Makeover, 4230 Style

Everyone loves a good makeover!  When I was mothering babies, I admit I watched my share of television while feeding someone what seemed like every ten minutes.  And it seemed like every afternoon talk show had a makeover of some sort at least weekly.  Everything from certain rooms in a house, to the whole house itself; every sort of person: grizzly men, frumpy housewives, gray hair to overly bleached blonds, gals who wore too much makeup and those who wore none, those stuck in the 80's or beyond, big hair, no hair... there are even make unders!  Now I don't watch near as much TV and haven't seen any makeovers for a while, but I've seen enough commercials to know they still are hot on the talk show market... I think there are even whole shows committed to the idea, though I've never seen one.

SO... with all those makeover ideas already being covered, why not show off another form of makeover? That of the John Deere 4230 kind!

Papa Loren is the owner of such a tractor.  Its history is interesting: In 1975, Great Papa Elmer (Loren's dad, Josh's grandpa, Caleb and Sarahs' great grandpa) spotted a good lookin' tractor displayed at the Wapello County Fair in Eldon.  Later, he went to the the dealership in Ottumwa, which was then Courtney Shepperd (spelling?) but has long since been out of business, looked into purchasing it and ended up bringing it home!  In its first three years of life, the tractor was used in haying and field work like chopping, discing, etc.  Then Loren bought the tractor from his dad and turned it into his "grinding tractor".  The tractor was continuously hooked to the grinder mixer, a piece of equipment that grinds whole shell corn into cracked corn more suitable for livestock to digest and get the most nutrition out of while allowing the farmer to add minerals, salt and protein to the mix to aid the animals' health.  Between grinding for the hogs and cattle, the grinding tractor saw many many hours of work, thousands upon thousands of tons of corn, and miles and miles up and down the road to the livestock feeding areas.  It was a hard working tractor!

Like anything else that is used extensively, wear and tear eventually takes its toll.  Paint chips and fades, decals and emblems lose their gloss (or get lost completely!),  interiors crumbles... you can imagine.  After 37 years of daily devotion, the tractor just recently got a complete exterior makeover to bring it back to its like-new shine, along with a few modern touches to finish it off!  Josh and Loren did it all, with a bit of advice here and there.  And their hard work paid off. Take a look...

First, the before:

There's a few before pictures from different angles.  I didn't get outdoors soon enough to get a picture of the tractor before the guys took the hood off.  I knew they were going to start working on it soon, but I didn't know that they meant THAT soon!  Oh well, you'll have to look in parts.

Another view.  Notice the John Deere green is rather faded.  You can't see from this angle, but another main reason for repainting the tractor was to take care of some erosion problems in the steel that the salt from the roads over many winters had started to create.  I also notice in this picture that the emblem is gone.  It got lost years ago.  Somewhere, someplace, somehow between 1975 and now, the sucker fell off and hasn't been seen since.

Da hood.  Da sad, sad lookin' hood.

 

Okay, another look.  Last one of the before, I promise.

The next step:

 

The next step was sand blasting the old paint off, then hand sanding the nooks and crannies.  The winders came out (before sand blasting), the plastic went on, things taped, and then, and ONLY then, Josh was ready to apply the primer.  Isn't she a beaut?

 The (almost) final product:

 

Ta Da!!!!  The guys did a great job on the tractor. Notice on the fender, there are now two lights instead of just one.  That was something that Josh and Loren both really wanted.  And if you're a real John Deere nut and know your 4230s, you'll notice they took the exterior air intake off the hood left the intake under the hood.  (I, like I imagine many of you also, have no idea what that means other than something that was once upon a time visable is no longer visable.)  Josh was able to get all the parts and do the electrical work himself.  And they ordered a new front emblem and new decals, which (from what I hear) went on more easily than what we've heard they could.   I say "almost" finished product because there is a bit to be done yet.  The interior will one day soon be redone and the air conditioning system and radio are in need of repair, but those things will eventually get done.  Meanwhile, the guys have already put it back to use.  The good ol' 4230 had its break, but now its back to work it goes!

 

Now get ready with your "awwwwww"s...

 

This is Josh in the same tractor at 19 months old, some 32 1/2 years ago! He's spent many hours working in this tractor, either as a rider learning the how-to's as a youngster or putting those learned skilled to good use as a laborer.

Same tractor, same time era, same happy boy!