Farmall 300 questions

Going to look at one today. Know virtually nothing about them, just want one. Is the TA something that goes bad a lot? How do I check it, what does it even do? My experience is in old Fords and Massey's.

Anything else I need to check beyond the obvious? Does this have power steering like the 350's I have seen? (I don't really want something else to have to fix eventually)

Will this pull the 10' disc that comes with it? That would be the main purpose beyond just looking cool on the farm of course.

Thanks!

Just like any of them with a TA they do go bad and you need to drive the tractor and check it in all gears to make sure it is still good

shift it in low and high and hold the brake on hard to see if it slips

You want one that has a working TA and a working fast hitch. Good brakes are a bonus.
Drop the glass off the sediment bowl and clean it. Then after operating the tractor a minimum of 30 minutes have a look at it again.
Open the carb drain and drain a pint of gas into a jar. See what that looks like.
Crack the rear trans plug and drain some oil. See how much "yellow oil" is there. That's 15 gals you might need to replace.

I pull a 10-ft Fast Hitch disk with my 350 and it
handles it fine. The 300 has a few ponies less
but you should still be able to get along without
trouble. Is this a mounted disk? If so, you'll
want some front end weight. I have a wide front
which adds a little extra weight but the front end
would still get pretty light.

Be sure it has Hytran fluid in the rear end or the Ta clutch can go out quickly. Ask me, I know. Mine went out shortly after I got it because it had 80-90 weight grease in it. Worked fine for a few months until it just started slipping.
Be sure the area right in front of the gauges and brakes is fairly dry. Lots of oil means you get to fix the Hydrotouch valves for leaks. They are a pain to get to!! I spent a LOT of time fixing leaks, even to the point of overhauling the valves. My leaked internally and allowed the loader or fast hitch to drop. So time and patience will fix it, but it also makes a BIG mess under the that area of the tractor.

"That's 10 gals you might need to replace."

There is one on the Birmingham, Al Craigslist. Not
mine, know nothing about it.

OK, lots of advice about the TA but nobody has said what it does that I noticed...

The TA is basically a two-speed powershift that lets you temporarily shift to a lower gear to pull through tough spots in the field.

They do not "go out often" unless they're abused. These tractors are 40, 50, 60 years old, so the TA is just plain worn out from decades of use.

In most cases you can run indefinitely with the low side of the TA out on a tractor like the 300, which has the mechanical type TA.

The reason you see so many out is because the tractor must be split in two places to replace the TA unit. This is not something that everyone has a shop and the know-how to do. Paying someone to do it gets expensive quickly, usually more than the tractor is worth.

Here are a few pictures of the insides of the TA from a 300. This one is a cut-a-way that I made for tractor shows. This one was fitted with the pedal and levers from a utility tractor. I'm also showing the stand that I have designed to handle the housing. The center section, as it's refered to, has to be removed from the tractor to repair the TA.

thanks!

Pretty rough, ran 10 sec on ether. Can't drive it, needs water pump, front tires, hydraulic lines, paint etc. Comes with 10' disc, fast hitch plow, worth a grand? 750?

Power steering was an option, most were built without it. They were powered from the tractor's live hydraulic system, powered by an engine driven hydraulic pump located forward of the distributor drive. Anyone may have added power steering to the tractor over the years.
Check to see how many remote hydraulic levers it has. Three is most desirable, but many were built with only two. There were two styles of fast hitch. The early ones had a smaller hydraulic cylinder on the right side under the platform, this controlled the hitching point higher or lower, and another larger one in the rear to control the hitch height. This one works a bit better for fast hitch implements.
The later style fast hitch with traction control has only one large cylinder in the rear, and it was designed to use the draft & weight of the implement to increase traction. These work ok but most have very worn linkages. A lot of these tractors were built with the standard horseshoe drawbar of the earlier H & M's.
A Tach was an option as well, it mounted on the dash to the right of the shifter, this option required a different distributor housing to include the tach drive gear which turned a speedometer style cable that ran back to the tach. Most are inoperable as the drive gears were plastic & the cable broke.
Other options to include front wheel weights (6788D)1 or 2 sets, rear wheel weights, clamshell style fenders, any fasthitch implements etc will certainly add to it's value.
The tractors were hailed as live hydraulics, live PTO, disc brakes, and increased power over the previous Super H it replaced.
I would say it's worth a grand, but as you can see below, I'm a bit prejudiced....
It's a bit more work to restore than an H or M, but well worth it.
They make very handy baling tractors.

That is a Nice tractor!

It has ps, newer style fast hitch according to your description, large cylinder on left, 3 levers on hydraulic. Engine seems ok, but leaking hydraulic out of every orifice making a big greasy mess for painting. Missing the farmall script on sides, bet that's not cheap. I've painted several vehicles before, and it's the quantity of grease on this that bothers me, not an easy cleanup.

Maybe a simpler h or m would suit my needs better, just love the cool hoods on the 300-450's

Hi M-Farm,

Oil grime can be a mixed blessing - it keeps things from rusting, but as you say, makes for a mess if you are going to try to paint. If the mess is more grime (oil with dirt), it can also indicate a general lack of maintenance, which might be a clue to deeper issues you can't see yet.

I've used Purple Power de-greaser from a spray bottle, scrubbed with a parts wash brush, followed by a 2500psi power washer with good results (but not at -5F).

From the description, I'd say it's value might depend on the condition of the disk. If the disk is pretty solid, I might offer 1k for both, but I've also been known for being overly generous. Suppose it depends on what H's or other 300's are going for where you're at.

Well Worn



BTW, thanks for the kind words on the other thread.

How does one keep the oil from throwing out??? LOL Hey snow day confined to my favorite chair.