Diesel and Gas tractors

Im a small "evening farmer". I put up about 20 acres of alf. and about 25 acres of grass. The grass is about 30 minutes away. I do this with a 3020 which pulls a 1209 J.D. swather, a 10 wheel rake, and 271 N.H. baler. Heres the point. I usually drag all this stuff over there to the grass field once a year. This year I borrowed a 99" Massey Ferg 1180 I believe is the number. Anyway From start to finish I used 10 gallons of Diesel fuel!!! If I would have used my 3020 I would have used 52 gallons of gas. Cost diff. of about 155.00 savings. WOW couldnt believe it. Do the older diesels get that same type of fuel economy? Just wondering.

Quite often the 3020 vintage diesel did pretty good on fuel, but the price differental on the purchase would buy gasoline for a long time. Today with diesel even more expensive it may be harder to justify the diesel. A lot depends on actual hours run per year.

You can help the fuel consumption in your 3020 gas, I did for my 4020 gas. I cut its consumption from 400 gallons a year to 250 doing the same amount of field work. Good plugs (AC or Motorcrafft) and (copper) wires are vital. A new float needle valve and seat and a known good float in the carburetor are essential. Proper ignition timing is important and for light loads slipping it a few degrees more advanced can help so long as it doesn't ping too much at a heavy load, but hay making isn't a heavy load.

I found the choke cable wasn't opening the choke all the way because the sheath wasn't anchored near the carburetor.

I found the top of the Donaldson precleaner was doomed down instead of up, that acted like a partial choke. Then its important to go through the entire intake plumbing and filter and clean out the birds, the bird's nests, and the mud dauber nests that all act to restrict the air and make it run rich wasting fuel. Good thermostats are important because the engine is more efficient at 180 than cooler. It would be more efficient running even hotter but water and oil don't like it much hotter.

Plus, I know how to tune a gas engine and its lots cheaper for points, plugs, condenser, and even wires than a set of injectors and an injection pump rebuild that many new generation JD tractors have needed by now. When I bought my 4020 gas about ten years ago, I figured the price difference to a similar condition diesel, about $4000, would pay for 14 years fuel, then gas went up but I saved on fuel by tuning well. And now I've gone notill for the grain crops and reduced my annual fuel to about 38 gallons for both tractors (4020 and MF-135 that doesn the planting and the mowing and the preplant spraying).

Gerald J.

It's got little to do with the ages of the tractors. Basically it's the size. A diesel needs to be worked within a certain horsepower range or the fuel efficiency drops like a rock.

An old 9N Ford with a flathead gas engine will make 10 horsepower more efficiently than that Massey Ferguson 1180 diesel.

A 3020 is quite a bit bigger than the MF1180. A more fair comparison is with a Deere 1520, made in 1968. It has an engine the same size, but made by Deere instead of Perkins. The Deere makes 46 horsepower with a fuel efficiency rating of 15.4 horsepower hours per gallon of diesel. The MF 1180 makes 46 horse at 15.3 horsepower hours per gallon. They are just about the same - but technically, the older Deere is more fuel efficient.