[AT] History Exam

charlie hill chill8 at suddenlink.net
Wed Jun 13 08:07:21 PDT 2007


When I was a boy it took 2 or 3 days per week to harvest our tobacco crop. 
So we traded labor with other small farmers.  We'd help them and they'd help 
us.  One farmer we worked with was a share cropper.  He tended about 6 acres 
of tobacco and roughly 100 acres total with a worn out Farmall Super A and a 
completely worn out Farmall A.  The motor was so bad in the A that we had to 
take turns turning the crank to start it.  A man or a strong boy could spin 
the crank round and round like cranking a corn sheller.  It would take long 
enough to get heat in the motor that it would wear the first guy out, then 
the second and sometimes the third.

Sometimes it wouldn't crank start at all and we had to hook the Super A to 
it and pull it round and round the tobacco barns with the Super A in high 
gear.  Sooner or later it would crank.  Then we let it run all day.  It 
would sit and run idle and blow a continuous stream of white smoke rings out 
the straight exhaust pipe.  Each ring would pass through the previous one if 
the wind wasn't blowing.  Sometimes you could see as many as 4 or 5 rings at 
once.

The  farmer that owned it told us not to check the oil in it.  He said, "if 
it stops smokin pour one quart of oil in it".   Ah.  The good ole days.

Charlie


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve W." <falcon at telenet.net>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 9:42 AM
Subject: Re: [AT] History Exam


>
>
> Ralph Goff wrote:
>> Ben Staats wrote:
>>> It is a piece of cake, I have a 1918 T with the crank start.
>>> But I havent tried to crank the 47 Farmall M
>>>
>>> Ben Staats
>>>
>> My Dad used to crank start the Cockshutt 50 back in the days when he
>> didn't own a battery charger and the old car battery got a little weak.
>> And before that his John Deere D was quite often started by turning the
>> big flywheel.
>> I used to occasionally be able to crank start the DC4 Case but sometimes
>> nothing would work on that one.
>> Nowadays I have electric start on a riding mower. We've come a long way.
>>
>> Ralph in Sask.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> http://www.antique-tractor.com/mailman/listinfo/at
>>
>>
>
> Crank start... Lets see Farmall F20 and F30, One Case LA and two
> different Fordsons and every now and then the Super M when the battery
> doesn't want to cooperate.
>
>
> -- 
> Steve W.
> Near Cooperstown, New York
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>
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