Starting a Tractor

Video Transcript

"Okay now we're going to show you how to start your new tractor. And first thing you want to do is check your fuel level. It's not a disaster, but you can really give yourself a headache if you run out of fuel on a diesel tractor. We don't have a lot of fuel here, but that's enough to run it for a good hour or two, so that's fine for our purposes right now. Second thing you want to get on the tractor. You never want to start a tractor while you're standing next to it. You could run yourself over. And then you want to buckle your seat belt, it's important to have roll over protection on your tractor, and it's important to wear your seat belt. Because if you don't wear the seat belt this roll bar can mash you. You've got to stay in this area, you need your seat belt to keep you there. Okay, so now we're on a tractor. This tractor is equipped with a clutch safety switch, which means you have to have this clutch pedal depressed with your left foot to start it. All tractors should have that feature, but that's not always the case. So you also want to make sure that the brake is engaged. This one has the parking brake set, but just a good idea to get into the habit of left foot on the clutch, right foot on the brake, transmission in neutral. Okay, so we're going to give this tractor full throttle, every brand of tractors is a little different. And you want to refer to your manual or your dealer on that. But in this case we're going to give it full throttle, and then we want to pre-heat the cylinders a little bit. Again, different models and brands of tractors will be a little different in this regard, but we're going to pre-heat for about ten seconds. This will make starting easier, and after we've pre-heated, by turning the key counter clockwise we'll just turn it clockwise and start it right up. Then you want to drop your throttle level down to let it warm up a little bit, we're in neutral so I can let off the clutch and relax, and let it warm up for a few minutes and we're ready to go to work."