[AT] anti-freeze

[Larry Goss]

Humm.  This thread mentions an interesting concept -- anti-freeze in a Johnny-Popper.  My uncle and my grandfather had around 2 dozen of them on the dairy farm and never put anti-freeze in any of them.  It was a lot cheaper to drain the radiator and the block every night and fill it with a bucket of  water from the irrigation ditch every morning.

Larry


----- Original Message -----
From: Ralph Goff <alfg at sasktel.net>
Date: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 12:22
Subject: Re: [AT] anti-freeze
To: Antique tractor email discussion group <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>

> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "charliehill" <charliehill at embarqmail.com>
> To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" 
> <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 7:07 AM
> Subject: Re: [AT] Ralph Goff CLOSE THE DOOR
> 
> 
> > John my dad used to tell me about not being able to get anti-
> freeze during
> > WW II and folks putting kerosene in the cooling system.
> >
> 
> Charllie, my Dad also talked of using either diesel fuel or 
> kerosene as 
> anti-freeze in his John Deere D way back in the fifties. I don't 
> know if he 
> couldn't afford anti-freeze or if it wasn't available. It would 
> have cost a 
> fair bit to fill up that big cooling system on the D so maybe he 
> was trying 
> to avoid the cost. He did comment on at least one occasion when 
> the 
> "anti-freeze" (kerosene) got so thick in the radiator that it 
> stopped 
> circulating and actually overheated the engine.
> This would likely have been in the early fifties before 
> electricity came to 
> the rural areas so block heaters were not an option. No battery 
> chargers 
> either so when the batteries wouldn't crank anymore it was time 
> to grab that 
> big cast iron flywheel and try to start the tractor. I sometimes 
> wonder how 
> they survived those winters. We have it pretty easy now even 
> though we 
> complain about the cold.
> 
> Ralph in Sask. 
> 
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