In the past 5 years I've owned a 54 HP Zetor, a 108 HP Case 1070, and a 21 HP Allis 5020. I use tractors for blowing snow (a lot of it in the Idaho mountains), excavation, road maintenance, landscaping, and mowing. I bought this Allis 5020, which appeared to be in mint condition, for $5000. It was actually built by Hinomoto, a now defunct Japanese company. I added a Coldwater loader ($1700).
The tractor has plenty of torque and traction - it just keeps pulling. It's got a little 2 cylinder engine that sort of sounds like a 60 John Deere. It does vibrate quite a bit. It has 12 forward speeds and 3 reverse, including a creeper range that I like for snow blowing. Cat. 1 point hitch works great. Standard 540 rpm PTO. The operator station isn't easy to get in and out of, especially with the loader mounted. No starting problems so far. The engine and trans work like champs.
After I mounted the loader, I worked the tractor pretty hard for about 7 hours moving dirt and trees. The front wheels started to ratchet. Turns out a bearing in the front axle fragmented, and bearing parts chewed up the spur gears that drive the front wheels. To be fair, the previous owner had apparently allowed it to sit with water in the front axle housing for a long time. Revelation---parts are very hard to find. AGCO had some, but they are very expensive ($45 for an oil seal), and they didn't have one of the gears. I finally found a salvage 4WD tractor, most are 2WD. I also found out that this tractor has an aluminum bell housing that can break if over stressed.
I am still on the fence about whether I should keep this tractor or not. If I do, I was seriously contemplating buying another for parts.
