[AT] Got the M out yesterday

[Dean Vinson]

Sunny skies and temperatures in the 60s over the weekend pulled me outside, and after doing some yard work I decided to straighten up the garage a little bit.  The side where I park my car had a crusty white layer of salt, left over from winter slush that the car had tracked in, and there was the usual mix of leaves, dirt, and semi-randomly-distributed oil-stained newspapers on the other side of the garage, where the M Farmall lives.  Time to pull things out and sweep.

The muffler won't clear the garage door, so I start the old girl up bare, as it were, which always gets the attention of the kids across the street. Then I put the muffler on once it's outside, to keep in good graces with the neighbors, and since I think the tractor looks better with something other than the stub of the exhaust manifold sticking up.  But those first deep rumbles as it fires up are sure a lot of fun.  And bless her heart, fire up she does after however many weeks or months of sitting there.

I needed to fiddle with the brake adjustment a little bit to get both sides to catch at about the same time.  Last year I'd taken both brakes off to replace the oil seals and clean the bands, and for some time after that the bands would stick if I let the tractor sit for a while.  So I'd taken them off again a month or two ago and put them back on, to make sure I had them on and adjusted correctly, but I hadn't gotten the left-right balance just right.  So a few turns of the brake adjustment springs yesterday, and I'm back in business.  I tested it by letting the tractor roll down the sloping driveway and then braking sharply with both brakes locked together, and watching for it to pull to one side or the other.

My neighbor down the street was washing off his four-wheel ATVs after a trip out with his kids, so I drove the M down to compare notes about off-road vehicles.  Between his kids and the neighbor boys there's a gang of six-year-olds down there and they're pretty well stocked with modern toys, but they got a big kick out an old red tractor with wheels taller than them.

After that it was too nice to go back home just yet and I figured the battery could use some charging and the engine deserved to get up to operating temperature, so I toured the neighborhood in road gear for a while.  The engine sounded great, people were waving and smiling, and the tractor smelled like hot metal and oil and history.  Wish I had some plowing to do.

At the end of the day, with the garage cleaned up and the tractor back inside, I rested my hand for a moment on top of the front corner of the hood, where it curves down into the grille.  There's a nice residual warmth there, right above the radiator, for a good long time after shutting down, and checking in with that warmth is somehow almost like hugging your kids or petting your old dog--it's just a damn fine place to be.

Dean Vinson
Dayton, Ohio
www.vinsonfarm.net