I bought this tractor in March of 1994. It is a 1983 JD 4450 with a Quad Range transmission. It had 3200 hours on it. It was my all round planting, baling, spraying tractor for the next 5-6 years. Then I bought a larger TMR wagon and had to put some thing larger than a JD 4020 on it. So it pretty much has been hooked to a TMR wagon ever since. At around 15,000 hours I overhauled the motor. Compression was getting low but the crank was in spec. So I did not split the tractor and just rolled a new set of main bearing in. So to my knowledge the clutch is the original. A few years ago my one son bought his in-laws farm. We moved the tractor and TMR wagon to that farm. He has to pull up a pretty steep hill to get to the cattle yards from the lot where the silage bags are. Last week the JD 4450 started slipping when pulling the hill with a full load. I had took time today to check the clutch pressures and it has a belly ach. LOL So it is split time. We are going to completely go through the transmission while we have it in the shop.
I am wondering how many hours we will get on the tractor in my son's life time????
Think a "new" tractor will hold up for 25 years and 30K hours??? I think not with the computers on them.
This tractor has given me trouble with the electric dash/gauge cluster. I put a separate hour meter under the hood so I know the true hours. Someone could easily get fooled as the hour meter in the cab/dash only shows around 9500 hours. I have replaced it twice with used ones.
I am wondering how many hours we will get on the tractor in my son's life time????
Think a "new" tractor will hold up for 25 years and 30K hours??? I think not with the computers on them.
This tractor has given me trouble with the electric dash/gauge cluster. I put a separate hour meter under the hood so I know the true hours. Someone could easily get fooled as the hour meter in the cab/dash only shows around 9500 hours. I have replaced it twice with used ones.