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I suppose it’s a how long is a piece of string question, however…
Before restoration. Somewhere between £900 and £2,250. The lower price would be for a tractor that had rusted or bent panels and needed full engine rebuild with further mechanical work. The higher price would be for a tractor that was original, had been looked after and was reasonably mechanically good – basically coud go to work and looked OK as well.
After Restoration. Absolute top price would be no more than £3,500 and there are quite a lot of restored tractors in the £2,500 to £2,800 price bracket. The only thing with the so-called restored tractors is you never quite know how good a job has been done of the mechanical restoration.
Restoring a tractor is expensive. Yes you can get an engine rebuild kit for around £160 – £300 (depending on brand), but that is often the cheapest part of an engine rebuild. Getting the crank reground, head and block skimmed, fit valve guides, recut and grind the valve seats etc. is a big cost. An engine may not need all that doing, but that work would cost £450 – £600. Then if injectors need servicing they are £22 each and injection pump refurb would be approximately £250 – £300. So the total engine rebuild cost coud be towards £1,200 – and that’s if you do the job yourself.
Hydraulic system refurbishment is usually much less expensive, with a pump repair kit in the region of £100.
It is easy to see how a full restoration may cost as much as (or even more) than the restored tractor would be worth if there is a lot of work to do.
Hope that has given you some idea on values and costs – obviously it is all based on UK costs an values.
I read some of the comments above. I restored a 1957 dexter to mint
condition, looks and goes like the day my father inlaw took it off the boat in jersey in march 1958.It cost over £10k to compelet but worth every penny. Good luck with yours hope you have many hours of fun with it.
Peter,
I am in the process of rebuilding a petrol engine for my Dexta and when I use the liner to block gaskets that came in the overhaul gskt kit my liner protrusion is 16 thou. I got another package sent to me that says liner sealing gaskets but they are much thinner and are more like a shim set although they say gaskets, my protrusion is within the limits of 3 to 5.5 thou which is good. The ones that came in the overhaul gasket set are a gasket material bonded to metal almost like an exhaust gasket. Do you think the steel ones with sealing compound will work or not ?
Thanks
Terry