I think I've pretty much worked out a deal with a guy from Huntsville to buy his refurbished (By Fredricks) Yanmar. It's a compact tractor, but a more serious tractor than any of the newer ones I've been looking at. It weighs 2,050 pounds without the loader or the rear tires filled, Plus in addition to the loader it has a 4' Mahindra box blade and a 4' rotary cutter. All that for $7500. It is the YM1702D 4x4 model made around the early 1980's with 1050 hours on it. This one has a high, mid and low range with 3 forward gears and 2 reverse gears and a 2 speed PTO. Separate brakes that can be used together

I talked to one of the guys that started Fredricks Outdoors for about 30 minutes and picked his brain about these older Yanmars and I talked to the owner of this tractor for about 30 minutes. I asked a lot of questions and got a lot of answers.

I have a buddy with a "real" truck and a tandem axle trailer that's going to help me pick it up. I'll probably need to buy a bigger 4x4 truck next. This is a slippery slope.

Everything I have read online about the older Yanmars imported from Japan has been positive. (Other than Phil Army's experience. ) Between Hoye and Fredricks Outdoors I think I can get just about any parts I might possibly need, plus they are a very simple tractor meant to be worked on out in the field by farmers and in my case dumbass cabin builders.

At the price I'm paying I don't think that tractor with the implements is going to depreciate much if at all as long as I take care of it, and if you know me you know I will take care of it. So if I ever decide to sell it later, I should easily be able to get my money back out of it. A newly refurbished similar one at Fredrick's with just the front end loader goes for $10,500. I thought about going that route so I had to ask when I was on the phone with them.