I discovered Hoye Tractor months ago when I was first looking a buying a pair of Yanmar tractors. One is a late 70s YM1500, the other is a YM2000D, not sure on its year yet.
Both belonged to guy friend of a friend, he said I could buy them both or neither, package deal. Neither ran, story was the 1500s clutch never worked, and the 2000, despite have had a recent engine rebuilt was locked up. We negotiated, my friend hitting him low first, him countering and having his Wife yell at him in the back ground (oh just sell him him the dang things!) $2000 for the pair.
Lets start with the 1500, or G.G. She was sitting out in the rain, flat tire, steering broke, clutch not working, starter only succeeded in making smoke. But, she was quite clean, low hours (172) and “ran when parked”. I had pretty good confidence of getting her up to snuff pretty easily.
Got her home and got to work.
First was the starter, I tried a few things, nothing but smoke. Took it off, started to dig into it (often starters just need a good internal cleaning) and found something odd. It usually doesn’t take a mallet to get a starter apart, that is unless the internals are all completely rusted solid....darn.. New one ordered.
That lead me to the clutch, shared space, I wonder if this rust issue is part of why the clutch wont work. Oh boy...
Split the tractor to find the clutch was also one solid piece of rust. I literally had to prybar pieces of the clutch off till I could remove the flywheel to get it to the machine shop.
Flywheel machined, new clutch in, new pilot bearing, pulled the plugs someone had put into the bottom drain holes causing the rust in the first place. Put her back together.....still was working. Found someone had broke the left hand thread adjuster rod inside the link nut, removing all but a half a turn of clutch adjustment. No wonder the clutch never worked. Fixed that. Clutch is now adjusted and working.
Next the steering box. Second verse same as the first. Rust. Did I mention it rains alot here? Thankfully the sector shaft was salvageable. New bearings, new oil, proper adjustment. Good to go.
While doing the steering I had the fuel tank off so went ahead and cleaned it well. Good thing too. Lotta water and goo in it.
Changed the oil and filter, new fuel and fresh fuel filter.
Lets see if she’ll start. Adjust the throttle, key on, decompress lever down, crank till the oil light goes out, “contact!” and she fires right up and purrs like a kitten. I quickly shut her off since the hydraulic lines are still apart.
The hydraulic oil isn’t great looking so it gets drained, I pull the screen and clean it, put it all back together. Notice a seal is hanging out on the axle, investigate that, the outside axle bearing has.....no bearings. Interesting. Pull the housing, inside bearing is still good by some small miracle. New outer, back together. All new oil and gaskets etc.
Got all the lights working. Horn works. Everything works!
Now she goes on Craigslist...And I’m kinda sad, shes such a cute, clean little tractor. But the couple of guys that are interested are gonna use her for her intended purpose. Caring for their gardens. Just hope they keep her under cover.
- Ym1500
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