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You are certainly starting out taking the right steps to start out with, i.e., having them inside, gas drained, removing batteries, putting them up on blocks, so I will try to answer a few more of your questions so that you can be sure that everything will still be in good condition when you return. I am not sure about the gas caps, but I would say maybe leaving them loose might be a good idea so that any condensation can evaporate. Ideally, you would want to use one of the gas tank coating products on the insides of your tanks, but that is somewhat time consuming, and to do it to seven tractors would probably take a pretty long time. As far as covering them or not, as long as they are inside and sheltered from the elements (and, incidentally, bird droppings) covering them is probably not necessary, except to keep dust off. If you do decide to cover them, make sure you use something that can breathe, otherwise it will trap moisture underneath and encourage rust. I would definitely put some oil in the cylinders; fill them if you can, (although if you have tractors with L-Head engines, this could be a problem on the cylinders which have one or both valves open) to prevent not only the engine from seizing but also the cylinder walls above the pistons from developing surface rust (not a huge problem, the rings will probably take care of it when you run it again, but wouldn't you feel better knowing there's no rust in your cylinders at all?) If you do fill them all the way, of course, make sure that you take out the plugs before you go to start it again and allow the oil to run out to reduce the mess and smoke. I would probably just drain the cooling system completely and leave the drains open. Leaving some antifreeze in there may not hurt anything, as long as it is good down to as low temperatures as you can expect to get, but if it's completely drained, you can be sure nothing will freeze. Hope this info helps,
Nathan
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