Brand New "Blue" Montana

[Stampeder]

I am now the proud owner of a "brand new" Blue Montana 4940C complete with a Green FEL.
I cannot speak highly enough about Alan Hosey of MidKan in Maize, Kansas and Jay Fleetwood of Montana Tractors. What a great pair of gentlemen to deal with.

So how did I get a Blue "New" Montana tractor. This 4940C is a three year old Demo and has been up in Maize Kansas, being used for demonstations etc. It went up for sale a couple of months ago for $16,000 but it lacked a FEL and it had AG tires on it. Alan worked his magic and got the tires exchanged for R4's, added a curved boom front end loader (unfortunately green was the only colour available). The tractor was taken from Maize, Kansas back to the factory in Arkansas where the loader was installed as a factory unit and few other items were added. Jay Fleetwood then delivered it from Arkansas to it's new home here in East Texas.

I can't tell you how exciting it was to see it coming down the road on the back of the trailer. We off loaded it and checked it out. I put four hours on it that afternoon ( I had a bunch of jobs waiting for it).

My tractor (nicknamed Buddy) came with the quick couplers that Montana had tried a couple of years back. These are the neatest things on the tree point hitch. If you haven't seen them, they are a captive clamp that holds the balls of the three point hitch in place. This is not a quick hitch. It actually is better because you can have balls that fit a CAT1 or CAT2 implement with using the same size ball and just leave the balls on the implement for attachment when you back up to it. I hope this makes sense.

Anyway, I've been pushing trees into piles for burning, moving dirt piles around and pushing dead trees over. I'm going to borrow my neighbours chisel harrow this coming week to do some field renovating.

Future plans for next winter is to send the FEL into a local body shop and have the boys paint it black which is how the were delivered with the Blue montana's.

If there's interest I'll upload some pictures in a day or so.

Having a tonne of fun with my new toy....er machine. I love this Montana tractor what a machine.....

Cheers.

 

[Bird]

Of course, we'd like to see some pictures. I don't really understand about the quick couplers on the 3-point, so I'd especially like to see some close ups of that.

 

[BTDT]

Welcome to TBN. Now that you have a tractor, you can fill out your profile and let us know more about you. East Texas covers a lot of territory. What other kinds of jobs you have planned? 3 yr old demo? How many hours? Sounds like you got a good deal.

 

[Stampeder]

I'm afraid I've been away from the forum for a while. Between work and getting the hay fields rejuvenated plus looking after the animals, it's been rather busy.
I've attached some pictures, since every one likes pictures. The ranch is about 6 miles out of Mineola, TX. Which makes it about 35 miles NW of Tyler, TX.
I've added a picture of the bunk house as well. Great place to sleep in.
We have 15.5 acres with a 50X30 4 stall barn, wash stall, bathroom and tack room in the barn....gotta love the previous owner for building it.
Buddy is my Montana tractor. It was up in Kansas for 3 years as a demo. Finally, it became aged stock and Montana wanted to move it. So I bought it for a good price. That is why it is the original LG Blue. I wanted the curved boom front end loader and the only colour available was "Green". Hence I have a brand new "3 year old" Blue Montana.
I just love Buddy. It's a fantastic tractor. I bought a grapple off eBay and welded the two inch angle iron mount that it came with to the bucket. I was out moving eight inch diameter dead fall pines off my fence and bent the 2 inch angle iron mount. Got some grinding to do and rewelding the mount for the grapple .... then back at them trees.
I use my Montana a lot for haying right now and pasture work. The shredder you see attached in the picture is a 7 footer that I borrowed from my kind neighbour. My 5 foot King Kutter is a little narrow out in the big fields.
Once my fiance gets down here I'll be putting the 6 foot box blade to work doing a whole lot of landscaping. That's also why I bought the straight blade.
I'm toying with idea of buying a landscaping rake....maybe if an auction comes along.....
I also have pallet forks for Buddy as he has the quick change mount on the curved boom loader. What a great attachment. I'm doing fencing as well and bring home cement bags 10 to 15 at a time. I have the boys at Lowe's put them on a pallet. It's so easy to unload them then store them in the barn til needed then onto the pickup and out to the field they go. No breaking backs for this cowboy.....Gotta love that quick change FEL....
My Montana came with something called quick couplers. I've posted a couple of pictures. This is the slickest rig. The ball you see is captive in the mount but can be removed by moving the brass coloured piece back...it's spring loaded. The balls are then slid on the Cat 1 or Cat 2 TPH of the implement, I back up to it, lift the TPH arms up and the balls pop into the coupler. Just have to connect the top links and I'm away....Best thing Montana ever put out....too bad they didn't continue them. I bought two extra sets of balls. Now I have two sets of Cat1 and one set of Cat 2...just in case.

That's about it for now. Hope you enjoy the pics.

Cheers.
Glenn.

 

[TillerofdaEarth]

Sounds like your having fun Glenn, which is a good thing!!

But, where's the Pics??

 

[Stampeder]

I'm having some difficulty with the pix upload procedure.
It turns out my pix are too high a quality, over 1.22 Megs.
Will retake them at a lower res and post them.

Sorry about that.

Cheers.

 

[Stampeder]

And now for the missing pictures:

You'll see what Buddy actually looks like. I've got a 5 foot King Kutter on the back right now and off to the left edge is a 7 foot shredder. I've been renovating the horse pasture over the last couple of days.
I've taken some shots of the interior. The cooler is my father's day present....to myself....need to keep the iced tea cool while in the fields.
Also, you'll notice the convenient location for the loader controls.
Air conditioning in Texas is a must.
There's also a picture of the bucket hooks I installed. The middle brackets are the mount for the grapple hook. I'm just beefing it up at the moment, that's why it's not on right now.
I've also attached two pictures of Montana's quick connect system for the three point hitch. This is a great system, they should bring it back. As this was a demo tractor it has lots of extras on it, the quick connect system for one. The balls for the quick connect are all the same size but the holes in them are available to Cat1, Cat2, etc. hitches. I bought an extra Cat1 set and a Cat2 set.
I've included a picture of my other horse power (hay burners). Sorry for the view....totally accidental.....
Also attached a picture of the front entrance with the Bunk house.

Enjoy.

Glenn.

 

[NetworkMD]

You have a nice looking place, and Tractor. I hope you have good success with it.

How do you like the 12 V cooler? it seems to fit very well.

Thanks

 

[Stampeder]

Love the cooler and in East Texas at 100 degrees it keeps my water cool and refreshing. Need to build a better cup holder though. The little plastic fold together one Montana has just doesn't cut it.
Also, have one bad remote coupler that I am going to get replaced on warranty.
Sorry about the pictures being so big. The new camera I have is a 11 Mega pixel which I use in my business on high resolution. It appears the forum can't handle the high resolution ones and thus displays them as very large pictures.