Last year, for my wife's birthday, I bought her a brandy new JD 3025E wheel tractor with a front end loader. Deere had a zero percent financing offer you see. And, she has issues with her left leg and can no longer use the clutch pedal on my 2008 5045D. She needs a hydrostatic transmission. So, I got her one. Plus, she now has her own loader and I don't have to work in what she wants to do when I am using the larger loader.
Well, she returned the favor. I had been eyeballing Powershift equipped wheel tractors for half of last year. Hard to find such a machine in decent condition these days for under $20k. And this transmission pretty much means a John Deere 4020 given the age it needs to be for under $20k. And, thenI really wanted a Side Console model which means 1969-72.
I finally found one a couple months ago. A 1974 4230 in decent shape with a engine rebuild done by the independent tractor dealership's shop. It has 13k hours on it, but with the rebuild that really goes a long way to lower the hours. The Powershift checked out and then I dumped the oil and pulled the screen and fished around in the bottom of the case. No junk in there. Noting bad in the filters, either, and those were dated 2017. So, someone took care of this one.
The 4230 was the reskinned 4020 as part of the 1973 Sound Idea line featuring the Sound Gard cab. I didn't want a cab and so was looking at the four post Roll Gard variants. They seem to get no love vs the cabs or fully open station variants. And this one is a 4-poster which is fine by me. Fresh air and a sun shade.
The worst thing, for me, was it had been repainted. A decent enough job to be sure, but that covers up a lot of evidence. I couldn't find anything that said 'walk away' except the lugs on the rear tires are all but gone. I want to use it haying, so they will actually do for a year or two more.
So, I put the oil and filters back and bought it. $19.5k including the 200 mile delivery. Not too bad. I replaced the trans oil and filters when it got here. I have mowed with it once so far. We are in a drought, so all the fields have are weeds and I wanted to whack them with the flail mower. Everything worked just fine, especially the Powershift. I did a lot of haying with many machines as a teenager and always liked the Powershift Deeres the best.
The best part is my wife bought it for me, said that is my Birthday and Christmas present this year. That's the same thing I told her last year when her new tractor showed up in the yard. The only difference she didn't know hers was coming and I had to be the one running all over the map looking at old machines until I found a good one.
Stan