The minor accomplishment of this past weekend.
Those who've been around here for a long time and seen me ramble on about machines might recognize this one.
It's a 1944 Ford 2N tractor that came with the place when I bought it a long time ago. Have always had a soft place in my heart for this machine and now it'll always have a soft place in my yard, retired. The double-entendre applies. It's out to pasture and it happens to have relatively new tires and wheels on it. Tried to swap them straight-up to a neighbor for the old, worn out ones on his machine, but he doesn't want them because they're a tiny bit smaller. Shame. They cost a lot, are liquid filled for traction and better sealing, and will just eventually look like the rest of the machine.
The machine actually runs. It just can't do a lot of work anymore. It's had a pretty hard life.
Come to think of it, the circle drive that's visible behind this tractor was built entirely with it before I had the mega-machines. A few passes with a plow (and these are serious plowing machines!), then several passes with a box blade to remove the plowed-up soil, then the box blade again to smooth out the gravel.
Anyway, I really like it as a yard ornament. Loved/hated it as a tractor. Nearly busted fingers on it several times with the way it'd whip the steering wheel if a front tire caught a rut or any other irregularity, and learned to keep the fingers clear of the spokes on iffy ground. And the lack of power and especially live PTO was an ongoing frustration, and the lack of working brakes tended to make things interesting. I'd had the dealership replace them and the rear axle seals, then had to take it back to have them do it again, but when it greased the shoes again, I gave up.
Actually, it's got a relatively rare two-range tranny (for 6 forward gears and 2 reverse) and am told that it probably needs linkage work because it should be a three-range since the low range is lower than stock and the high ranger higher than stock. The evidence being that the PTO does 540 rpm at full throttle in low range (should happen at lower throttle) and 1k rpm in high range.
Well, done using that machine and now I'm done talking about it. Just need to smooth out the soil around its parking place (ironic that it's the best machine I own for that job) and plant some grass seed and the job will be completely done. |
