I got to the property early yesterday. I even beat Earl. It was a gorgeous Adirondack morning and I walked around the property a bit, soaking in the sunshine. I took a photo of Casey the Backhoe, poised to start the day. What is that sign above the windshield?
Earl's motto.
It took me two months of driving this tractor before I realized it had a special Sherman transmission. The pic above is from the internet. It's a steering wheel badge indicating what it is and how to shift it.
This is my badge. I put on my reading glasses and, sure enough, it's a Sherman badge. I thought it was just a really bad washer.
Friend Dick and Deb are here. They're boating friends that we met in Savannah. Deb and Pam were to go antiquing while Dick, who is very handy around all things mechanical, looked at Bessie's transmission to see if it could be unstuck without tearing it apart. It's pouring rain today though, with an inch forecast, so I'm not sure what we're doing at this point.
Dick did notice that Bessie's battery cables are grossly undersized, something that never occurred to me. They're half the size of 12 volt cables, and at 6 volts should be twice the size. I'll have to replace those. Dick may stop at Tractor Supply to see if they have anything on his way up the mountain. Maybe today will be a day spent in Earl's Garage, tinkering, doing guy stuff, and drinking victory beers.
On the chance that this interests you:
ReplyDeleteMy husband farmed with two John Deere and two Massey Fergusson tractors. The Deeres rocked.. they were reliable, capable, had great features and lots of power. When I asked him about the Masseys, his brows furrowed.
One was a small utility tractor that had no features and little power. It met its end when a student got hay stuck in the muffler in the field and abandoned it (instead of kicking the hay away) when it caught on fire; charred remains remained.
The other was a MF1080 (not as cool as your '52, I'm sure) and was frequently in the shop with chronic hydraulic and transmission problems (his talented Fieldman finally rebuilt it which helped some). He said you couldn't drive it in "highway gear" on the highway because it would freewheel - no control! It did do one thing perfectly, however: it was a champ at blowing silage into the silo.
I'm glad to have nothing but a lawn tractor now to mow the lawn. We use no motors for anything else but our emergency generator. No rototiller or weedwacker.
In June, P. was cutting some brush with his scythe while I was tilling garden beds with a broadfork. Both are cheap, quiet, do a great job and help to keep you in shape. As we did so we could hear our neighbor to the north weedwacking and then rototilling his garden. What a contrast in terms of result, noise, cost and good exercise. Oh I forgot, we do have a Troybilt snowblower for our 500' steep driveway.