For this article, we're going to make the crazy and unlikely presumption that you purchased older tractors that's in tip top shape and wishes no immediate repairs aside from an oil change and a good bath.

With the exception of the Fords, Fergusons, and some machines of the late 50s, the older machines were outfitted with proprietary implement mounting systems that used proprietary implements that were carefully patented to insure that nobody else would build something that might work with it.

proprietary in this example means that the hitch was designed by the company and would be incompatible with any other company's system.

As with many exclusive systems, they often worked as well or better than their'standard' opposite numbers ( though at that point there was no standard and few people would guess the Ford-Ferguson system would end up being the official standard ) and caught on with quite a following.

If your tractor is similar to the majority, somebody welded strange looking pieces of metal to the back to lift or drag whatever they occurred to have for implements ( or worse ripped off the hydraulics and pulled a trailer around with it for twenty years ).

If your machine is one of these, you may be thankful to have a drawbar left yet alone any implements or hitch system.

For many of us, the above solution is not satisfactory because most of the implements we need hadn't yet been invented at the time the tractor was built.

Hitch kits fall into the category I size range for almost all of the older machines but through shimming or pin replacement many cat II and pussy zero implements can be employed.

The serious flaw with attempting to use the pussy zero implement is that the PTO speed on your older machine will probably be 540 revs per minute while the normal moggy nil tractor turns at one thousand r.p.m and the shafts use decidedly different PTO splined shafts.

The moggy II implement can be a problem in that they're often heavy enough to exceed the weight boundaries of your older machine making not only early appliances mess ups but extraordinary safety hazards.

The minimum spread between the lower lift arms will be about 26-27 inches, the maximum spread is typically out to 33 inches or more.

the real trick is coming up with a design that pulls from the right point and keeps the draft control functional.

If you build a 3-point for one of these, the basis should be the snap coupler bell as that was the carefully engineered pull point of the tractor.

It is vital to note that pulling from any point apart from that designed by the maker is foolhardy.

If you have a really rare and collectable tractor, the addition of a 3-point will possibly lower it's value if installation requires any permanent alterations ( happily most don't ).

The second alert is if your tractor has survived this amount of years, it is likely to live into the following millennia and even if it is not rare now it may be then.

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