mgrablin
New member
Greetings All
Just joined the forum yesterday and have already found it interesting and the members very helpful. Help is definitely needed as I am new to tractor operations. My background is 30 years Intelligence Aviation in the US Army (15/35 for those interested) and 10 years with Lockheed Martin in Airborne Intelligence Systems. As I neared retirement, my wife and I bought a 2.75 Acre property that had the home and outbuilding we needed to gather the toys. As a side deal to the home, we purchased a used John Deere 4500 MFWD with several attachments. Having operated many vehicles, helicopters, and airplanes in my time, I asked myself, how hard can this be? It was like the show Green Acres. While I had the engine running in short order and moving the front loader was easy, after several unsuccessful attempts to get the tractor to move, I shut it down and grabbed the Operators Manual. Over the last year I have mowed large fields several times, moved loads of small stones, offloaded pallets from a shippers truck (my other toy a Husqvarna MZ61 with Utility trailer) and shoveled snow off our fairly long driveway. My only failure so far was trying to pull a 2 and a half ton pickup truck out of one of my fields after the idiot ignored my advice and tried to turn around with a 40 foot trailer attached. It was just a bit much for the JD 4500 as the wheels had a tendency to come off the ground before we could get the truck to move. All in all, it remains exciting every time I have an excuse to use the tractor.
Just joined the forum yesterday and have already found it interesting and the members very helpful. Help is definitely needed as I am new to tractor operations. My background is 30 years Intelligence Aviation in the US Army (15/35 for those interested) and 10 years with Lockheed Martin in Airborne Intelligence Systems. As I neared retirement, my wife and I bought a 2.75 Acre property that had the home and outbuilding we needed to gather the toys. As a side deal to the home, we purchased a used John Deere 4500 MFWD with several attachments. Having operated many vehicles, helicopters, and airplanes in my time, I asked myself, how hard can this be? It was like the show Green Acres. While I had the engine running in short order and moving the front loader was easy, after several unsuccessful attempts to get the tractor to move, I shut it down and grabbed the Operators Manual. Over the last year I have mowed large fields several times, moved loads of small stones, offloaded pallets from a shippers truck (my other toy a Husqvarna MZ61 with Utility trailer) and shoveled snow off our fairly long driveway. My only failure so far was trying to pull a 2 and a half ton pickup truck out of one of my fields after the idiot ignored my advice and tried to turn around with a 40 foot trailer attached. It was just a bit much for the JD 4500 as the wheels had a tendency to come off the ground before we could get the truck to move. All in all, it remains exciting every time I have an excuse to use the tractor.
