ray...
The happy Nada Farmer, mostly a mechanic, not much of a Farmer, but that seems appropriate because it's NADA Farm. But it's starting to look like one.
Keep coming back, page Thirty Two follows......soon.
Here we go again!
I promised to tell you how the trip went, and what else I got. So here we go again. Pardon the slow operations, I don't have nearly as good a layout down here (all alone) in the little house.. Oops did that tip my hand toward the real ending? Let's start with the cool things we got on Saturday at the auction. We went to the Farm Auction to look at the tractors, and equipment (you know NADA FARMing equipment?) that might make things easier to do. And man they had tons of junk, I would have bought more, but I was waiting on the tractors. I kind of thought I would do best if I had more money, so I was pretty conservative. But I did buy a couple things, mostly because they were so darn Cheap!
This set of hydraulic valves and handles were so cheap I couldn't pass them up, if they don't leak too bad they will allow me to use some cylinders, I've been saving forever, to build a digger I have wanted for a long time.
And this carpenters tool box, had a bent corner, but had to have been dropped in the store. They tossed some junk tools in it to make it look like a deal, there were a couple I'll keep, but the rest are going to end up back at the auction barn. I think this is going to be my new Saturday hobby.
As I was taking something back to the car I saw them trying to get somebody to bid on this, I bid a dollar. It's a working winch! I decided to move the car closer.
I did get a couple farm related items, I bought two more gates. I'll need to close up the fields before the goats are released in them.
And I've always wanted a couple wooden planes, just because they are so "old wood shop". I also bought some hand saws, and a crowbar and a hammer and well some old tools that generally cost a buck a piece, still work and look cool hanging on the wall at Cracker Barrel and if I ever get the big room added to the house that I want they will adorn a wall there, but for now they are in the garage.
And this sucker was the last thing I bought on Sunday, it's a John Deere 2 cylinder engine with a clutch and it's own everything. The shaft sticking out the back can have about anything hooked to it and it will power it. It's called a LUC in some pictures I can find of it, or a pony engine in others. I have no idea of the horse power, it runs on gasoline, has a hand crank start, isn't frozen, it will crank, it has a twin wire magneto, and most of the parts are on it. What I find interesting is, it has a large radiator and a fan, but no water pump. The crooked handle works the clutch, but there is something not right about it, or I don't understand how it's supposed to work, yet.
I also bought "ANOTHER TABLE SAW! WHY????" That's sort of the reception my new table saw got. OK, I have three table saws already, well not exactly. I had a table saw left here when I bought the place, it worked but the best part was the motor, the rest was a little rough to say the least, but I was told it was purchased in a yard sale for a dollar anyway, and it did work till I dismantled it, it was way too big to keep for what it was. One table saw was The FARM WIFE'S dad's. It has a nice jointer on the same stand, and works fine for most things. Though the fence is nothing to write home about, it has been the best saw I had. Until I saw this baby. And there is another that a friend brought me that works well but is just another table saw but this, this is a beaut. This is a terrible picture but it's all I have for now. You see, I have so much junk in the garage right now, I can only open the door enough to squeeze through. I always knew it could happen, I just didn't think It would so soon.
I've got to get some projects finished and moved out! Well I guess I can't stall anymore. Here's the scoop on the big old tractor. So after years of collecting junk vehicles, I have learned to bring everything I can think of that I might need, liquids tools containers, extra batteries, etc, ad infinitum. And another driver to follow and assist. And to start as soon as possible in the day. Of course, I had a noon appointment in Akron, Fairlawn actually, and the lovely ladies at my dentist, let me get started as soon as I got there. So it saved me about an hour, that I tried to use to good advantage. As I'd hoped not to drive, or work in the dark, at least on this "ill conceived" trip.
The bad vibes started after I won the bidding war, pretty quickly. (Even the omnipresent dealer didn't fight very hard for this one.) The wife of the guy who had owned it, and her daughter, came up to tell me, it was a good tractor and her husband had so many they had to get rid of something, (oddly he wasn't there to agree, having to work or something?) Anyway, I got her info, gave her mine, and said I was going to drive it home, to the next county. And as she walked away, she openly scoffed and said "good luck!" And not in a reassuring way! Now if it's "a good running tractor" and only getting "sold to make room", why the attitude about driving it a distance? The tires are pretty rough. The seat was a bit askance, though it is a brand new seat, with a back and everything, just a couple bolts missing, or not the right size. And it did start right up. Though the key was left in it to keep the switch from falling back into the dash, which it did when I took the key. Also, the brand new battery was just sitting loose on the battery tray, and the old battery was sitting beneath it, on the gravel. And though I didn't see it then, the fuel was leaking rather steadily from a fitting on a noticeably bent piece of fuel line. But there were no major problems I was aware of....
First I fixed the starter switch, which had fallen back in the dash, (came unscrewed). Not much of a problem, not the way things always go. The next issue was a fuel leak just before the carb. Little teflon tape and that was "temped" pretty good. I mean all these things to be temporary fixes and I'll get things fixed properly, as I have time at home. Now this tractor actually has a way to set the brakes, and leave it running. Though the brakes were so ineffective, worn, that it made little difference. But more on that later.
Then there was the initial challenge of finding the gears. The knob is missing, which usually has a shift pattern, and there is nothing cast in the case, (which is where they are on the 2-9-8N Ford) Which I did in the gravel lot at Roger's Auction Barn. Where I found out the brakes didn't work, worth a fiddlers dam. Though it was better to find out here, than on the way trying to get home. Though they didn't work there either, mostly. I tightened what I could, though I was not the first to snug up the adjusters on this baby. After getting a couple gallons of diesel from the very nice man at the auction facility, Mr. Rogers.... I headed for home. Only 15 miles, and only six of that on State Route 93, the rest on little back roads that we travel all the time. What could go wrong? I vowed never to ask that question again, after a doomed trip to a trade show in New York, one time, a long-long time ago, in a life far-far away. Anyway back to the recent past. My chase car was equipt with a competent driver, a bunch of tools and liquids and cell phones and walkie talkies and it was 4:48. Well after the school buses, and after most people with other jobs, off the farm, and most farm tractors, are home... the roads should be clear, it's still day light, and not raining.
Ok the seat was still pretty weird and loose and I didn't want it to dump me half way home. So I whacked it good with my biggest wrench, and it didn't get any better, but it wasn't any worse either. So I waved to my doubtful chase car driver, and off we went.
Though I didn't realize at this point, this was the first big test! Particularly the stop ahead issue.... No, actually I knew this was going to be a challenge. Because I knew how wonderfully the brakes were working as I left the drive of the auction barn, and this was the turn onto Route 93. And it was a down hill, into a stop sign, on a heavily traveled State Route. Nope, no pucker factor there!
Anyway, I made the turn, there was no traffic, the tractor almost stopped. And I figured if I could stay ahead of things happening on the road way and and use the engine to slow the tractor I was in pretty good shape. I figured out some things after I got home, that would have made this a "no great shakes" situation. But at this point I had adjusted as many things as I could find. Asked the nice man at the Auction House, who admitted "no specific knowledge" of Case tractors. And eventually I used a set of VICE GRIPS to keep the engine form shutting of, every time I removed my foot from the accelerator pedal. I tried every handle and pull rod and button I could find, to try to get the throttle to quit letting the engine starve for fuel. It's a diesel, they don't use the ignition to shut down the electrical fire in the cylinder (spark plug) to turn off the engine, they shut off the fuel. I know this and the tractor dies every time I take my foot off the pedal hooked up to the engine. So to get it home i put a set of vice grips on the rod controlled by the "gas pedal" so it can't let the engine stop. So here I am on a tractor with really bad rear tires, that I can't find the gears on, or change them while in motion anyway, with barely enough brakes to hold it on a level surface, sitting on a seat held in place by a "too big bolt" pounded into one side of a bracket meant for two bolts, heading down the State Route for home, with an engine I can't turn off. Why is my dear wife so apprehensive? Obviously, I don't have a care in the world.
Here we are, driving though some small roads and passing whatever is in the area as we go, and the Farm Wife is taking pictures of the cemeteries as we pass them, there are about 7 on this particular route. 7 cemeteries, I was wondering if I'd end up in them dead or alive, as I swung the curves wide, when there was no traffic. Though I'd planned the timing roughly, I really had no idea exactly how much time getting it ready would take. And, as it was running, I didn't want to waste time waiting for traffic issues, and I definitely didn't want it to get dark. No lights, you see.. (Tee hee, little pun there). Not to mention I had no idea how fast it would travel, I knew I had 15 miles to go, I had been watching odometers each trip to see what I'd have to deal with. And I suspected it would run faster than the Bobcat, which will travel 5 MPH on a good day. So I hoped 3 hours would be enough, barring breakdowns, I had an hour to spare.
I don't know if everyone is familiar with the "one lane situation" in front of my west pasture. A couple colossal wrecks have happened here over the years, mostly due to the stupid situation. It's one lane wide, and neither direction can see around the curve. It's particularly insane each day between 6 AM and 8 AM and 12 to 5 PM, when the school busses take up all the road, and are in a hurry. I stay in my garage and listen for the roar of the engines, the grinding of the gravel, and hope not to hear the twisting of the metal. Well, I was way outside those windows of doom, so I only had to worry about the local kids, 4 wheelers, cars and other tractors, and the occasional truck load of stone or brine. No problem!
Well I made it home without incident! And, though I expect the Farm Wife to invoke Divine Intervention, I'm convinced it was clean living, and a discerning eye for a good used machine, and a ton of DUMB LUCK. That thing nearly rattled me apart!
What a ride! I tried, but I couldn't hear the walkie talkie. My cell phone might as well have been off, neither the vibration nor the sound would have gotten through, the car horn only got through once, when I'd stopped to turn onto 662. That is a two foot section of muffler pipe, directly attached to the manifold of a 4 cylinder diesel engine, 6 feet from my head. Running full bore, for an hour straight, we made the trip in 59 minutes. So I guess it goes about 15 miles an hour in road gear.
I'm still married, I get to sleep in the big house, and I have a tractor that, with a little work, will be able to do the bigger jobs around NADA FARM. So all is, well, moving along. Anybody got a spare set of 38" tractor tires for sale cheap? Maybe I can trade the Case VAC for tires and a little cash? We'll see.
