guys are cheaper anyway, especially if you have two or more vehicles that need some work. Some tire stores such as Les Schwab also offer mobile service, which can be important for tractors and other vehicles where the wheels are far too large to toss in the back of a car.

All these services end up charging you for mileage one way or another, but in many cases you come out way ahead, either because you saved so much of your own time and could get a lot more work done, or because their rates are so much lower than the dealer's that you came out ahead that way.

Another service worth mentioning is mobile veterinarians, who don't maintain an animal hospital at all, but work solely out of their trucks. They're usually less expensive than standard vets, since they're solo acts and don't have employees or storefronts to maintain, and a lot of them work with both pets and farm animals. Maybe you'd find it convenient for them to come to you, even if we're talking about a cat rather than a cow.

Electronic Ignition for Tractors

I had a persistent problem with poor ignition on my tractor. Mostly this was caused by corrosion on the ignition points. My tractor is left out in the weather sometimes, and the distributor gets rained on. Although I've never seen water inside the distributor cap, it must get overly damp because the points corrode within a year or so.

I solved this problem by installing a Pertronix electronic ignition unit on my tractor. This took about fifteen minutes and was very easy. It's a little unit that fits entirely inside the distributor housing, though there are two wires that are threaded through an existing hole (where the low-tension wire used to run) and go to the two low-voltage terminals on the spark coil.

Net result: No more points, no more corrosion, no more lack of starting! It's also supposed to improve starting and low-end torque.

I've also installed a Pertronix high-voltage spark coil. It didn't make any obvious difference, though maybe it deserves a share of the credit for the tractor's overall improvement.

Marvel Mystery Oil For Your Old Tractor

I use Marvel Mystery Oil as a gas additive for my tractor. Marvel Mystery Oil is a penetrating oil that tends to dissolve rust. When added to the gas in a tractor with a steel gas tank, it leaves a thin coating of oil on everything, preventing additional rust, while tending to dissolve the rust that's there. I have also had some trouble with rust in my carburetor, and it helps there, too.

I used to always have some red rust in the sediment bowl of my carburetor, but this has gradually vanished since I started using Marvel Mystery Oil in the gas.

Admittedly, I could also pay to have my gas tank sealed, or even replace the tank with a new one. But I won't do this until I have to.

I doubt that it's of any particular use as an oil additive, since today's oils are already pretty good, but in old tractors and cars, especially with steel gas tanks with some inside rust, it's good stuff. I also use it as a general light lubricant and penetrating oil, though I'm told that as a rusty-part loosener, Kroil is better. I need to try it some day.