[AT] Ford 8 N

[Ralph Goff]

Yes, those little Fords were very popular here in Canada in the 40s, 50s,
and beyond. They made the big clumsy old steel wheelers look pretty
outdated. Light and fast, some farmers used them like a truck to run to
town. I knew of one good sized farm nearby that had a pair of these little
Fords and they were the only tractors used to farm several quarters of grain
and cattle land. That amount of work was a bit much for the Fords and they
were replaced with one bigger tractor. I have heard that they needed a valve
job every year when worked that hard.
Cockshutt was one of the first (if not the first) to offer fully live pto on
a tractor, the model 30 which came out about 1947 I believe. That helped
sell a lot of new tractors no doubt.
I don't really care for the Massey setup with that two stage clutch, push
the clutch pedal half way and forward motion stops, push all the way and pto
stops. I found this a bit inconvenient when baling with it. I prefer the
cockshutt 40 with a separate clutch lever for the pto.

Ralph in Sask.
http://lgoff.sasktelwebsite.net/
----- Original Message -----
From: Francis Robinson <robinson at svs.net>
To: Antique tractor email discussion group <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2004 9:29 AM
Subject: Re: Re: [AT] Ford 8 N


> I should have pointed out that my post was not in response to anything you
said. The N Fords have
> taken an unfair bashing not only on this list but parts of YTMAG and other
sites for far too long.   :-)   I just
> decided to set the record straight. Too many guys want to put it down as
weak and unfit to do serious work.
> That is poppycock.   :-)   Thousands of them were the primary tractor of
farms of several hundred acres all
> across the midwest. They compared well to "most" of their contemporaries
in the same 25 HP class. The
> trouble is too many want to compare them to much larger tractors of the
late 1950's and 1960's and that
> simply isn't a fair comparison.