100 year old mower resurrected.

[Marveltone]

Two years ago, my dad and I pulled an old Minnesota No. 4 mower out of the woods. It belonged to my wife's father and grandfather before him. It just seemed right to restore the beast, seeing as it's been in the family so long. We've spent the last couple years searching for a supplier o sickle sections that will fit this beast and were happy to find we can get them locally, as well as a replacement Pittman arm. The draw-bar was made from a piece of ash, taken from a tree that fell in our yard a couple years ago. We then welded up a couple of pieces and freed up and lubed all moving parts. The result is we now have a working 5' sickle mower!

My dad was very eager to relive his childhood and climb on the mower and operate it for our initial test run. Everything worked without a hitch. I think he felt like a kid on a carnival ride!

Next, we have an old dump rake to drag out and tackle. After this, it wil be a piece of cake!

Yes, everything will be painted eventually. First, we get them running, then we worry about cosmetics.

Joe

 

[NHmitch]

Thats an incredible project! Glad to see that you got it going so well. That actually gives me quite a bit of hope for all of my grandfathers equipment that has been rusting on the side of his field for 20 years. Its amazing what a bit of grease will do. Actually, what type of grease did you use? I have to try to resurrect his sickle mower that looks like yours did. Are you going to paint it now to the original colors? Now you need to find the tractor in the field that went with it, unless it was a team of horses, and then I don't want you to try and bring them back from the dead I like how it has a foot tread cast into to axel. It is amazing how you use to ride your implements back in the day. Great job, and i'm glad to see that you could do the project with your Dad. Those are great memories for you to have with him!

 

[smalltown]

Joe nice job resurrecting that mower!
More importantly any time you can make your father happy like that kudos to you :thumbsup:

 

[MIKE R]

Looks great. I am currently restoring a 1925 Massey Harris NO.23 mower. I am giving mine a complete restore back to original condition as it just came off the factory floor. I hate to see any old equipment scraped and sent to China. I like the photo of your dad on it, I am sure he has many memory's of it.

 

[Marveltone]

Thats an incredible project! Glad to see that you got it going so well. That actually gives me quite a bit of hope for all of my grandfathers equipment that has been rusting on the side of his field for 20 years. Its amazing what a bit of grease will do. Actually, what type of grease did you use? I have to try to resurrect his sickle mower that looks like yours did. Are you going to paint it now to the original colors? Now you need to find the tractor in the field that went with it, unless it was a team of horses, and then I don't want you to try and bring them back from the dead I like how it has a foot tread cast into to axel. It is amazing how you use to ride your implements back in the day. Great job, and i'm glad to see that you could do the project with your Dad. Those are great memories for you to have with him!

Thanks!

All the zerks were shot up with lithium grease. The oil ports were filled with 40wt. motor oil. The only odd thing we did a little different was the gearbox. It was found filled with a slurry of oil, water and sludge. We drained off most of the water (all we could separate, at least) and filled the gearbox with old diesel oil, as it will clean and lubricate at the same time. We'll run it in diesel for a bit to really slosh everything inside real good. Once we're satisfied with that, we'll open it up, take a parts brush to whatever we can reach, scrub it as good as possible, drain it, and fill it with gear lube.

The mower will be painted to as close to original colors as we can manage. Horse drawn implements were often quite colorful, and Minnesota mowers were no exception. Pictures of original paint jobs are incredibly rare, but we have a catalog reprint with colored ink drawings, so they will have to suffice.

Unfortunately, the original tractor was sold off years ago, soon after he died, but long before my wife and I ever had a clue we would have a use for it. We never dreamed we would be getting the family farm at this point in our lives.

My dad is so indispensable for these restoration projects, as he grew up on the family farm and helped keep the equipment running. He has an engineer's mind, and such an incredible understanding of every aspect of farm equipment... He's like a walking antique farm equipment encyclopedia.

Joe

 

[BeezFun]

That's beautiful. My great uncle had a sickle bar mower very similar to that and a dump rake that was originally horse drawn. I thought it was the greatest thing in the world to ride that when I was a kid. Fortunately they still have the original family farm and every nut and bolt that ever went with it.

 

[John47]

There's an old identical mower sitting outside an old shed on my property rusting away.

 

[flusher]

Nice work:thumbsup:. A few years ago I did a similar job on an MF 31 sicklebar which was only about 40 years old.

 

[aczlan]

Need another project? I have a similar one sitting in the back field...

Aaron Z

 

[ddobson]

Cool stuff. Nice work.