Nebraska farmer finds father’s 1946 John Deere rusting, restores family tractor decades later

As per the online report, the Bruha family eventually sold its GM, and the tractor spent years working on another farm. Then, decades later, Bruha came across an old John Deere sitting beneath a shade tree on another Nebraska property. Some family heirlooms sit in attics or pass quietly from one generation to the next. For Nebraska farmer Shelley Bruha, his was a 1946 John Deere GM tractor, an old machine that disappeared from the family decades ago and was eventually found rusting beneath a tree on another Nebraska farm. What gave it away was not a serial number or a familiar paint job. It was a small modification made by his father many years earlier, after a childhood accident involving the tractor’s hand clutch, states an online report by Farm Progress. Scroll down to read the details.A childhood lesson in leverageAccording to the online report, when Bruha was young, he climbed onto his father’s open-station John Deere GM. The tractor’s hand clutch had recently been tightened, leaving the young driver without enough leverage to operate it properly. The result was a frightening ride through a fencerow when Bruha reached the end of a field and could not slow the tractor as intend...