The Yardstead

This Yanmar tractor is our main workhorse here at the yardstead.  This has been a great little tractor.  We have had a lot of interest in our Yanmar tractor articles, so I thought I would post this article with more detail about this model.  The YM1300d is a 16hp 4wd tractor with gear transmisison and 13hp PTO.  It weights approximately 1135 lbs. 
When I was shoping for a tractor, I had never heard of Yanmar, so I did a little research and found out a good bit about Yanmar tractors.  Yanmar was founded in 1912.  In 1930 they designed their first diesel engine and  built the first small horizontal diesel engine in the world in 1933.  Yanmar manufactured a number of compact tractor models for John Deere and by 1986 had shipped over 100,000 tractors to the US for John Deere alone.  Today Yanmar is considered a world leader in the diesel engine market, with their engines under the hood of many tractors by numerous manufacturers.

I mentioned in an earlier article that this model is a "gray market" tractor.  This means that this model was manufactured for use in Japan, and later legally imported to the United States.  Yanmar manufactures 2 types of many models of tractor.  One for use in Japan and one for use in the US.  In japan these tractors are mainly used in rice production where there is no need for heavy rotary implements (such as a bush-hog).  For this reason grey market tractors do not have a PTO overrun clutch which is designed to prevent energy from the heavy spinning blades from transfering back to the transmission of the tractor.  The YM 1300d is used in Japan primarily with the PTO tiller seen in the picture above.  The YM 1300d and some other gray market models also have a multi speed PTO.  This works fine with the tiller, but could cause problems in the top 2 gears if used with a rotary cutter (bush-hog).  US made implements are made for a standard PTO RPM which is equal to the 1300d 1st PTO gear, and running implements in the higher gears could cause them to vibrate to pieces.  Other than these small differences these tractors are the same as the models made by Yanmar for the US.  I would recommend adding a PTO overrun device if plan to use a rotary cutter.  I occasionally use mine with a 4ft bush hog and have had some near misses when I tried to stop while approaching a fence.  I had to quickly swith the transmission out of gear to prevent the spinning blades from driving the tractor forward.  You can also get a  ROPS (roll-over protection structure) and PTO shield to add to a gray market tractor.  Hoye Tractor Parts stocks these items along with anything else you might need for a Yanmar tractor.  I have purchased parts for my Yanmar from Hoye Tractor and have been very satisfied with their service, and they seem to carry just about every part as well as english language manuals for Yanmars.  
I would recommend a Yanmar grey market tractor to anyone.  These tractors can often be found at much lower prices than other compacts.  Be aware of the differences as well and take care to  follow all the safety precautions.  Here is a good book full of info about compact tractors: