Parts of five tractors all put together!!!!

I bought this tractor after a train had hit it at a crossing. It was broken in three pieces. I wish I had taken pictures of it when I started. I had been wanting a MFWD but they where out of my price range. This one only had 1900 hours on it. It took me two years of evenings and weekends to find all of the parts. There are parts out of five different tractors used in getting it "right". I put it all together in the week between Christmas and New Years in 2000. Figured Y2K would stop the world then. LOL

Here are some pictures this fall pulling silage loads in. I also have two good co-pilots. youngest grand sons.

Super good job on the tractor.

ALSO! Good to put a face to the man. Thanks for the pictures.

Allan

Saw pictures of one like yours that got hit by a train and broke in two, and the engine was laying on the ground out of the frame. The claim was the engine kept running.

Fine looking machine! We had one of our 4010 diesels hit at a crossing in the mid 1980s. Luckly the train was slowing down with 2 miles into the Sayre yards. Tore everything from the fan forward off. Carried the front slab weights and one of the front wheel/spindles back from a 100 yards down the tracks. The hired man was driving and you can see almost a mile each way at that crossing. He was thrown off the tractor when it spun around. He was not seriously injured, how nobody knows. Only thing we could ever figure was he landed on his head. We spent 2 months putting this tractor back together with parts from about as many tractor as yours. Everyone said it was damaged beyond repair and the insurance adjuster sold it back to us for pennies on the dollar. Once the old cuss was repaired it served us well with no problems right to the end of the farming operations in1999.

nice looking job. i drove a 4455 FWA similar to that one at work. is that one a powershift or quad?

Sure does look nice. Its always a good feeling seeing the finished product when you work on something.

Beautiful! I mean the tractor. I made the mistake of showing the wife. She remembers your stories, and was interested to put a face on a name, and wants the grandkids!
I put up with a behemoth of an old Steiger for 10 years before I got my first MFWD about 5 years ago. I was looking for a 4960, but ended up with a Magnum 7240 for about half the price. It's been a wonderful tractor.

Thats one of the last good JD tractors made IMO. All steel, simple to work on, that's why they bring the money. I'm sure you know but keep an eye on that water pump on those 466T engines as they can give problems and take the motor out.

I sold my 4455 MFWD powerwhift this spring, wish I had a big enough reason to keep it.

You must have done a good job if it's still earning it's keep today. Looks good. Does it look like the grandsons are having fun or what? They'll remember the days with grandpa for years to come. Jim

It is a 15 sp. PS. I had every moving part out of the castings. The engine block had the back mounting face broken off. The transmission housing and the center rear end housing where broken at the back of the transmission. One axle was bent. I had the engine, transmission, and rear end stripped to the bare castings. The cab is off of a another tractor. The hood is the original with the factory paint. We never could figure out how the engine was broken out of the frame rails but did not upset the front axle or damage the hood. The fuel tank, the MFWD axle and the frame rails where setting about twenty feet from the crossing. The engine, transmission and cab half where rolled about 500 feet down the tracks. I picked up pieces for two days along the accident site.

What made me think about this was seeing Allen have his pickup transmission in the bed of his pickup. I had pallets of parts setting in three different barns. My sons thought that it would never be back together. I had taken everything apart and sorted out the damaged stuff. I only had to get the manual out for the top transmission shaft. The power shift clutch packs where simple as I have done hundreds of them. At one time I had two neighboring dealers that would bring their clutch packs to me to rebuild them for them. They said mine had fewer problems then the ones JD reman was sending them. Don't know if that is true or not but I could do them for half what JD wanted.

I did buy all new wiring harnesses. The AC system was completely new too. This tractor was the big dog for us until two years ago I redid a JD 4960. So the JD 4450 gets the lighter jobs now.

I have a JD 4320 that I am building right now. I have been working on getting all of the parts together. I bought the tractor three years ago. It is completely stripped down the the casting right now. I have done three of my tractors this way. I have much more than market price in them but they are as good as they where new. SO if I have 25K in this JD 4320 what would a new one be??? 100k??

Nice job....I also like the "bangboard" on the silage box- saves a lot of spillage and doesn"t interfere with loading.

thats the right mindset. because when you get done with that 4320 it will basically be a new, less modern 120hp tractor that will have a lot less stuff to go wrong than something new.

sounds like you did a lot of hard work. glad it all worked out for you. with those 3 tractors you could do a lot of farming!

(quoted from post at 19:40:09 11/24/11) Thats one of the last good JD tractors made IMO. All steel, simple to work on, that's why they bring the money. I'm sure you know but keep an eye on that water pump on those 466T engines as they can give problems and take the motor out.

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I'll also agree the JD 40,50 & 55 series tractors are the BEST. I thought the fan belt driven water pumps on earlier models performed just fine. One correction though in your statement JD called the 55 series engines 6076 not 466 although they were still 466 cid.