[AT] Tractor Weight (now Ramble - LONG)

[tomehrkam at houston.rr.com]

http://www.gibbstractorcollection.com.au/modelwk40.htm

The weight is 7068 lb according to the link above.

----- Original Message -----
From: Greg Hass <gkhass at avci.net>
Date: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 11:51 am
Subject: [AT] Tractor Weight  (now Ramble - LONG)

> 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
> 
> _______________________________________________
> AT mailing list
> http://www.antique-tractor.com/mailman/listinfo/at
>