old tractor pic

[jimmoore]

hereis an oldie but goodie

jim

[Anonymous Poster]

Why are the front tires so small and close together? I must admit that this is my first rodeo and I'm curious. Thank you!

[Robert_in_NY]

The tires were designed to fit inbetween the rows and the tricycle tractors had an great advantage in turning. Most farmers preferred the tricycle over the wide front for working in their fields and wasn't till the 70's that the wide front finally was accepted by farmers. The only problem with the tricycle was if you were going downhill too fast and turned you will roll over in a heartbeat.

<font color=blue>Robert Turk Jr.</font color=blue>
<font color=blue>Whitetail Splendor Deer Farms</font color=blue>
<font color=blue>Silver Creek, NY</font color=blue>

[ljh2]

We had a tractor just like that when I was growing up.

[Anonymous Poster]

Thank you for the information. My name says it all...I'm new & this is my 1st rodeo! I appreciate it very much. My wife & I just purchased 12 Acres in Southern Tennessee. We used to live about 35 southwest of "Music City" and needed to get out of there. We now live about 90 miles south of Nashville and if we go any farther south, we will end up in Alabama.

Thanks again to everyone out there in the "Farming Community" that has been so helpful to the new kid on the farm.

Newbieat501Farm

[Kelvin]

I'll try this a second time. I didn't realize that the picture's file size was greater than the 200KB limitation. I have cropped the photo down a bit.

Here is a photo that shows a single-front wheel antique tractor. This was taken at a 2001 tractor show on a tract of land next to mine.

Kelvin

[Kelvin]

Here's another picture from the show that illustrates the usage of the PTO drive coming out sideways from the engine/transmission.

Kelvin

[jimmoore]

here is another pic of single front wheel

jim

[GlennT]

You might be interested in knowing that the clutch was a multi-disk dry clutch mounted inside the pulley. When the clutch started slipping due to wear, it was really easy to pop the cover plate off of the pulley, remove the cotter pins and tighten the nuts on the three bolts that held the disks in place. This was a really nice feature. My uncle had a late '30s unstyled B, my dad's first tractor was a D, then he had a 1941 B and his last tractor was a 1950 50. When my Dad was out plowing South Dakota sod, that old B would lug down until all you heard was pop........pop........pop..........
I should mention, too, that driving tractors with the tricyle wheels was really adventuresome with a front-end-loader. Naturally, you couldn't turn the steering wheel unless the tractor was moving. Even then, it took muscle. I remember literally hanging on the steering wheel trying to turn it and even then I sometimes had to stop, back up a bit and try again because I couldn't get the darn thing turned in time. Also, you sure didn't want to turn too sharp with the bucket raised. That tractor was gosh-awful tippy. I'm talking REALLY tippy. Even when you were trying to be careful, if those two front wheels would go into a rut while making a gentle turn, the inside back wheel would come off the ground FAST. The older John Deeres also had another interesting feature. If you stuck your foot out waaaay up under the instrument panel, you could put your toes under the governor spring and pull it back and really make that tractor smoke. My young cousin used to do that when hauling wagon loads of grain and that old tractor would really move! I must confess that this scared the crap out of me and I tried never to ride with him. Memories...memories... The cultivator for the older John Deeres was lifted out of the ground by a long lever mounted on top of the right axle next to the seat. As a skinny kid, I had to stop the tractor, grab that sucker with both hands, hang from it and push with both legs to left the implement. My dad had to really exert himself to raise it too. Boy was he glad to get a power lift on his new tractor!