Looks to be in great shape. Do you know much about the history of this machine.
The dealer gave me the phone number of the previous owner. I spoke with him for about 15 minutes. He said his area lacked dealer support (which kind of surprised me) and he traded it on a new Deere IVT. I am still a bit apprehensive, but my dealer thinks the tractor needs a re-flash and that his dealer was incompetent.
Do you have an immediate use for it,
Yes, my plan is to use it to supplement, if not completely replace, the Challenger 535B, which is really getting a lot of hours put on it. I could put the 555D to work loading bales pretty much as soon as it gets here since I still have a few hundred to sell.
did you pick up some new work were you needed it, or did you just want to have a machine with a grapple added to your fleet ?
What I’d like to do is change the role of the slightly smaller 535B to being attached to the Deere CX-15 for field mowing/bush hogging and other types of property maintenance (log loading, snow plowing, etc.)
The 555D would become the new(er) raking, teddering and bale moving/loading tractor and accompany the baling tractor during hay season.
The 555D has a one step larger loader than the 535B and although the Quicke Q66 on the 535B was plenty stout for the job, this ML-78 (Quicke builds Challenger loaders and calls the ML-78 a Q7) should be even heavier built. It also has a nice set of cast iron double wheel weights.
I might remove one set and add that set to the 535B since I don’t need double wheel weights on the 555D.
Even more important is the 2 tractors are similar enough that they can fill in each-other role should one of them have an issue.
We shall see. Buying used equipment comes with risk, free of charge. Hopefully I get away with minimal fix up costs.
