WooHoo New Toy

BrentD · Dec 15, 2008

Well, we finally brought our brand new 2008 Montana 4340C home yesterday.

I haven't had time to do much more than drive it off the trailer and under the shed, but I already love this tractor, even if it did make me feel a little stupid after unloading it. I had just backed it off the trailer and was going to drive it to the barn. I put it in high range, second gear and let out the clutch. Tractor started down the hill just a little slower than I thought it should go. Started to make the turn toward the barn and the tractor stopped moving. I fiddled around for a couple of minutes checking to make sure I had all the gears set, but it still wouldn't go. Turns out the direction shuttle was in neurtal rather than forward. DOH!

Oh yeah, and the AC/Heat selector is opposite the way it is in American cars, so that confused me too. You turn the thermostat to the left for heat and to the right for cold. Every vehicle I've ever drive, you slide or turn the control right for cold, left for heat. Even thought the control is plainly labeled, habit might cause some confusion. I certainly hope the volume on the radio isn't backwards too...

All in all though, we spent about 2 months looking at tractors before buying, and none of the other tractors could touch the price the dealer offered us on our initial visit. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the price on the '08 models had dropped another almost $3000 when the '09's came in.

Texasgreen · Dec 15, 2008

Conguradulaction on your new investment! Enjoy it. Post some pictures we love them.

Lefty_Kubota · Dec 15, 2008

ditto.. lets see some photos

JDeerekid · Dec 15, 2008

Congrats!!!! You will love your 4340C. I have one and have put almost 200hrs on it since teh end of February. The heat/ac switch confused me also even though it is color coded. It took me almost 3 years to choose a tractor and ended up with the montana being one of the best for the money.
If you have any questions let me know. What implements do you have or got with it? What are you using it for? Also make sure you add some pics. We all like pictures.

Another thing make sure you fill out your profile so we have an idea where you are located.

Have fun and be safe!!!

BrentD · Dec 15, 2008

For the time being the tractor is mainly going to be used to do some dirt work. My parents have about 50 acres 10 miles out of town and at one time had a small lake that covered about 4 acres. The lake was long and narrow, built along the route where two creeks joined up by the previous owner of the land. There was dam across the widest end of the lake, but no real spill-way to speak of.

About 6 years ago we had a huge rainstorm with nearly 15 inches of rain in about an hours time. A neighbor's dam gave way up one of the creeks and the resulting flood was enough to collapse our dam. I think most of the neighbors dam ended up in the bottom of what used to be our lake. We've been meaning to do something about it for several years, but never got around to it. I finally convinced my parents to buy a small dozer back in June so I can get to work repairing the dam. I'm set to inherit the property some day but would like to maybe buy it from them in a couple of years and build a house out there. The old 1920's house I'm living in now is an energy hog and always has something that needs fixing.

Anyway... I've been doing dozer work out there on the weekends pushing all the sand out of the bottom of the lake, trying to get back down to the clay bottom. I've got several large piles of sand built up, so the first task for the new tractor is going to be hauling that sand out to fill up all the craters left by the pack of wild hogs that came through and rooted the place up around august.

As far as implements go, we've got a 6' brush-hog (my family has always called them "rotor-cycles" or just "shredders"), an ancient draw-bar pulled disc, a 3-point angle blade and 5-tooth soil ripper. All of the implements except the ripper were used with our little Ford/NH 1715 (That tractor has an identity crisis. Half the stickers say Ford, half say New Holland. It was a half year model the year Ford sold their tractor division to NH, and it got parts with both labels.) The ripper is on permanent loan from my grandmother. It's been sitting out under a tree in her pasture for probably 20 years and was maybe used once. I remember when my grandpa bought it back when I was maybe 10 years old. He intended to use it to plow their garden during a drought. Unfortunately the ripper and grandpa's old Ford 8N was no match for sun-baked black-land. He unhooked the ripper under a tree and there it sat till I found a use for it. It's still got most of it's original paint and there's very little rust. The teeth need to be sharpened, but our land here is mostly sand so it should work just fine for us. It's going to be used to rip up the grass that has grown up down in the lake bottom where the dozer doesn't have quite enough traction to break through. (Sand is amazing. You can get a 10,000 pound machine with wide tracks out there on it then the tracks start spinning as soon as you come up on a patch of vegetation. The dozer is nice though. I can bury the blade completely in the sand and the tracks will break traction before the engine even notices.)

BrentD · Dec 21, 2008

As requested, here's a pic of the new tractor hanging out with our 1988 Mitsubishi BD2G dozer. Interestingly enough, the Dozer has a Mistubishi S4E engine rated 45 horsepower and the Tractor has a Mitsubishi S4Q engine rated 40 HP. Just from a cursory comparison there are not that many differences between the two engines.

Unclebuck257 · Dec 21, 2008

Congrads on the new baby!!!! MANY years of pleasurable work are wished for you.

I'm curious though...The colder/hotter thermostat switch in my 5740C is the way it should be...colder to the right and hotter to the left. Are you saying yours is the opposite? Man!! there goes that drunk oriental who wrote our manuals again!! He probably had some time on his hands since he finished the manuals so quickly, so he dabbled in the engineering/designing department between drinks too!! He's a trickey little dude!!!! LMBO!!

Lasgambler · Dec 21, 2008

Very nice tractor, I like those curved boom loaders. Nice to have a tractor and dozer with almost the same engine. Makes service easy. I hope to get a cab tractor one day. Terry

BrentD · Dec 22, 2008

Unclebuck257 said:
I'm curious though...The colder/hotter thermostat switch in my 5740C is the way it should be...colder to the right and hotter to the left. Are you saying yours is the opposite? Man!! there goes that drunk oriental who wrote our manuals again!! He probably had some time on his hands since he finished the manuals so quickly, so he dabbled in the engineering/designing department between drinks too!! He's a trickey little dude!!!! LMBO!!

Well, the switch has the heat on the left, cold on the right. The thing is that every vehicle had cold on the left and heat on the right. Even though the switch in the tractor is clearly labeled force of habit leads me to turn the thing like I would if I was in my car so I get exactly opposite of what I wanted.

I'm just guessing that it may have something to do with the A/C unit coming from a country where the right hand side of the vehicle is the driver's side so the driver would be operating the control with their left hand.