Purchased in 2012 with just over 5000hrs on it, this has been our main workhorse for our business since that time. The tractor now has 11531hrs on it and runs extremely well. This type of use is very low demand on the engine with the most power used while roading the tractor between jobs. The demands of this job are highly traction driven and that is dictated by the ground conditions and the tires themselves.
The tile plow is our own base design that was manufactured originally by Seneca Iron Works in 2012. Many components have been redesigned and/or rebuilt in house since that time.
The design features removeable/rebuildable 9″ by ~24″ by ~1.5″ thick AR500 points on a dovetail mount at the front of the plow. The tractor has receivers to carry two additional points for quick point changes in the field. Skid shoes under the plow are also serviceable with replacement skid shoes carried on the tractor as well.
The GPS setup is based around the John Deere RTK system using a StarFire 3000 for the base station with SF1 & SF2 activations. The tractor has a StarFire 3000 on the cab for Autotrac use and a StarFire 6000 on the plow for grade control and tracking use by the aGPS computer. All 3 receivers have Starfire RTK Radios for communication between the base station & the tractor mounted receivers operating on the 900MHz frequency.