CURMUDGEON’S CORNER- CEREMONIES AND “MILESTONES”
I don’t much care for ceremonies! I didn’t even go to my own graduation from high school. I thought then and still do think that all that cap and gown stuff is nonsense. I’d like to know how some of this stuff came to be in the first place, if only so that I’d know who to blame! My dad, who likes to get dressed up- or at least doesn’t mind it- could not understand why I didn’t care to go. He told me at the time that the ceremony would make me remember and appreciate what a milestone high school graduation is. I told him that I could remember and appreciate it just fine without twiddling with some little tassle thing that would only irritate me all through the ceremony anyway. I still do remember getting through school- it was a great relief to me. I never considered my high school years to be one of the better times of my life anyway. For that same reason I have never gone to any of my high school reunions, either. All I will say about the importance of having the diploma is that it is much better than NOT having one. But it is just a step along the way through life as far as I am concerned. Continuing to learn throughout your life is FAR more important than any diploma or degree, high school, college, grad school, or whatever. (Too many college grads seem to have the idea that they know it all and don’t need to learn any more, which makes them less educated in my eyes, not more!)
Weddings and funerals are 2 more ceremonies I think are overdone and overrated. If I find out that my survivors did anything more than have a nice party and remember me casually (NO NECKTIES ALLOWED!!!), I’ll come back and haunt them! Of course, I intend to outlive ‘em all anyway! As to weddings, well I have developed a theory that the larger and fancier the event, the less likely that the union will last. K.I.S.S.-keep It Simple Stupid- is a mantra I try to live by and believe in wholeheartedly! A couple I knew many years ago lived together quite well for 3 years before their parents finally badgered them into getting formally married. After the (large, involved, catholic church) wedding they were apart and at each other’s throats in 3 months.
I have been involved in 2 weddings in my life where I had to get dressed up in a tuxedo as part of the wedding party. Neither of those couples are married today! Some of you will be thinking “that’s probably because of your negative vibes”, but you’d be wrong. I never let any of this show at those weddings, and in fact hadn’t thought about this that much at the times of them! It may have been vibes from my dislike (even loathing) of having to wear a tuxedo (a device that I’m sure must have been designed by a woman who absolutely hated men or by a man as queer as a 3 dollar bill), and also having to pay for the “privilege”.
So enough of the ranting, you say? What brought this all on anyway? Isn’t this blog supposed to be about tractors and trucks and machinery I’ve known and loved? Well you’re right on all counts, but the header does say something about an occasional opinion or 2. (Okay, it says thought, not opinion, but then an opinion IS a thought) And it so happens that I have very recently been invited to a wedding that I was very happy to agree to attend. It will be a small, informal affair and the couple are two of my very favorite young folks who I think are doing the right thing the right way!
Here’s to Amanda and Nathaniel! May you have a happy marriage and a great life together! And thanks for keeping it simple!!!
Thursday, October 13, 2011
SOME GENERAL TRACTOR INFO FOR NON TRACTOR DRIVERS
SOME GENERAL TRACTOR INFO FOR NON TRACTOR DRIVERS
Since this blog concerns tractors to a great extent, I thought I might discuss some of the more esoteric terminology and the general classes of tractor types and how they came to be developed for those who might not know already.
Maybe a good place to start is with the origins of the word tractor itself. In the late 1800’s, several companies began selling steam powered “traction engines” for use in plowing the virgin prairies of the mid west, which were notoriously had to turn under for the first time. These were essentially scaled down locomotive boilers with steam engines driving large steel wheels through open gear trains, typically with 1 or maybe 2 speeds forward and one in reverse, and they moved about at walking speed at full tilt. They were also used to drive stationery threshing machines and the earliest stationery hay balers via large endless flat belts. They did the job and were much better than using teams which had to rest several times a day and ate all winter when they weren’t working. But these machines used vast amounts of coal or other fuel (sometimes straw) and lots of water, both of which could be hard to come by in some areas. They were also very labor intensive and not cheap to buy. They also had a tendency to crash through bridges due to there immense weight and if that happened, it often led to an explosion when relatively cold water hit the top of the boiler and cracked it. These were usually fatal to the operators. Meanwhile, inventors had been working on a different type of engine, which burned fuel directly in it’s cylinders and could be made simpler, lighter, and cheaper than steam engines. In 1892, an Iowan by the name of John Froelich used one of these internal combustion engines in a traction engine which he built using parts from a steam traction engine. It was the first traction engine to propel itself both forward and backward using a gasoline engine, and would eventually become the progenitor of the John Deere tractor line. Most of the early “gas traction engines” followed this trend and were quite large and heavy themselves. A company called Hart Parr (after it’s 2 founders Mr. Hart and Mr. Parr) were among the more successful of the early builders and in 1903, the company coined the term “tractor” in their advertising rather than the more cumbersome term “gasoline Traction Engine”. The name stuck and thus we have tractors today. By the way the Hart Parr company’s descendants are in business today. You may have heard of their brand name-Oliver. Oliver was bought out by the White Corporation and is today (many mergers later) known as AGCO.
It was thought for years that a tractor’s job was to do heavy tillage and threshing, not more precise work like planting and cultivating. In the beginning, this would have been quite true, because tractors, like steam traction engines before them, used a front axle with a central pivot point and a chain and winch system of steering, which to say the least was not very responsive. But during the teens, all the major tractor builders, hoping to increase sales, began trying to develop smaller, lighter tractors with handier steering that could be used to cultivate row crops like corn, a job that was done several times a year in those days before herbicides and insecticides. These were known as “Motor cultivators” Most of these attempts were unsuccessful, but the International Harvester Corp. adapted their motor cultivator designs and in 1924 came out with the “Farmall Regular”. The problem with motor cultivators was that farmers didn’t want to have the expense of having to buy another separate tractor unit just for cultivating- they wanted a machine that would do all the work on the farm. Motor cultivators typically lacked the weight, ruggedness, and horsepower to do this. But the Farmall and all the similar tractors that followed it solve this problem. These tractors came to be known as Row-Crop tractors, because they were particularly well adapted to the growing of crops such as corn, cotton, beans and so on that are planted in rows. Up till the very late 1950s they typically had front wheels that were mounted together on a “pedestal” beneath the tractor’s radiator, so that the front wheels could be driven between 2 rows, while the back wheels straddled those same rows. The rear wheels were typically much taller than those on other types of tractors in order to provide crop clearance later into the growing season. Most were equipped with a belt pulley on the right side if the tractor for driving threshing machines, balers, corn shellers, and other machinery. Another reason for the narrow front wheels was that no axle would interfere with the belt as it ran machinery. During the 50’s, cultivation began to give way to the much more convenient and cheaper use of herbicides and insecticides, and those narrow front wheels made tractors much more apt to turn over when crossing ditches, cornering too fast, etc., so they gradually gave way to wide front axles. Adaptability was and still is a hallmark of row-crop tractors, so they typically had side frames punched to accept several different types of bolt on equipment, and rear wheels that could be set to wider or narrower positions according to need (as can today’s wide front axles).In the late 20’s, another form of power transmission device began to take over from the belt pulley, though it took many years to do so completely. This was the PTO or Power Take Off- a splined shaft which typically comes out of the tractor above it’s drawbar in the rear, although you could get a mid point pto on some tractors and still can. At first these shafts turned at 540 rpm, but as tractor power climbed, 1000 rpm ptos became available and still are today. Another innovation that became common on row-crop tractors is the power lift for lifting cultivator gangs, plows etc. at first these were mechanical, but were replaced by the more versatile hydraulic lift systems that are now in common use.
As all this development was going on with the row-crops, tractors were being optimized for those farmers growing cereal grains, too. These tractors came to be known as wheatland or standard tread models. To begin with, they adopted automotive type steering just as the row-crops had. Since these tractors didn’t need much crop clearance and were often used in hilly areas such as Washington’s Palouse region, they typically used shorter rear wheels for a lower center of gravity, and their axles do not allow the wheel track to be changed, hence the “standard tread” moniker. They also didn’t need to run anything other than threshing machines at first, so they often didn’t have pto’s. Later, when belt driven threshing machines were traded for combined harvesters (Combines for short), the combine was often driven by it’s own engine. Still later, self propelled combines relegated the tractors to the shed during harvest, though today, many grain growers use large grain carts which require a pto to empty. This keeps semi trucks from getting stuck in fields. Hydraulics were also deleted from these tractors many times, though with grain carts, you also need hydraulics to control the position of the unloading auger.
Another type of tractor that became common is the utility tractor. It combines aspects of both the row-crop and wheatland tractors. Though these tractors are typically low and have wide front axles, they also usually have adjustable front axle widths and at least some adjustability of the rear wheel width. They also have pto’s and hydraulic systems, most often including 3 point hitches, which were the greatest innovation of the most famous and maybe earliest of the type, the Ford Ferguson- also known as the 9N. They tend to have shorter wheelbases than standard tread tractors, often achieved by using a front axle that arcs of slants back toward the rear axle. This allows for shorter turning radiuses. There are scads of these tractors on the market today, billed as compacts or compact utility tractors, typically with four wheel drive, diesel engines, and front end loaders. Most sold today use infinitely variable hydrostatic transmissions, and have power steering, turn signals and 4 way flashers, just like cars. Some even have cabs. At first, many of these tractors found work as roadside mowing units, tugs used to move products in factorys, aircraft tugs, and in orchards and vineyards. Later specialized orchard and vineyard tractors were developed, mainly from this class of utility tractors.
The other major class of tractors you might hear about is the high crop tractor, which grew out of the row crop genre to serve a very small market- growers of tall bushy crops or those grown on raised beds. The most common use of high crop tractors is probably sugar can growing, which is done in hot, wet climates that tend to lead to rust, so if you find a used high crop tractor, it will probably be a real rust bucket. (In my opinion they are just plain ugly, too!)
So there you have it- a not so brief primer on tractor history and classification. Most tractor companies offered (or still offer) some or all of their models in several of these classes as variants of the base model. By far, the most common is the row crop, the least common is the high crop. Utilities are probably second most common, and standard treads are in third. A couple of other terms you might hear or read are distillate or tractor fuel. These were one and the same for all intents and purposes, and it was a fuel that would fall somewhere between kerosene and gasoline today. It was used because it was cheaper and less volatile than gasoline and was theoretically more powerful per gallon than gasoline. Using this fuel required that you get the tractor started on gasoline and get it warmed up to about 200 degrees coolant temperature, then when you shut the tractor down, you ran it out of fuel so that the carburetor would be ready for gasoline again when you were ready to restart it. Also, distillate would tend to preignite, so most tractors that used it were equipped with a water injection system that took radiator water and misted it into the carburetor along with the fuel. This led to many a cracked block when the weather unexpectedly took a turn toward the cold at night or when memory failed the owner and he forgot to drain the radiator. Antifreeze was a no-no in these tractors. In the 50’s distillate began to lose popularity in favor of gasoline and then diesel engines.
The final term you may not get the meaning of is “styled” or “unstyled”. This referred to the tractor’s sheet metal. In the beginning, sheet metal was used only where necessary for safety or to keep dirt out of things, and tended to be very simple in design and shape. In the 30’s, streamlining came into vogue in the auto industry and in aircraft, and took hold in most industries, tractor building among them. Oliver was probably the first to style their sheet metal in 1935. Allis Chalmers, John Deere, and Farmall all went to styled metal in 1939. It probably shows my age, but I still love the looks of the oliver 60 and 70, the WC from Allis Chalmers, the Farmall H and M, and the John Deere A’s,B’s and other letter series tractors.
Since this blog concerns tractors to a great extent, I thought I might discuss some of the more esoteric terminology and the general classes of tractor types and how they came to be developed for those who might not know already.
Maybe a good place to start is with the origins of the word tractor itself. In the late 1800’s, several companies began selling steam powered “traction engines” for use in plowing the virgin prairies of the mid west, which were notoriously had to turn under for the first time. These were essentially scaled down locomotive boilers with steam engines driving large steel wheels through open gear trains, typically with 1 or maybe 2 speeds forward and one in reverse, and they moved about at walking speed at full tilt. They were also used to drive stationery threshing machines and the earliest stationery hay balers via large endless flat belts. They did the job and were much better than using teams which had to rest several times a day and ate all winter when they weren’t working. But these machines used vast amounts of coal or other fuel (sometimes straw) and lots of water, both of which could be hard to come by in some areas. They were also very labor intensive and not cheap to buy. They also had a tendency to crash through bridges due to there immense weight and if that happened, it often led to an explosion when relatively cold water hit the top of the boiler and cracked it. These were usually fatal to the operators. Meanwhile, inventors had been working on a different type of engine, which burned fuel directly in it’s cylinders and could be made simpler, lighter, and cheaper than steam engines. In 1892, an Iowan by the name of John Froelich used one of these internal combustion engines in a traction engine which he built using parts from a steam traction engine. It was the first traction engine to propel itself both forward and backward using a gasoline engine, and would eventually become the progenitor of the John Deere tractor line. Most of the early “gas traction engines” followed this trend and were quite large and heavy themselves. A company called Hart Parr (after it’s 2 founders Mr. Hart and Mr. Parr) were among the more successful of the early builders and in 1903, the company coined the term “tractor” in their advertising rather than the more cumbersome term “gasoline Traction Engine”. The name stuck and thus we have tractors today. By the way the Hart Parr company’s descendants are in business today. You may have heard of their brand name-Oliver. Oliver was bought out by the White Corporation and is today (many mergers later) known as AGCO.
It was thought for years that a tractor’s job was to do heavy tillage and threshing, not more precise work like planting and cultivating. In the beginning, this would have been quite true, because tractors, like steam traction engines before them, used a front axle with a central pivot point and a chain and winch system of steering, which to say the least was not very responsive. But during the teens, all the major tractor builders, hoping to increase sales, began trying to develop smaller, lighter tractors with handier steering that could be used to cultivate row crops like corn, a job that was done several times a year in those days before herbicides and insecticides. These were known as “Motor cultivators” Most of these attempts were unsuccessful, but the International Harvester Corp. adapted their motor cultivator designs and in 1924 came out with the “Farmall Regular”. The problem with motor cultivators was that farmers didn’t want to have the expense of having to buy another separate tractor unit just for cultivating- they wanted a machine that would do all the work on the farm. Motor cultivators typically lacked the weight, ruggedness, and horsepower to do this. But the Farmall and all the similar tractors that followed it solve this problem. These tractors came to be known as Row-Crop tractors, because they were particularly well adapted to the growing of crops such as corn, cotton, beans and so on that are planted in rows. Up till the very late 1950s they typically had front wheels that were mounted together on a “pedestal” beneath the tractor’s radiator, so that the front wheels could be driven between 2 rows, while the back wheels straddled those same rows. The rear wheels were typically much taller than those on other types of tractors in order to provide crop clearance later into the growing season. Most were equipped with a belt pulley on the right side if the tractor for driving threshing machines, balers, corn shellers, and other machinery. Another reason for the narrow front wheels was that no axle would interfere with the belt as it ran machinery. During the 50’s, cultivation began to give way to the much more convenient and cheaper use of herbicides and insecticides, and those narrow front wheels made tractors much more apt to turn over when crossing ditches, cornering too fast, etc., so they gradually gave way to wide front axles. Adaptability was and still is a hallmark of row-crop tractors, so they typically had side frames punched to accept several different types of bolt on equipment, and rear wheels that could be set to wider or narrower positions according to need (as can today’s wide front axles).In the late 20’s, another form of power transmission device began to take over from the belt pulley, though it took many years to do so completely. This was the PTO or Power Take Off- a splined shaft which typically comes out of the tractor above it’s drawbar in the rear, although you could get a mid point pto on some tractors and still can. At first these shafts turned at 540 rpm, but as tractor power climbed, 1000 rpm ptos became available and still are today. Another innovation that became common on row-crop tractors is the power lift for lifting cultivator gangs, plows etc. at first these were mechanical, but were replaced by the more versatile hydraulic lift systems that are now in common use.
As all this development was going on with the row-crops, tractors were being optimized for those farmers growing cereal grains, too. These tractors came to be known as wheatland or standard tread models. To begin with, they adopted automotive type steering just as the row-crops had. Since these tractors didn’t need much crop clearance and were often used in hilly areas such as Washington’s Palouse region, they typically used shorter rear wheels for a lower center of gravity, and their axles do not allow the wheel track to be changed, hence the “standard tread” moniker. They also didn’t need to run anything other than threshing machines at first, so they often didn’t have pto’s. Later, when belt driven threshing machines were traded for combined harvesters (Combines for short), the combine was often driven by it’s own engine. Still later, self propelled combines relegated the tractors to the shed during harvest, though today, many grain growers use large grain carts which require a pto to empty. This keeps semi trucks from getting stuck in fields. Hydraulics were also deleted from these tractors many times, though with grain carts, you also need hydraulics to control the position of the unloading auger.
Another type of tractor that became common is the utility tractor. It combines aspects of both the row-crop and wheatland tractors. Though these tractors are typically low and have wide front axles, they also usually have adjustable front axle widths and at least some adjustability of the rear wheel width. They also have pto’s and hydraulic systems, most often including 3 point hitches, which were the greatest innovation of the most famous and maybe earliest of the type, the Ford Ferguson- also known as the 9N. They tend to have shorter wheelbases than standard tread tractors, often achieved by using a front axle that arcs of slants back toward the rear axle. This allows for shorter turning radiuses. There are scads of these tractors on the market today, billed as compacts or compact utility tractors, typically with four wheel drive, diesel engines, and front end loaders. Most sold today use infinitely variable hydrostatic transmissions, and have power steering, turn signals and 4 way flashers, just like cars. Some even have cabs. At first, many of these tractors found work as roadside mowing units, tugs used to move products in factorys, aircraft tugs, and in orchards and vineyards. Later specialized orchard and vineyard tractors were developed, mainly from this class of utility tractors.
The other major class of tractors you might hear about is the high crop tractor, which grew out of the row crop genre to serve a very small market- growers of tall bushy crops or those grown on raised beds. The most common use of high crop tractors is probably sugar can growing, which is done in hot, wet climates that tend to lead to rust, so if you find a used high crop tractor, it will probably be a real rust bucket. (In my opinion they are just plain ugly, too!)
So there you have it- a not so brief primer on tractor history and classification. Most tractor companies offered (or still offer) some or all of their models in several of these classes as variants of the base model. By far, the most common is the row crop, the least common is the high crop. Utilities are probably second most common, and standard treads are in third. A couple of other terms you might hear or read are distillate or tractor fuel. These were one and the same for all intents and purposes, and it was a fuel that would fall somewhere between kerosene and gasoline today. It was used because it was cheaper and less volatile than gasoline and was theoretically more powerful per gallon than gasoline. Using this fuel required that you get the tractor started on gasoline and get it warmed up to about 200 degrees coolant temperature, then when you shut the tractor down, you ran it out of fuel so that the carburetor would be ready for gasoline again when you were ready to restart it. Also, distillate would tend to preignite, so most tractors that used it were equipped with a water injection system that took radiator water and misted it into the carburetor along with the fuel. This led to many a cracked block when the weather unexpectedly took a turn toward the cold at night or when memory failed the owner and he forgot to drain the radiator. Antifreeze was a no-no in these tractors. In the 50’s distillate began to lose popularity in favor of gasoline and then diesel engines.
The final term you may not get the meaning of is “styled” or “unstyled”. This referred to the tractor’s sheet metal. In the beginning, sheet metal was used only where necessary for safety or to keep dirt out of things, and tended to be very simple in design and shape. In the 30’s, streamlining came into vogue in the auto industry and in aircraft, and took hold in most industries, tractor building among them. Oliver was probably the first to style their sheet metal in 1935. Allis Chalmers, John Deere, and Farmall all went to styled metal in 1939. It probably shows my age, but I still love the looks of the oliver 60 and 70, the WC from Allis Chalmers, the Farmall H and M, and the John Deere A’s,B’s and other letter series tractors.
MY FIRST TRUCK DRIVING EXPERIENCE
MY FIRST TRUCK DRIVING EXPERIENCE
The first truck I ever drove was not a pick-up. It was a 1955 Ford F600 with a home-made 12 foot grain dump box. At the time, I thought it was a BIG truck, although one just like it was sitting on the farm the last time I visited, and it looked pretty small to my post- semi-driven eyes!
In case you haven’t gathered it from my other articles, I was a kid who was wowed by almost any mechanical thing, and the bigger the better, or the more off beat the better. I also had trouble with allergies and asthma- not a good thing for a kid who would be on a farm all the time if he had his ‘drothers. I usually stayed in the truck during wheat or oat harvest, at least until it became apparent whether or not the dust would bother me that year. (The wetter the year, the more the dust would get to me, generally, but we didn’t yet know that at the time of this event.) Usually, Lynn Taber’s father Caleman would drive the truck and Lynn would run the combine, but for some reason, on this particular day, Caleman wasn’t with us. I had ridden over to the field with Lynn in the Ford Truck, which was how this truck was always referred to. Usually, Lynn would drive the combine over to the truck to unload, but for some reason this time he just stopped and stood up and waved for me to come over. (There were no cabs on combines or tractors in those days!) I started out on foot, thinking Lynn just needed something such as a tool, but he shook his head and made steering wheel motions with his hands. My heart leaped almost out of my chest and I ran back and climbed into the driver’s seat and stepped on the clutch and turned the key, hoping the truck would start. It was known to be hard to start when it was up to full operating temperature, but it had only been driven the two miles from the farm to the field where we were, so it obliged me by firing right up! It was parked in low gear, but I had seen Lynn start out in second many times, so I tried to do the same, and got the timing of the accelerator pedal and clutch release wrong and stalled it. My mind went AAAAAAAGH! And I hurriedly got it running again and then put it back into low and we moved slowly over the edge of the field to where Lynn was waiting with a grin on his face. I waited with the truck in neutral while he unloaded, and then he came around and said “I thought you might do that! Low gear is probably fast enough in this field anyway, especially when I get a couple more bins on you.” That made my heart race, because it meant that I had the job of moving the truck to wherever he needed it for the rest of the afternoon, or at least until the truck was full anyway. He also told me to leave the truck running because he couldn’t make a complete round of the field before his bin filled up, so it wouldn’t be long between dumps. Just before he went back to the combine, he told me to back up a little way so that the dust cloud wouldn’t get me when he started out again and made sure that I knew how to apply the parking brake, using the lever between the shifter and the dump hoist lever. Of course I knew how, since I had watched both Lynn and Caleman do it countless times!
All too soon, the truck was full and Lynn came and told me to move over and he got behind the wheel. I didn’t mind though, because we went on past the farm and headed right up to Culver’s Mill, which meant we might get to do another load that day. It was also about 5 or 6 miles from the field to the mill, and took probably 10 or 15 minutes to get there. We pulled up onto the scale (another contraption that fascinated me) and then were sent to a spot to unload. When we got there, we had to back the truck’s rear wheels up on some blocks so that the bottom of the box wouldn’t hit the auger we were dumping into. Lynn explained that the truck’s frame was too short, so the hinge point made the back of the box almost hit the ground when it was raised completely.
The trip back was much faster, except that we stopped at the farm to get a couple fresh jugs of iced tea to go back to the field with. Once we got back, I got to drive again in the field, and then a storm started to head our way, and Lynn wanted to take the combine back to the farm, so that left me to follow him in the truck! WOW!!! The combine wasn’t very fast, so I only got up to second gear (low range), but it was still COOL!
Both the truck and combine lived in the building we called the shop, and they both got inside just as the first drops of rain started falling. That was a really neat day for me. I think I was about 11 or 12, and had just gotten tall enough for my feet to reach the pedals that previous winter.
My last visit to the driver’s seat of the Ford Truck came many years later, after Lynn had sold it to a friend of his who had started farming a place a mile or so from the Taber’s farm. Lynn’s friend was known to have problems keeping brakes in any vehicle he owned, and we were using this friend’s combine one year during corn harvest (ours did not have a corn head) , and we were bringing the corn from the field to the dryer in the Ford Truck and using our truck to take the dried corn to town. The Ford didn’t have any brakes , and the owner asked Paul, Lynn’s youngest son, to take it to the field for him. Paul refused due to the lack of brakes, and the owner told him “Well, the pedal’s there. You can step on it if it makes you feel better! But Paul still refused, so I took my old friend the Ford Truck to the field-SLOWLY!
By the time my last drive of the Ford Truck happened, it had been replaced not once, but twice. The first truck to replace it was an International CO1850 (I think) with a 16 foot grain box built on the farm and an AUTOMATIC TTRANSMISSION! (Ugh! It should be illegal to put automatics in any truck larger than a !/2 ton wannabe truck!). When the “gutless wonder” in this truck died violently, it was then replaced by another International CO 1850, which is still in use with the same grain box, but has a more respectable 5 and 2 transmission arrangement! But the largest truck on the farm nowadays is a Mack 10 wheeler with a 350 hp Cummins and a 9spd Road Ranger in it. This truck was parked next to the old Ford that was brought to the farm to move silage and matches our old Ford Truck, and that no doubt made the Ford look even smaller to me. I should also state that I don’t much care for Fords today, but I do miss the old Ford Truck!
The first truck I ever drove was not a pick-up. It was a 1955 Ford F600 with a home-made 12 foot grain dump box. At the time, I thought it was a BIG truck, although one just like it was sitting on the farm the last time I visited, and it looked pretty small to my post- semi-driven eyes!
In case you haven’t gathered it from my other articles, I was a kid who was wowed by almost any mechanical thing, and the bigger the better, or the more off beat the better. I also had trouble with allergies and asthma- not a good thing for a kid who would be on a farm all the time if he had his ‘drothers. I usually stayed in the truck during wheat or oat harvest, at least until it became apparent whether or not the dust would bother me that year. (The wetter the year, the more the dust would get to me, generally, but we didn’t yet know that at the time of this event.) Usually, Lynn Taber’s father Caleman would drive the truck and Lynn would run the combine, but for some reason, on this particular day, Caleman wasn’t with us. I had ridden over to the field with Lynn in the Ford Truck, which was how this truck was always referred to. Usually, Lynn would drive the combine over to the truck to unload, but for some reason this time he just stopped and stood up and waved for me to come over. (There were no cabs on combines or tractors in those days!) I started out on foot, thinking Lynn just needed something such as a tool, but he shook his head and made steering wheel motions with his hands. My heart leaped almost out of my chest and I ran back and climbed into the driver’s seat and stepped on the clutch and turned the key, hoping the truck would start. It was known to be hard to start when it was up to full operating temperature, but it had only been driven the two miles from the farm to the field where we were, so it obliged me by firing right up! It was parked in low gear, but I had seen Lynn start out in second many times, so I tried to do the same, and got the timing of the accelerator pedal and clutch release wrong and stalled it. My mind went AAAAAAAGH! And I hurriedly got it running again and then put it back into low and we moved slowly over the edge of the field to where Lynn was waiting with a grin on his face. I waited with the truck in neutral while he unloaded, and then he came around and said “I thought you might do that! Low gear is probably fast enough in this field anyway, especially when I get a couple more bins on you.” That made my heart race, because it meant that I had the job of moving the truck to wherever he needed it for the rest of the afternoon, or at least until the truck was full anyway. He also told me to leave the truck running because he couldn’t make a complete round of the field before his bin filled up, so it wouldn’t be long between dumps. Just before he went back to the combine, he told me to back up a little way so that the dust cloud wouldn’t get me when he started out again and made sure that I knew how to apply the parking brake, using the lever between the shifter and the dump hoist lever. Of course I knew how, since I had watched both Lynn and Caleman do it countless times!
All too soon, the truck was full and Lynn came and told me to move over and he got behind the wheel. I didn’t mind though, because we went on past the farm and headed right up to Culver’s Mill, which meant we might get to do another load that day. It was also about 5 or 6 miles from the field to the mill, and took probably 10 or 15 minutes to get there. We pulled up onto the scale (another contraption that fascinated me) and then were sent to a spot to unload. When we got there, we had to back the truck’s rear wheels up on some blocks so that the bottom of the box wouldn’t hit the auger we were dumping into. Lynn explained that the truck’s frame was too short, so the hinge point made the back of the box almost hit the ground when it was raised completely.
The trip back was much faster, except that we stopped at the farm to get a couple fresh jugs of iced tea to go back to the field with. Once we got back, I got to drive again in the field, and then a storm started to head our way, and Lynn wanted to take the combine back to the farm, so that left me to follow him in the truck! WOW!!! The combine wasn’t very fast, so I only got up to second gear (low range), but it was still COOL!
Both the truck and combine lived in the building we called the shop, and they both got inside just as the first drops of rain started falling. That was a really neat day for me. I think I was about 11 or 12, and had just gotten tall enough for my feet to reach the pedals that previous winter.
My last visit to the driver’s seat of the Ford Truck came many years later, after Lynn had sold it to a friend of his who had started farming a place a mile or so from the Taber’s farm. Lynn’s friend was known to have problems keeping brakes in any vehicle he owned, and we were using this friend’s combine one year during corn harvest (ours did not have a corn head) , and we were bringing the corn from the field to the dryer in the Ford Truck and using our truck to take the dried corn to town. The Ford didn’t have any brakes , and the owner asked Paul, Lynn’s youngest son, to take it to the field for him. Paul refused due to the lack of brakes, and the owner told him “Well, the pedal’s there. You can step on it if it makes you feel better! But Paul still refused, so I took my old friend the Ford Truck to the field-SLOWLY!
By the time my last drive of the Ford Truck happened, it had been replaced not once, but twice. The first truck to replace it was an International CO1850 (I think) with a 16 foot grain box built on the farm and an AUTOMATIC TTRANSMISSION! (Ugh! It should be illegal to put automatics in any truck larger than a !/2 ton wannabe truck!). When the “gutless wonder” in this truck died violently, it was then replaced by another International CO 1850, which is still in use with the same grain box, but has a more respectable 5 and 2 transmission arrangement! But the largest truck on the farm nowadays is a Mack 10 wheeler with a 350 hp Cummins and a 9spd Road Ranger in it. This truck was parked next to the old Ford that was brought to the farm to move silage and matches our old Ford Truck, and that no doubt made the Ford look even smaller to me. I should also state that I don’t much care for Fords today, but I do miss the old Ford Truck!
AN OLD FAVORITE-THE ALLIS CHALMERS WD45 DIESEL
When I first started going to the Taber’s Farm (which I always refer to just as “the farm”), they had 2 tractors- both made by Allis Chalmers. One was a D14 (which I have written about before and will no doubt write more about), and the other was a WD45 Diesel. Today WD45 Diesels are few and far between, at least in running condition, because they had an unfortunate habit of cracking their heads in places that couldn’t be repaired. But that has all happened many years after they went out of production in 1957 or thereabouts. Back in 1962 when I met one on the farm, they were still in their prime!
Allis Chalmers row crop tractors from the RC and WC which commenced production in 1934 to the WD series which ended production in 1957, all followed the same general format. They had channel iron frames to which all the other components (engine, transmission, rear end, etc.) were bolted separately. There were 3 main differences between the WC’s and the later WD’s: the WC had hand brakes, which, unless you had four hands, could get pretty busy at times, and the WD had foot brakes, conveniently located for the right foot to work them both. The WC used a straight 4 speed transmission coupled to the engine through a conventional foot operated clutch, and the PTO would stop whenever the clutch was depressed. The WD had a second, hand operated clutch which would stop the tractor’s motion without stopping the PTO. This was developed specifically for working with the company’s own “Roto-Baler”- a baler that made small round bales, but had to have the tractor stop each time the baler ejected a bale. With tractors before the WD, this got real old real fast, because you had to depress the clutch to stop, then put the tractor in neutral and reengage the clutch until the bale ejected, then depress the clutch again and put the tractor back in gear and reengage the clutch after each ejection. With the WD, you just disengaged the hand clutch- much easier! Finally, the other difference was the “Snap Coupler”, which was Allis’s own version of a 3 point hitch. It really was much handier than the Ford-Ferguson version that became the universally accepted hitch still in use today. With the Snap Coupler hitch, you could hook up to your implement (in theory anyway!) without leaving the driver’s seat. The lift arms had spring loaded latches which you could reach from the seat and would flip up to open them. The third link was under the tractor instead of being a top link. It had the actual snap coupling on it and was actuated by a foot operated latch.
The WD45 diesel used a 6 cylinder AllisChalmers diesel engine with a Roosa Master injection pump, which delivered 45 pto horsepower, as the model designation implies. It had a nice purring sound all of it’s own, and much like the Caterpillar diesels, if you were into diesels, you could tell a WD45 from another diesel even if you couldn’t see it. The farm’s tractor had a “row-crop” front end. Many people refer to these as tricycle front ends, which is really a misnomer, since they use 2 front wheels arranged closely beside each other, rather than the single front wheel in a yoke which is commonly known as a “narrow front end”, or a vegetable or vineyard front end. The farm’s tractor did not have power steering, which was just beginning to be offered on a few makes and models of tractors at the time it was made. Therefore, it steered a little harder than a comparable gas engine tractor would have. Incidentally, the term row-crop referred to the fact that the design objective was that the front wheels of the tractor could fit between rows of corn, cotton, or any other crop planted in rows and (back then ) cultivated several times each year. By having the front wheels together, there was no need for an axle which would hit the plants and cause more damage to them. Of course, the rear axle of any tractor would have to clear the plants, too, that was unavoidable, but the rear axles were typically higher clearance than the front axles of wide front tractors of the day, which were mostly of the utility type. The farm’s WD45 was the first row-crop tractor I remember driving by myself (at least on purpose!), even though my uncle Wilson’s Oliver had been a row-crop.
My best memories of driving the WD45 are of baling hay, pulling the farm’s John Deere 24T baler with a no.2 Bale ejector. I think that Lynn bought the 24T new in 1963, but it was probably about 1965 before I was large enough to handle the steering of the diesel. What makes me remember the tractor so fondly, though, is the sound it made while pulling the baler. The tractor’s rear end, which was almost directly below the operator’s rear end, would go GRRUMPH GRRUMPH GRRUMPH as you went along in low gear, which was all the faster you could go in alfalfa or trefoil hay.
The no.2 bale ejector (which was the best design on the market in my opinion), used a pan at the back of the bale chamber to throw the bale whenever a lever was tripped by the advancing bale and engaged the clutch that powered the throwing mechanism. This happened about every 8 seconds in our typical hay crops, and the whole outfit (tractor and driver included) would shudder with the recoil of the throw. But it didn’t seem to phase the engine- it would just keep up that steady and distinctive purr, and to me, the smell of the diesel exhaust was like perfume!
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to run that particular tractor a whole lot. In 1966, It was traded for a new John Deere 2510 row-crop diesel- which had a wide front axle and power steering!
Allis Chalmers row crop tractors from the RC and WC which commenced production in 1934 to the WD series which ended production in 1957, all followed the same general format. They had channel iron frames to which all the other components (engine, transmission, rear end, etc.) were bolted separately. There were 3 main differences between the WC’s and the later WD’s: the WC had hand brakes, which, unless you had four hands, could get pretty busy at times, and the WD had foot brakes, conveniently located for the right foot to work them both. The WC used a straight 4 speed transmission coupled to the engine through a conventional foot operated clutch, and the PTO would stop whenever the clutch was depressed. The WD had a second, hand operated clutch which would stop the tractor’s motion without stopping the PTO. This was developed specifically for working with the company’s own “Roto-Baler”- a baler that made small round bales, but had to have the tractor stop each time the baler ejected a bale. With tractors before the WD, this got real old real fast, because you had to depress the clutch to stop, then put the tractor in neutral and reengage the clutch until the bale ejected, then depress the clutch again and put the tractor back in gear and reengage the clutch after each ejection. With the WD, you just disengaged the hand clutch- much easier! Finally, the other difference was the “Snap Coupler”, which was Allis’s own version of a 3 point hitch. It really was much handier than the Ford-Ferguson version that became the universally accepted hitch still in use today. With the Snap Coupler hitch, you could hook up to your implement (in theory anyway!) without leaving the driver’s seat. The lift arms had spring loaded latches which you could reach from the seat and would flip up to open them. The third link was under the tractor instead of being a top link. It had the actual snap coupling on it and was actuated by a foot operated latch.
The WD45 diesel used a 6 cylinder AllisChalmers diesel engine with a Roosa Master injection pump, which delivered 45 pto horsepower, as the model designation implies. It had a nice purring sound all of it’s own, and much like the Caterpillar diesels, if you were into diesels, you could tell a WD45 from another diesel even if you couldn’t see it. The farm’s tractor had a “row-crop” front end. Many people refer to these as tricycle front ends, which is really a misnomer, since they use 2 front wheels arranged closely beside each other, rather than the single front wheel in a yoke which is commonly known as a “narrow front end”, or a vegetable or vineyard front end. The farm’s tractor did not have power steering, which was just beginning to be offered on a few makes and models of tractors at the time it was made. Therefore, it steered a little harder than a comparable gas engine tractor would have. Incidentally, the term row-crop referred to the fact that the design objective was that the front wheels of the tractor could fit between rows of corn, cotton, or any other crop planted in rows and (back then ) cultivated several times each year. By having the front wheels together, there was no need for an axle which would hit the plants and cause more damage to them. Of course, the rear axle of any tractor would have to clear the plants, too, that was unavoidable, but the rear axles were typically higher clearance than the front axles of wide front tractors of the day, which were mostly of the utility type. The farm’s WD45 was the first row-crop tractor I remember driving by myself (at least on purpose!), even though my uncle Wilson’s Oliver had been a row-crop.
My best memories of driving the WD45 are of baling hay, pulling the farm’s John Deere 24T baler with a no.2 Bale ejector. I think that Lynn bought the 24T new in 1963, but it was probably about 1965 before I was large enough to handle the steering of the diesel. What makes me remember the tractor so fondly, though, is the sound it made while pulling the baler. The tractor’s rear end, which was almost directly below the operator’s rear end, would go GRRUMPH GRRUMPH GRRUMPH as you went along in low gear, which was all the faster you could go in alfalfa or trefoil hay.
The no.2 bale ejector (which was the best design on the market in my opinion), used a pan at the back of the bale chamber to throw the bale whenever a lever was tripped by the advancing bale and engaged the clutch that powered the throwing mechanism. This happened about every 8 seconds in our typical hay crops, and the whole outfit (tractor and driver included) would shudder with the recoil of the throw. But it didn’t seem to phase the engine- it would just keep up that steady and distinctive purr, and to me, the smell of the diesel exhaust was like perfume!
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to run that particular tractor a whole lot. In 1966, It was traded for a new John Deere 2510 row-crop diesel- which had a wide front axle and power steering!
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