Belarus 7000, are they really that bad?

Anyone in here has or has ever owned a Belarus 7000 articulated tractor? I am considering purchasing a low hour 250HP V8 tractor at a very reasonable price to mount an olive harvester on the rather large TPL.
I know there are some, no, lots of horror stories out there about parts availability and unreliability but they are probably from people who have never even seen one yet alone owned one.
I only expect to use it for about 100Hrs per year and it will never come close to being worked hard.

They didn't seem to carry a very good name ..

I guess the real question is...
How much are the Olives worth and what time delay can they stand, waiting for parts for a tractor that may or may not have parts availability..

May be real cheap on the day of purchase with expensive results down the track? :-X

Then again, she could be a bewdy!

chocs

They arent actually a belarus (kirovets make them) I had the V12 version it was fine & considering the motor was 22.3litres actually good on fuel..also in mud etc they have great traction..id say if you can live with the controls being written in Russian go for it also you need a low loader (preferably a wide one as they are almost 2.85m wide not to mention 3.6m high

I drove one for a neighbour a bit, pulling a 36' airseeder. It had a V8 engine, and was on reasonably wide single tyres. It had more power and traction than our 876 Versatile with L10 Cummins on duals, and was more economical. We reckoned it averaged 1 acre per litre at 1500 rpm. The engine seemed very good, though the rest of the tractor had quite a lot of oil leaks, and that was after the previous owners had spent much time replacing fittings and machining parts to stop leaks. The steering just could not be rushed or it went around corners in a series of jerks. The only real downtime I know of was with tyre trouble. I don't know if they have an unusual or un-common size, but it sat for quite lengthy periods waiting for tyres (that had cracked in the wall) to be repaired. I don't know if he couldn't get new tyres, or just didn't want to pay for them.

Yes this is one of two our nieghbours have. The other is still sitting in the paddock where its been for about ten years with a busted gearbox

l would say chocs is right, can you afford it to break down. l would not touch it if they gave it to me other than sell it for scrap.

That one in the photo looks like the V12 like my old one only prob mine had was a power str leak & the selectors in the gearbox were sticky both easy fixes for the hp you get.. Believe it or not but at the time I was in the market for a little 4wd tractor like a kubota...ended up with a 300hp beast...

Back in early 80's worked on a corporate owned farm as a agricultural fitter a old bloke we hired in for the harvest had a 50 hp 4 wheel drive assist belarus which had an accident whilst baling hay ,owner got of to adjust the baller on a hillside with baller running the jerking movement released brake and of down hill it went slowed down some on flat before nose diving into creek with 8ft drop with rather broken front end.
Rings insurance co and adjuster came later that afternoon and rang dealer to go ahead with repairs who turns up next day organised recovery to old blokes shed ,made a list of all parts to fix this included radiator,all sheet metal from instrument panel ford front axle casting and complete front axle,2 wheels,drive shaft ,+odds and ends,general local opine if he ever got the parts 6 months before running again.
At same time we had a 188 fergie with broken crown wheel carrier and sun gears in pieces weighing on parts to repair ,Belarus had all parts of shelf and flown to dealer in 2 days 3 days later tractor was back like new and old bloke back baling hay.
1 week later going past mf dealer called in to see if parts we had on order for 8 weeks had arrived ,no parts ,head dealer colliers me inquiring if it was true we was purchasing 2 new tractors said yes but boss was thinking of belarus and told him of problems getting mf parts and belarus was 4 days out of sydney ,said he would look into it and delivered all parts 5 days later himself ,my boss was very puzzled about buying new tractors as he didn't know and i forgot to tell him.
Peter

dont no nothing about them but thought this may be of some interest to yo compiled for the kondinin group for farmers from farmers
Paul

The BIL had two of 'em, both fitted with Auto-steer. Had one permanently set for the spray plant and the other for the seeder and cultivator. Had to replace a gear box on the spray unit but other than that a very good run.
Not sure how long he had them, but would have been at least 4-5 years.