Hey. I joined the forum to get some advice. We just purchased this Vermeer tractor, mostly because the costs of renting a ride-on trencher are prohibitive for the amount of trenching I need to do, and I really needed something to do some road-grading. This tractor is articulated (way cool!), has the fully functional six way front blade, the front-hoe, and the massive chain trencher, in addition to the full ROPS, and a hydrolic plug-in, on the side, to use to run other hydrolic toys. It has a bit of rust and quite a few leaks. Brakes do not work. It's missing the chain-guard on the trencher. There's some glitch in the front-hoe controls that seems to alternately keep the backhoe from swinging to the left OR to the right, but the backhoe can be manually pushed. The alternator is not hooked up to the battery, so we have to pull the battery each night and recharge it at home. The guy I got the tractor from said he thought it was early 80s, but wasn't sure about much else. I cannot find a serial number, but the model number appears to be a 470 (M?). I can't find much information about this thing and I think it's a 70s model. In the previous owner's hands, this machine worked beautifully. We can't get the chain to spin on the trencher, but can get all other parts of the tractor working. We know the chain DOES spin - the guy hauled it to our property and dug a bit of a trench with it. The soil melted under the trencher - incredible. We are having some problems with the gear shift lever in the trencher part of the tractor, disengaging from the bottom set of teeth in... (Here's where my tractor anatomy knowledge fails, utterly) there.... The lever is supposed to switch the gears from the top set of gears, near the driver's seat, to the bottom set of gears, near the trencher. The lever swings, but the gizmo that has the set of teeth that is supposed to move away from the other set of teeth, is not always swinging out, and then the tractor is engaged in both sets of teeth. This is not good. I have filled out Vermeer's contact page about trying to get an operator's manual for this thing, and await a return message from them. Given the above set of problems, where else can I look, to get information to help us get this tractor situated and working again? Unfortunately, I work as a public school teacher, so funds are limited - we are doing our own construction by necessity. This is not my first experience with a tractor - last year my kid and I put in a big septic system with two tanks, into an area dominated by sandstone, and we did this with a compact Allmand TLB 535. I just don't know tractor anatomy or motor parts and the Allmand is a piece of cake to run - this thing has a clutch and gears and such. BUT I CAN & WILL LEARN. Thanks for any help or anyone pointing me to any help. I have already checked Youtube, Ebay and several other tractor forums, and the Vermeer page. I would LOVE to see a film of someone with a similar tractor, doing the shift to get the chain working. Also, my trailer literally will not haul this beast, so it's located pretty far out of the nearest little town, so taking it to a tractor-doctor will be difficult. I am capable of replacing hoses and that sort of thing, but wiring is new (and intimidating), and the entire tractor needs a power-wash - it's hard to see what goes to where, in there. W
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