Grass Trap

TractorUJoint

When I was shopping for a tractor, I was really waffling between a couple of brands. I ended up with the New Holland partly because it was affordable, partly because they had great financing deals, and partly because I liked that an old dealership was nearby. I figured they’d always be around. Though I plan on doing a lot of tractor fixing myself, I figured there would be times I’d need them to do repairs. And, I wanted convenience when going to buy parts.

But, I was wrong about their longevity. Brim Tractor has closed its Everett and Sequim stores this month, due to the economy. It was totally unexpected, even by those stores- the Everett store had scheduled our warranty repair just days prior to getting the news. So, it’s been a few weeks of communication and challenges for the Mt. Vernon store to pick up the slack and get our tractor fixed. They managed to get it done this week.

I discussed with the service manager there what the likely root cause was of the transfer case seal going out. He felt it was due to grass winding up on the open front-wheel-drive gear shaft, which is not covered. The repair was apparently elaborate- not something he felt they could do on the farm, he said they had to “split the tractor in half” to get inside that box. I asked what was the likelihood of this happening again, considering we have fourteen acres of reed canary grass. He thought it was high, so he offered to fashion a cover to help protect that gear from grass.

Here is what they came up with, nothing fancy, just some clear Plexiglas-style plastic; but will hopefully do the trick.

TractorShield

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