My tractor
Unless you own an older John Deere tractor with a canopy, don’t expect this to provide detailed instructions on modifying your own tractor. On the other hand, if the title lured you in with the promise of peeking inside an engineer’s brain, welcome aboard. The odds that you will ever need to implement this solution are microscopic. The odds that you’ll recognize the thought process behind it are considerably better.
If you’ve ever been around tractors, you already know one thing: you do not want to deal with a flat tire, especially on a rear wheel. Tractor tires are large, expensive, awkward, and seem to have been specifically designed to become a problem at the worst possible moment. The real issue is that a low tractor tire isn’t always obvious. By the time it is obvious, the tire may have already come off the rim. A little neglect can become a major headache surprisingly fast.
Automobiles solved this problem years ago. Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems are mandatory on modern passenger cars. Unfortunately, every manufacturer appears to have implemented that requirement differently. Some of these systems are genuinely useful. Not the ones on my cars, mind you, but I’m told such systems exist.
Amazon TPMS
After being repeatedly misinformed by the TPMS on my own cars, I bought one of the inexpensive solar-powered TPMS kits sold on Amazon for about $25 to $30. To my surprise, it worked quite well. Each wheel sensor uses a small replaceable battery that typically lasts about a year.
What the advertising carefully neglects to mention is that when a sensor battery dies, the displayed tire pressure stops updating. It doesn’t flash a giant warning sign. It doesn’t announce its impending demise. It simply continues displaying the last pressure it received, creating the comforting illusion that everything is fine right up until it isn’t.
It took me two replacement systems before I figured that little detail out.
The upside was that I now had a spare TPMS display sitting on a shelf and a tractor just daring me to ignore another low tire. The solution seemed obvious.
Right up until I remembered that my tractor isn’t enclosed and the TPMS display was about as waterproof as a paper towel.
A couple of months passed. Farm life happened. Other projects demanded attention. Then one day I had another low-tire scare and suddenly the problem was back on the front burner.
What could I do?
Option one was to create a waterproof enclosure. A good friend of mine once spent an astonishing amount of time building a plexiglass enclosure for an underwater camera. The real challenge wasn’t the box itself. The challenge was creating controls that worked without leaking. His was an elegant solution, but when I started considering the effort required to waterproof my TPMS display, the idea quickly failed the risk-versus-reward test.
Option two was to mounting the display underneath the tractor’s canopy. This would keep the display dry. Unfortunately, it would also block the solar panel and make the controls inaccessible. Even worse, when I decided to prototype this, the viewing angle made the display almost impossible to read.
At first glance, the canopy’s stiffener bar appeared to be another obstacle. It ran directly through the location where I wanted to mount the display.
Mounting fixture (upside down)
Then I tilted the display slightly to avoid the stiffener. You’ve heard of serendipity? Suddenly the viewing angle became perfect, the controls became accessible and the display was easier to see. What started as an obstruction had quietly transformed itself into a feature.
A custom 3D-printed fixture solved the mounting problem and provided clearance for the controls.
The solar panel turned out to be even easier. I popped it out of the display, added roughly two feet of wire, and relocated it to the top of the canopy. That required two additional 3D-printed parts: one bracket to mount the solar panel and another piece to cover the gaping hole left behind in the display housing.
Once everything was installed, I secured the wiring with fabric tape to keep brush and low-hanging branches from ripping it loose.
Then, because engineers occasionally possess a sense of aesthetics, I spray-painted the tape John Deere green. No functional benefit whatsoever. It just looked better.
Installed
I’m quite happy with the result, but don’t expect me to start selling kits anytime soon. The interesting part isn’t the finished project anyway. The interesting part is the process.
Let’s review what actually happened:
- I had a problem with my tractor tires and was too lazy to crawl around checking them before every use.
- I looked for solutions that already existed and identified the environmental challenges that would prevent a direct implementation.
- After selecting a possible solution, I evaluated ways to overcome those environmental challenges.
- During prototyping, several previously undiscovered issues appeared, because prototypes exist primarily to remind you that you aren’t nearly as clever as you thought you were.
- Rather than modifying the tractor itself, I discovered that a mounting obstruction could be used to my advantage.
- I fabricated the required fixtures. In this case I used a 3D printer, but that’s merely my current favorite tool. Given sufficient motivation, engineers have been known to build surprisingly useful things out of scrap metal, zip ties, epoxy, and sheer stubbornness.
- Finally, I added cosmetic touches simply to make it look a little more professional.
Notice anything?
Aside from the fact that I somehow resisted opening a spreadsheet, this is essentially the same process I use for every problem I encounter. Whether the issue involves tractors, electronics, software, manufacturing, or deciding where to hang a shelf, the sequence is remarkably consistent.
Look a little closer and you realize this process is really an algorithm.
- Define the problem.
- Identify the constraints.
- Evaluate options.
- Prototype.
- Adapt.
- Implement.
- Polish.
- Repeat as necessary.
You might even argue that creating and following algorithms is one of the defining characteristics of an engineer.
Knowing this might help you in dealing with the engineers in your life. it’s so ingrained in my behavior, I no longer recognize it. A long time passed before my Wife recognized it. But once she did… I’m fully convinced she’s using that knowledge to start a few of my projects.
Today’s song from Songer… Rolling with the Algorithm
© 2026, Byron Seastrunk. All rights reserved.
