Universal tractors

[JOHNNY BOY]

Anyone use these tractors much.

 

[JOHNNY BOY]

I have a 550 super edition of these. As the name says a super little tractor. That good on diesel you would nearly forget to put it in it.

 

[8100]

A farm up the road had one around the 1980s a little 4x4 @ 60hp I recall. The lad who drove it had a high opinion of it .

 

[Dman2]

Had 2 here in the late 70s. good enough for what we paid.
Seem to remember one of the optional extras was a seat

 

[Llewellyn93]

Haven't got any pics of the front of the old beast but we've got a 550 DT. Got a quicke power loader on the front and spends most of its time on the log spitter. We are 3rd owners from new was sold by Bryan Jones in bishops castle. They are ok you get what you pay for!

 

[vantage]

We had two 445s,first (and only tractors bought new).Finished life on yard scraper :-( Good tough tractors made in Romania to Fiat design.Dad ran the two with inline Kidd single chop harvesters,on a good day could clear 2 acres between milkings:-D Power farming!!!!!!!

 

[JOHNNY BOY]

My father bought a 550 super universal back in 78 i think, for the tidy sum of £4,400. Put over 20.000 hours on her till she finally gave up the ghost. More neglect from him than anything in the end.
Had a 640 dt, a 650 and i bought a 550 super again in the spring of 2012 more as a small run around for him. Checking cattle and so on. She's always doing something now. All the bigger tractors stay in the shed now unless theres something requiring more power.

 

[pycoed]

My 445 DT. Does heavy topping of rushes with 5' topper, moves ton bags (shackles welded halfway along the loader arms), works an old Twose back actor & shifts loads of logs with bucket & transit box. Also rusts gently in the rain for the last 9 years but always starts. (Gear selection requires a ouijah board!)

 

[JOHNNY BOY]

Haven't got any pics of the front of the old beast but we've got a 550 DT. Got a quicke power loader on the front and spends most of its time on the log spitter. We are 3rd owners from new was sold by Bryan Jones in bishops castle. They are ok you get what you pay for!

Bet you wouldnt like to sell the old girl @Llewellyn93

 

[JOHNNY BOY]

My 445 DT. Does heavy topping of rushes with 5' topper, moves ton bags (shackles welded halfway along the loader arms), works an old Twose back actor & shifts loads of logs with bucket & transit box. Also rusts gently in the rain for the last 9 years but always starts. (Gear selection requires a ouijah board!)

Hi there @pycoed. Seems most of the universals over there are four wheel drives. Only seen one four wheel drive of that series in Ireland ever. Is that what the dt stands for in the model description

 

[pycoed]

Yes the DT means 4WD, there was also a model with same size wheels front & back -like a County, but I can't remember what the letters for them were (pretty rare - I've never seen one)

 

[JOHNNY BOY]

Never even heard off them ones with the same size wheels front and back @pycoed. Learn something new every day,

 

[pycoed]

DTCE here you go:-

 

[JOHNNY BOY]

Had a 640 two wheel drive here for about 10 years. Thanks @pycoed.
She'd be a good tractor to pull that one would.

 

[jondear]

Dad bought a 445 DT it was red .In its day was first 4wd in the district came from Jonny flues.Finished life on scrapper then it was exported back to Romania to live on again.

 

[DrDunc]

As well as the design, fiat also sold universal the tooling for these cracking wee tractors.

When they decided to stop making themselves and sell onto universal, Fiat definitely threw baby out with the bath water!

An island farm off port appin that I worked on as a teenager had a 550dt. Things did break, but could be fixed without recourse to involving the mainland.

For example, one of the gear selector rails was broken. In theory it needed to be barged across the water to be split for a new rail. Instead, I took the top cover off the box, and was able to join the two broken parts together with stainless steel seizing wire. The fix was still working fifteen years later when they sold it!

 

[balerman]

Amazing,nearly 2 days into this thread and everyone has words of praise for these little tractors.They had a dubious reputation even when new but I used to drive a 640DT which certainly pulled well for its size.

 

[DrDunc]

Amazing,nearly 2 days into this thread and everyone has words of praise for these little tractors.They had a dubious reputation even when new but I used to drive a 640DT which certainly pulled well for its size.

They were dirt cheap at the time, and surprisingly reliable, especially since they were made from worn out tooling that fiat thought too expensive to be worth renewing.

 

[john432]

My dad bought a new 445dt back in the early 70's, was a good little tractor for the time, I remember the steering being heavy for me at the time! They came with a big wooden crate of tools, and parts, greasegun, oil pump,air pump, spare bulbs.etc etc. The dealer took out a lot of stuff from the crate, but forgot the list, spare injector, piston and more on the list. Today one has to pay 40 times the price for a tractor,and your lucky to get a pair of overalls!

 

[kill]

They are still available are they not? Became a Case JX so whichever Farmall super seeded that is a Universal and also available in blue and manufactured in Turkey!