The early 316 imediately followed the Deere 300 which replaced the 140. It is a clone to the 300 but was renamed to differentiate it from the 312 introduced in 1978 and it had dual hydraulics in the front and independant rear brakes with 2 pedals. The 317 came out in 1979 and after that was a failure, Deere redesigned the 300 series from the ground up and created the legendary 318 soon followed by the Onan powered 316 in 1982?
Either 316 can be fitted with a rear sleeve hitch for a rear blade. A category "0" was also available as optional equipment and they are expensive to buy now ($500 for a nice one) They can operate a 54" wide hydraulic lift front blade, rear tiller up to 48" wide, a 48" wide snow blower, and some more exiotic stuff like a front mounted chipper made by MacKissic, a rear post hole drill made by Danuser, a rear flail mower, front mounted 540 RPM PTO, and a whole bunch of other stuff. The exiotics are harder to find, but they are out there.
You might want to go to
www.weekendfreedommachines.ORG and click on the model info button at the top of the page and check out all the goodies once made for these. Since most of the common attachments were made for over 10 years for the 140, 300, 312, 314, 316, 317, 318, 322, 330, and 332 (not all attachments are switchable between all models). I own one of each and if I had to pick one, I'd take the older Kohler one as it offers the dual hydraulics in the front which works great for plowing snow.
