Corn Farming on The Great Plains

[JimBob]

Great shots of the engines.You have to admire the folks who display them,that's a lot of heavy iron to move around especially one like that Superior oilfield engine.A fellow I know has a 15 HP Superior that powers a line-shaft run machine shop he put together out of belt powered shop equipment he got mostly for hauling off.They're fun to tinker with and slightly addictive,got two that run and two in pieces,small ones.LOL When they made those engines the weight to horse power ratio was about 400 lbs to 1.

[Delmonico]

Yeah but with the torque those heavy fly wheels add they will do farm more than our small engines today, you can kill a 5 horse Briggs and Stratten trying to mow wet brome grass 6 inches tall. 

[Delmonico]

The one tractor in my pictures I think is interesting:





It was kind of the Cadillac of fuel burning tractors of it's day.  Made from 1910-1931 in several models,  they used an engine that had a higher compression ratio that any of the other fuel burners of the time.  This was possible for two reasons, one was the carburetter also atomized water with the fuel air mix, this prevented pre-ignition, the ping that you here in an engine running on to low of a grade of fuel.  This can break the pistons and these used fairly brittle cast iron pistons.  Also the engine was not water cooled, but used oil instead, this allowed the engine to run hotter with out boiling over.  (Modern vehicles with the radiator mixtures we use and the pressurized systems do the same today.)

Looking through my pictures I found some of an attempt to start one of these monsters which with out electric starters can be quite a task.  (Yes I've crank started tractors, but smaller ones.)

You have to roll one over and get fuel in the cylinders, plus get one about to hit TDC on a compression stroke:




Set the lever in place and pull:



OK, the driver is checking to see if he's doing it right:



Another try, I think I heard the word whimp:



OK, the youngsters is going to show the old man how:



Some advice from the operator and a couple other guys who showed up, me I'm silent, it was damn hot and I really don't like to crank tractors:



OK, the one guy who showed up had a better idea:




OK, back er up and tighten the belt:




Adjust the choke, the spark and the fuel mixture:



Success:



This show I go to sometimes had about a dozen of these when I was last there in 2009. 

These three in the parade are interesting, or at least to me:





Three different models, small, medium and large.

My Dad's cousin, Don Carman of Bennett Nebraska restored them, both he and my Dad are gone now, but the three young men on Don's tractors are his three grandsons, one who cared enough to learn how to maintain these fine pieces of history and keep them running.   

[Montanashooter]

What part of the country do they have these shows the pics are from??  Looks interesting.  They have a threshing days they set up a machine here once a year and run it like it would of been done way back when.  Now that i live a few miles from it i hope to go on a sunday.  If i do maybe i should post some pics on here. 

[Fox Creek Kid]

http://www.oldthreshers.org/

[Delmonico]

What part of the country do they have these shows the pics are from??  Looks interesting.  They have a threshing days they set up a machine here once a year and run it like it would of been done way back when.  Now that i live a few miles from it i hope to go on a sunday.  If i do maybe i should post some pics on here. 

This one is The Camp Creek Threshers, one of the bigger, but not the biggest.  It  is held in July near Waverly Nebraska, which is a few miles east of Lincoln.

Go to the close one, you'll fall in love.

I know a lot of the folks that demo there, in fact I've demoed dutch oven cooking there in the past.  This next picture is interesting, the operator is a friend and customer, I sold him the hat.  They built a very heavy teeter todder up there, if yer good you can balance the tractor:





A bit of coal in the firebox:



And on down the road:



It's really neat up there, you sure can look down on folks:




When my grandson gets a couple years older I'm going to take him and he can go for a ride.  He's 3 and loves tractors, I get him those cast metal ones, he loves them, a ride on this thing will really thrill him.

[Delmonico]

http://www.oldthreshers.org/

My brother and some friends have stopped at that one, they go to some bike rally over that way and have left early to stop there.  If I remember right that is the biggest one in the country.

[JimBob]

Here's a  tractor/steam/gas engine forum with a monthly calendar of show/swap meet dates http://www.smokstak.com/forum/index.php

[pony express]

Great pics, Delmonico! I used to be really into the old tractor thing, still have several. I had a couple of smaller stationary engines too, but sold them after a divorce.... But they weren't hit and miss. Both had magnetos that were dead, and I had no money to get them working. That part about cranking tractors reminds me of my Big Case, model "D".It hasen't been run in 10+ years, and back then(in my early 40's) It took about all I had to start that thing. Even if I got it all in top shape right now, I'd probably have to tow it, or belt it to another tractor to start it now. I do turn it over occasionally, just so it doesn't stick, though.

[Montanashooter]

Watched my dad and a friend spend half a morning tinkering with a H trying to get it to electrically start then they decided to try the old crank gave it a spin and it fired up far as i know his friends been starting it with a crank ever since.  Wonder how many arms been busted by those old cranks over the years   Been a few...

[Delmonico]

Watched my dad and a friend spend half a morning tinkering with a H trying to get it to electrically start then they decided to try the old crank gave it a spin and it fired up far as i know his friends been starting it with a crank ever since.  Wonder how many arms been busted by those old cranks over the years   Been a few...

I haven't cranked one for a while, early Oct of last year to be exact.  We have a 1948 Ferguson TE-20:



(English built, similar to the TA-20 built here.)at our farm, a fairly rare tractor this side of the pond.  Grandpa bought it in 1960, replaced an F-20 with nothing but a crank.  Well as anyone who has messed with English bikes or cars knows, Lucas Electrics is often the butt of many jokes and a lot of curses.  Have cranked this thing many a time when it had the 6 Volt system with the Lucas generator and starter.  Used to make sure it was parked on the hill.  Stalled it one day plowing, hotter than heck, by myself so no pull start even if I'd of wanted to drop the plow off.   

Got the beast started again.  Note the 12 Volt Delco-Remy alternator in the picture, a fly wheel change allowed it to have a Delco-Remy starter also.  Cranked it for old times last fall on a cool day after is was warmed up, just to do it again. My 24 year old  nephew told me he's only seen it done once before, back before Dad had his heart attack.  He said I did it wrong, when he saw Grandpa do it cold he said the magic words, #$%@$%^&$ battery and then cranked er up.

[Four-Eyed Buck]

 

[pony express]

My grandpa had one of those Ferguson 20's.....don't know if it was english or american, though. It always needed work(like everything he owned) He also had an Allic Chalmers model G, the one with the engine in the back. All the sheet metal was gone from around the motor, and I used to start it with a small crow bar, just stick the end in the crank ears on the harmonic balancer, and flip it through that way. Worked pretty well, for a while...... But I stopped doing it that way after I had to get several stiches in my head when it backfired.

My dad had a Farmall B that we used for years, mostly to haul firewood on the farm, it was really easy to hand crank, just roll the motor untill the crank was a little past the 6 o'clock position, give it a pull up, usually started on just a few trys. NOTHING like the big Case, I had to put my whole body into cranking that thing!

[River City John]

This has been a fine education on just what those rusting relics were all about that I see when driving on highways around here.
Usually isn't a farm that doesn't have at least one old tractor, or thresher, or whatever, slowly rotting and returning to the elements it was raised from. It's like walking through the museum and seeing skeletons of long extinct pre-historic creatures and wondering what it would be like to see them roaming the earth again.

Thanks Delmonico and all who have contributed.
I'm a city boy, so this is doubly foreign to me.

RCJ

[Delmonico]

Glad to do it John, for good or bad the price of scrap iron the last few years has been reducing the stuff out back behind the barn.  I've seen a lot of it headed to Alter metal the last few years.  We should have waited a few years to do a lot of the clean-up at our farm.  Went from "it helps pay the gas if you have the trailer with you already" to you can make some real money. 

[Stu Kettle]

Glad to do it John, for good or bad the price of scrap iron the last few years has been reducing the stuff out back behind the barn.  I've seen a lot of it headed to Alter metal the last few years.  We should have waited a few years to do a lot of the clean-up at our farm.  Went from "it helps pay the gas if you have the trailer with you already" to you can make some real money. 

I've been seeing one or two loads headed for the scrap yard every day lately just on the 6 miles of highway I travel twice a day.  Yesterday there were at least three hay rakes on one trailer, & something i couldn't make out that had HUGE steel wheels.

[Delmonico]

I've been seeing one or two loads headed for the scrap yard every day lately just on the 6 miles of highway I travel twice a day.  Yesterday there were at least three hay rakes on one trailer, & something i couldn't make out that had HUGE steel wheels.

Yep, the metal prices of the 21st Century will do the same thing the scrap drives of WWII did, make the stuff that gets saved all the more valuble. 

[Cliff Fendley]

There is an event each year at Lanesville Indiana with horse drawn and older tractors and a lot of old engines. I haven't been up there in a few years but I assume it's still about the same. We used to go up there every year when I was into truck pulling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanesville_Heritage_Weekend

[Delmonico]

There is an event each year at Lanesville Indiana with horse drawn and older tractors and a lot of old engines. I haven't been up there in a few years but I assume it's still about the same. We used to go up there every year when I was into truck pulling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanesville_Heritage_Weekend

Well get up there again, now you have time to really enjoy it.

[Delmonico]

BTW my current sig picture is taken at a small event near Filley:

http://www.lasr.net/travel/city.php?Elijah+Filley+Stone+BarnCity_ID=NE0305046&VA=Y&Attraction_ID=NE0305046a001

Early Oct 2007, got up Sat morning at oh-still way dark, the pick-up was all loaded and ready to go, over 3 inches of rain in the night.  Stopped at the store and bought some "Kingsford" coal oil and stole one of my wifes candle lighting butane lighters.  I had promised supper for about 50.  I got it done.