[AT] Tractor Weight (now Ramble - LONG)

[Greg Hass]

The reason I asked for the weight of the tractor was to see what type of 
trailer it would take to haul one.  Now for the rest of the story...

	My grandfather died when I was about 6 so I do not remember him, but I 
have heard a lot about him from family and relatives.  He came over from 
Germany as a child and worked his early adult years for the railroad to get 
money to start farming.   He was a very progressive farmer for the 
time.  Besides farming, they did a lot of custom work.  All summer my one 
uncle would take the best team of horses and work for the county pulling 
gravel scrapers.  The first tractor they purchased was an F-12 which they 
bought not to do heavy tillage, but to do cultivating and light work.  My 
dad said he spent many, many hours each year doing custom cultivating  for 
other farmers, besides cultivating their own crops, as most people only had 
horse-drawn cultivators.  At some time after this, he purchased 3 thrash 
machines: a grain machine, an edible bean machine, and a clover 
huller.  These machines he ran with an F-20, which by this time he had 
purchased.
	However, due to the fact that they ran the machines all summer and into 
the winter, the tremendous hours (plus the fact that the machine was being 
loaded so heavily) wore the tractor out.  In fact at one stop, my dad said 
the tractor had lost so much power that the neighbors made fun of it by 
pulling the heads off the wheat and throwing just the heads in to the 
thrashing machine.  At this point, my grandfather purchased a WK-40 (as 
mentioned by one or two replies to my previous post, the K denoted 
kerosene, while a W-40 was gas only).  As shown in some of the books, the 
WK-40 has over twice the belt horsepower of an F-20.  All of the neighbors 
laughter quickly turned to sweat.  It appeared the tractor was unstoppable, 
as illustrated by what a neighbor (not long since deceased) had told me.
	At the time Michigan law required that someone had to be sitting on the 
tractor whenever the thrashing machine was running in case someone fell 
in.  Many times that was my grandfather, who always smoked a pipe and was 
known as quite a "thinker".  According to the story, the machine 
plugged.  However, it didn't phase the tractor.  Our neighbor said smoke 
was rolling off the belt.  Someone had to runn back to the tractor and tell 
my grandfather the machine was plugged so he could shut it off.  Another 
time, the next-door neighbor had a sod field he could not plow with the 
horses.  When my uncle pulled in with the WK-40 and a three-bottom plow, 
the neighbor said it couldn't be done.  However, when my uncle dropped the 
3 plows into the ground and headed across the field, they said this 
neighbor literally dropped down on his knees in disbelief.  (My uncle has 
said they didn't make much money on that job because they had to plow in 
low gear and fuel consumption was high.)
	Shortly after this, my uncle and my grandfather got into an argument.  My 
grandfather, being the dad, won when they switched the tractor over to 
rubber tires.  My uncle wanted steel because it was his job to set up the 
machine, usually in a barnyard.  Usually he could back it in and have it 
set in 20 minutes with the steel and lug wheels.  However, with rubber 
tires, he sometimes fought for 2 hours to get the machine placed where he 
wanted it in the slippery barnyard.  (I will leave it to your imagination 
to decide why the barnyard was slippery!)
	As the older boys married and left home, my grandfather decided to get out 
of the custom business.  However, he felt he could not do that as long as 
he owned that big tractor, so it was sold and a Farmall H was purchasedin 
its place.  After that, when someone wanted custom work done, he told them 
he did not own a tractor big enough to adequately run the machines to do 
custom work.
	Although we have only seen pictures of this tractor, my brother has 
recently decided that he would, if possible, like to locate the original 
tractor.  Unfortunately, those that knew anything about it are now 
deceased.  My one uncle (in his mid-80s) says he did not have much to do 
with the tractor but thinks it was sold to someone with a 
sawmill.  According to other people, there were only 3 of those tractors in 
this area.  After making 30 or 40 phone calls, my brother has verified that 
they did exist.  He also has called everybody he knows that has had or 
still has a sawmill.  He has sort of come to a dead end on locating the 
original, although he did find one sawmill owner who has one who still uses 
it to run the mill.  It was overhauled 8 years ago.  This was the reason 
for the post on the weight.  Should he find one, he was wondering if his 
trailer was capable of hauling it.
	The guy who still uses his WK-40 on his sawmill says he has been offered 
$17,000 for it, but he has 2 sons that want it.
Hope this story is of some interest to list members.

Greg Hass