No multi power. Just a 4 hi/lo trans and a 2 stage clutch.
From what I read that seems to be the bulletproof setup on these old Massey's.
No remotes, I might add one so I have the option to rake hay with it.
The 8 speed is entirely bulletproof. But the 2 speed Multi-power was very nice to have, and was very reliable as well. On the home farm when I was growing up, we worked our way through 7 of the 1965-1985 Masseys, mostly because of that really good dealer we had. Of those, 2 of them are still on that home farm and operating, and they've picked up a good number of others of similar era, which they still use. When I started out here on my own farm, I bought a 2705 with 600 hours on it, that was also originally sold by that same dealer. I bought that 29 years ago, and I'm still using it. A couple years later, I bought a 2675, with only 1400 hours on it, out of ND, that I'm still using... it's gotta go in for a new clutch now... All have been great tractors with very minimal repair work required. All of them that we've had had the power-shift option. A neighbor here has a 1085 with a cab that is in great shape that he offered to sell me (since he knows that I'm kind of a Massey guy), and I'll probably take him up on it, even though it may be a LITTLE below my preferred power range... that 4 cyl. Perkins is a really "perky, gutty" engine, and we loved it in our 285's.
Very good tractors with Perkins diesel engine and no multipower trans is a plus. We had a MF175 for years and a very good tractor as I wish I still had it. On the remotes we put an external pump on the MF175 as they have a slow internal hydraulic flow as I noticed the MF150 was 4.8 GPM which is enough for a rake etc.
No remotes
... I thought they ALWAYS had at least ONE remote on them... haven't ever seen one without.
On our loader tractors (165 and 3 - 285's) we always put a high capacity front mounted pump on them, specifically because the flow rate on the internal pump was pretty minimal... for their day, it was kind of standard in the industry on those smaller units, but for loader work, the larger pump made for much faster work, and those 285's would still be listed as my favorite loader tractor, when set up that way (the weak link on them was their front wheel bearings, when doing alot of heavy loader work... we broke the race on those many times, and always had to be "wary" about that, and they should have had larger bearings there... We had a larger 7' custom made bucket on it, and did alot of swinging/sliding around on pavement with it... it was a very quick, short wheelbase unit with good balance... I referred to it as being built like a little bull). Interesting then though that the 2000 Series during that same time period (2675-2805) had really great hydraulics for their time... like almost 30 gal./min total combined. Then the 80's hit, Massey started getting into $$$ trouble, and began "cutting back" on things. Went from their 24 speed down to a 16 speed, went from that big hydraulic capacity down to about 2/3 of that, etc. Lots of "little things" that cheapened up the final unit production cost (not the selling price though of course).
And now, just like all of them, they've got them loaded up with all kinds of electronics, and they're in the shop as much as any of them. Basically a Fendt tractor with red MF badging. And the Fendt is supposedly a very good durable, higher end tractor (European), and from what I hear, the Massey brand is right there with it. But because of all the electronics, they ALL (all the manufacturers) have "issues" that they have to deal with. The "mechanics" of them are pretty sound, but the electronic control operations of those mechanics is where they get in trouble.
I saw a Deere unit several years ago that was on auction (I think it was like an 8400???... it was that newer body style anyway, NOT the old soundgard style). It was coming from a big local dairy. They had bought it new at the local Deere dealer, and he had all the service records and the repair slips in a 3 ring folder in the cab. I just couldn't believe all the work that had been done on that unit over the years... all done at the local JD shop... Unit was probably about 10 - 12 years old and it had like 11,000 hours on it. He had over $100,000 in repairs to it over its lifetime to that point. Think about that... $10,000 A YEAR (or put another way, $10/hour), just in REPAIRS! CRAZY! The tractor looked "nice" cosmetically... not beat up or anything, in fact, if you didn't know the history from the repair records, you would've thought that it had always gotten really good care.
This new stuff scares me!
