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!
No comments:
Post a Comment