Wednesday, June 8, 2011

the John Deere 4020

I was cruising youtube whlie waiting on an after hours meeting and came across this link:4020 pulling wheelies.  At first I thought - Wow! How cool!  Then I remembered.
When I was 6 or 7, I saw dad pull a wheelie while pulling a 24' field cultivator.  Not just any wheelie.  The cultivator was on the 3 point hitch which means all of it's weight was being supported by the tractor.  Our 4020 did not have duals or weights on at that time which made the tractor VERY light.  So light that when he lifted the cultivator the front wheels came off the ground about 1-1/2 feet.  Dad calmly drove out of the back yard, turned down the road for about a tenth of a mile and then turned into the field and stopped.  His hands were not on the steering wheel, only the throttle and the left side of the seat.
The show did not end there.  He then unfolded and put the cultivator into the ground.  As he took off across the field the front wheels came up again and did not touch ground until he hit the other end of the field. A good 1/4 mile wheelie. He made six or seven rounds that way because he was re-tilling the part of the field that had not been planted due to a rain out.  (the duals and weights were off because this was also his planter tractor.) Poke around on youtube for more tractor videos.  or better yet post some of your own on there and tell me about it. I'll post their links here.  We need to preserve our tractor history almost as much as our soil.

2 comments:

  1. Hey I'm a redhead. Are you married?

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  2. Folks - meet my wife Sara. Longtime redhead, first time comedienne.

    ReplyDelete