What is your least favorite tractor?

Now, I don't hate antique tractors (it is one of my passions) but there are some limitations from the modern production and safety viewpoint, so identifying and accepting the limitations is important.  I realize we are here today because of those machines and they can do alot of work if asked to just like the old days, however the equipment that matches typically did not fare as well as the tractor so if the tractor cannot be attached to a modern machine it is obsolete.  Thankfully there are  various conversion kits and add on parts out there to help fill the utility gaps in hitch and hydraulic attachments for many handy tractors.  However even with the add on parts, pushing the limits of an antique with lower parts availability is unwise.   Safety: hand clutches, transmission driven ptos, limited shielding, lack of walkways/steps etc.  If you have hired help or inexperienced help or perfect help anything bad can happen and you don't want to deal with that because even if it is the employee's fault, it will ultimately be your fault because it was your machine...

Deciding factors on any tractor for me are reliability and ease of use.  Attitude of a make's crowd also contribute.  If a particular tractor has a lot of cobbling or excessive inappropriate welds (why use a cotter pin, when you can lincoln lock it?) I will hate it.  If you can easily get tangled up operating or getting to the seat to use it, I don't like it much either.

My least favorite in the family is probably the caseih 685 (1985-1990, 62 pto hp):  The left hand shifting is awkward with a manual (if it was some type of shuttle maybe).  The exhaust is terribly loud for having such a large muffler on an open station--our older stuff puts it to shame for quietness (other similar models are the same way).  It was also a highway mowing rig originally, so it has 24inch tires and a brush mower permanently attached.  Many things are screwy because of the brush mowing equipment.  It was bought wrong, I thought my dad knew better.  The tractor itself is good mechanically but I estimate $1000 in parts to make it a normal farm tractor, excluding rear tires, rims, and wheel parts.  Even as a brush mower is difficult to use on the farm because there is no ground clearance and the smallest swell puts a rear tire off the ground.  I guess I could like it more if it were set up as an ag tractor, but the noise and left side shifting are hard to get used to.  If you write out the ergonomic reasons, left hand shifting makes sense on paper, but sometimes the complicated way (all controls on right) works better in reality.  I'd rather have a the stick(s) between my legs than at the left.

Second tractor is our 830 case gas, it was owned by someone that should not have ever plugged in a welder or fired up a torch.  Some good things going for the tractor design-wise but the previous owner ruined it.  The loader was worth the price of the combo alone so it was a good auction buy.  And it has saved our buts when another tractor has went down.

longer post than intended!

karl f