Some of the picture and video credits go to Cory (Cory's Garden Tractors), Jimmy (Deere Jimmy), and Joe (PennGT). Thanks for coming out to the show, fellas.
Here is the first of my show footage from this past summer - starting one week after I had purchased the 520 and brought it home. As has become our yearly tradition, we returned to the Rough & Tumble Engineers Historical Association grounds in Kinzers, PA for their annual John Deere Days event. This was the very first (and only) show the 520 ever attended when Shane had finished the restoration in 2015 - it was only fitting that I bring the tractor back to the show again as a way to kick off the tractor's grand reveal at several shows in the tri-state area. This year, I also brought along the 210, the 316, and my 14SB walk-behind mower which I sold shortly after the event. I was joined by friends Jimmy (with his JD 322 and 332), Joe (240 and F510), Tyler (210), Jeff, as well as Cory & Doug who made the long voyage from western PA to see what the event was all about. I also met up with Shane once again, who is an active member with the Waterloo Boys club that hosts the event. We further discussed the 520, and he fielded some more questions I had about it. We took a few pictures in front of the tractor as well.
I didn't take as much footage this year as I have in the past, but I tried to add some variety this time around. You will see some clips of the tractor parade on Saturday morning, the garden tractor pulls when Jimmy hooked his 322 snow plow tractor to the sled, as well as the very first PTO dyno test run with the 520 on Friday afternoon. Every year, the event stages a "tractor tune-in" session where people line their tractors up and take turns running them on the club's PTO dyno for a minute or two to put their engine under a load. The engine in the 520 still had not been sufficiently broken in when I got the tractor, so it needed to be put under a load to let the rings seat and get it up to working temperature. Unfortunately this didn't go as planned because the governor was not fully opening up, so the engine was not turning full RPM when under load and was only putting out about 32 PTO horsepower. As you'll see in the video, the test didn't last very long (due to the long line of other tractors waiting), so I did not have adequate time to get the engine hot and let the rings seat. Even still, 32 HP at about 2/3 throttle seemed pretty strong, but I knew immediately afterwards that it would need some adjustment.
At the end of the video, you will see a few short pictures and clips from the evening after the show, when I had everyone down to my house for pizza and to hang out. I had just bought the Ford 340A loader tractor that same week, so we were having a little fun with it out in the yard - and when my blacksmith/farrier neighbor came home, he gave us a little demonstration...at 1:00 AM over a few beers - what better time to learn how to shoe horses?