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ATIS General Tractor Discussion / New forum

« on: March 18, 2018, 08:24:25 PM »

Looks good...

I did try to attach a picture and failed. Might have just been me. I couldn't find an "attach" button after picking the pic. I'll just keep working on the small learning curve.

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'round the pot-bellied stove / Western Ohio Update

« on: March 26, 2015, 07:38:29 PM »

I figured that was where you would put it Gene.
It's easier to visualize when you have been someplace before.

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'round the pot-bellied stove / My Videos

« on: March 20, 2015, 10:23:39 AM »

My barn lot goes back to around 1900 when they moved part of my house to this site from down on the corner of the farm. When we moved here in 1951 it appeared to have been done in parts with rock about ping-pong ball sized then pit-run gravel over it. Much of it was just dirt (usually mud) and really hard to get around at times. I recall as a kid hauling gravel in a ford slip-scoop from gravel bars in the little creek up to the barn lot kind of regular to keep building it up. About 1955 my father hauled in several loads of what they called "U" rock. It was about like a mix of ping-pong balls and tennis balls. We had a hired man at that time and he shoveled it from the truck and covered the whole lot with it about  3" deep. Then it was covered with about 3" of crushed limestone about the size of peach pits. That held well for a long time. Over the years though it is an on-going process to keep the lot solid. I need to have son Scott bring me a few tri-axle loads in now to get it back in shape. I don't recall now what he usually hauls on a load, 15 tons sticks in my head. There are some "nervous" small bridges between the quarry and here...
Scott was having trouble with some soft spots in his driveway, especially the new part. He made a pile of stone the size of a house.
:-)
Then he brought home a backhoe with a narrow bucket and put 4" tile under all of his driveway area and connected it to a nearby field tile I had put in years ago. He hauled away the dirt from the trenches and then filled all of the trenches with the stone and re-stoned the whole thing. No more problems...
It would have cost him a fortune to have had it done but his only cost was for the tile and the stone. Stone is quite cheap here now. Most of the cost is the trucking.

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'round the pot-bellied stove / Western Ohio Update

« on: March 12, 2015, 06:36:03 PM »

I got to work outside a little today. It's been decent a few days but the ground was thawed on top and frozen underneath. That resulted in about 4" of jelly... Today is the first that the water has been draining down decent. I had a list of about half dozen things that I wanted to accomplish today but I only got a couple done. I ran out of me long before I ran out of list.
One of my son-in-laws gave me about 50 partial sheets of plywood that he salvaged from a job they did and I had gotten it sorted out onto 3 pallets and covered it before the weather went in the dumper. Today I got the TO-20 out (which fired out very quickly thank you) and put the lift forks on the 3 point to move it all down the road to my west barn.
I don't recall that lift fork being that heavy to wrestle around and mount back when I built it years ago.
I backed into the heaviest pallet last and when I pulled the lever to lift it the hydraulics didn't hesitate at all. Trouble was that I was sitting there with the front of the tractor well off of the ground. :eek: I thought that I was going to do it all from the tractor seat but I had to get another pallet and split that load.
It felt pretty good to be out doing anything...

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ATIS General Tractor Discussion / Who would like to own a tractor like this?

« on: March 12, 2015, 05:59:01 PM »

I really prefer them to be near original in appearance.  However, I don't care what someone does with theirs.  It IS theirs.

Ron

I tend to generally be the same way Ron. I do think that this one is mostly still original except possible hood cut and paint. I consider paint to be temporary (at least everything I ever painted has been ). Of course almost anything is better than the junk yard for melt down. I also don't feel too bad about something built up out of odd pieces and giblets. I do hate to see someone take a nice original tractor and hack it up. Then again, as you say it IS theirs.

My father had an old friend that built an early version of a motor-home out of a very nice Cadillac limousine. It was old enough to be pretty much obsolete as a limo but not old enough to be a collectible. This was about a mid 1950's Caddy that was about 10 years old with low miles and an extra nice interior. He wanted to make a unit like an Indianapolis company was making and he had the skills to do it. That company was the Van Bibber Co. who made early units like mini-motorhomes using old funeral coaches as a base. The friend drove that limo around for a month before he could work up the courage to make the first chop.  It had very little resale value but still was so nice...  He finally got up the nerve to cut into it and started. He worked on it for almost a year and was in the final stages of finish work when he did something that disappointed all of us... He fell over and died with out any warning.
That is one of those thing that warn the rest of us to NOT keep putting off the things that you "want" to do...

The Van Bibber Co was making campers about like this picture but they were usually bigger. He had looked at many of theirs for ideas.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]826[/ATTACH]

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'round the pot-bellied stove / Not a tractor but I loved this brick laying machine

« on: March 12, 2015, 09:42:46 AM »

The guy that posted the picture on Facebook said that there was a platform on the other side  where a half dozen workers stood to place the bricks obviously it moved very very slowly but is far less back-breaking than doing it on the ground.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]824[/ATTACH]

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ATIS General Tractor Discussion / Who would like to own a tractor like this?

« on: March 12, 2015, 09:31:46 AM »

I like some of the odd stuff. I note that this one has a Sherman in it. I can't tell by looking if it is an over drive, an under drive or a three range (O-Std-U)? Given its style I suspect over drive.  
For anyone new to the forum you can click to make the pictures bigger twice...
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Allis-Chalmers / Pic of my shiny (protect your eyes) Allis Chalmers WC

« on: March 11, 2015, 05:53:52 PM »

OK, maybe I need to wax it again...
I have had this a while and done nothing with it yet. It was given to me by a neighbor. I believe it is a better tractor than it looks like. Other than the bent steering shaft everything that is there works. Even both turning brakes (at least one is almost always stuck). The steering itself is good and I have carefully turned it by hand checking all of the gears and everything feels quite good. A lot of these old WC's (this one was styled) have been trashed in the tranny from running  brush cutters so surely an engine should not be to hard to find pretty cheap. I might even do something more imaginative if I get a chance but there are too many delayed jobs in the pipe ahead of it for now.
Multi year health problems can really wreak havoc on scheduling of any kind. It gets really hard to catch up as the more laid up you get the faster stuff manages to quit on you.

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Tools, Trades and Engineering / Portable welding/grinding table.

« on: March 11, 2015, 05:24:23 PM »

You have to watch having flat spots... They fill up in the middle of the night.
I have benches that I have not seen the top of since 2004.  
I have a smallish old welding table that my father bought back in the early 1940's. It is maybe 24" x 30" or so with a drawer and a shelf under the top. The top is surrounded by an edge that sticks up about 2" so that it holds a layer of firebrick in place. I think it has a tag on it that says "Airco". I have a bench in the blacksmith shop that is all very heavy steel. It has a blacksmith's post/leg vise on the left corner and a large heavy vise (came from an uncle) that is on a swivel base on the right corner. I have on occasion clamped things in both vises to weld them together.
I have always done a lot of my welding outside if the weather allowed. I have not done any for a while but son Scott still works there some and I plan to be back at it. I have for some time kept a tool stand parked just outside of that door and grab it to lay stuff across to weld it. Looks like this:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]821[/ATTACH]

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Tools, Trades and Engineering / Tractor support frame

« on: March 10, 2015, 09:46:06 PM »

Tossing this out for discussion. I had not seen any of these before except for cars.
I'm pretty sure that I need one.  
I believe I might want to make it a bit beefier since a number of my tractors are a little heavy like my Farmall Super M, the Super MTA, the 400-LP and the MF-165. I also believe that I would want heavier casters.
Since my shop floor slopes a little excessively (bad decision at the time of pouring) I would want very positive locking casters.
As you can see it is adjustable in length and you can also adjust the width of the rear axle supports. Just looks like a good idea. It also appears that it is easy to break-down for storage.
I'm on a lot of tractor sites and I am always amazed at how many tractors I see being worked on sitting on concrete blocks turned the wrong way (as if there is a right way :eek:).

[ATTACH=CONFIG]820[/ATTACH]

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'round the pot-bellied stove / OK, I got here, now what?

« on: March 10, 2015, 05:49:43 PM »

The guy I stole that picture from  said that he "believed" that the engines were connected by heavy flat belt at the belt pulleys. I would assume that if that is the case that there would be an idler involved. I guess that you would only need one starter...

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'round the pot-bellied stove / OK, I got here, now what?

« on: March 10, 2015, 04:14:17 PM »

Took me a while to get sorted out but I made it. BTW, thanks for the info Gene.
The next step is posting pictures I guess. I'm a picture person. I may screw this up a few times...
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