[AT] Odd rod on a WD Allis?

[Indiana Robinson]

On Sun, Jan 24, 2010 at 2:09 AM, Chuck Bealke <bealke at airmail.net> wrote:
> On 1/23/2010 7:25 AM, Indiana Robinson wrote:
>> One of the guys on my Allis Chalmers list posted this question:
>> ---------------------
>> I found a strange attachment on a WD at the link below and can't
>> identify it. Would you guys take a look at the rod that seems to
>> becoming from the vicinity of the draw bar to the top of the front
>> wheels and tell me what it is.
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RogerTractorLarge.jpg
>> ---------------------
>> All I could come up with was maybe some kind of a brace for the final
>> drive like to a loader bracket etc? I cannot tell if there is one on
>> both sides. I have never seen one before.
>>
>>
> Y'all,
>
> Sure looks like the tractor is hooked to a rope trip plow.  These had
> adjustment handles just like the implement in the picture.  It looks
> like the front of the upright rod is a trip rope attachment point.  The
> strange front of the plow hitch might be a protective plow release to
> let go in case the plow encountered an unmoving rock, and the reason the
> trip rope was attached to that handle instead of the seat might have
> been to keep from jerking the back of the seat when the plow releases.
> A little background may explain why I hazard such a guess.  The picture
> flat reminds me of my very first field plowing.  This was with a AC WC
> with a hard pulling AC rope trip plow, a pairing which looked in many
> ways like the iron in the picture. I fast learned the hard way that when
> you felt that quick, awful sinking in a low, soft spot in an otherwise
> dry field, it was often too late to pull the trip rope and a bad time to
> stop forward motion.  As luck would have it, the plow had one of those
> hitches that would release the plow when you pressed on the top of it.
> So I rigged a quick plow release from the seat.  First, I wired an
> eyebolt attached to the bottom of a thin square board to the top of the
> hitch so that the board would release the plow pronto when you pressed
> down on the top it from the tractor seat. Then I attached the top of
> the board ('nother little eyebolt and short piece of twine) somehow
> close to the seat where I could reach back, grab and push down to set
> the tractor free of the plow. As I recall, it took a fair bit of
> experimenting - and untimely releases when the boy-filled bouncing seat
> caught the top of the board - to position the board right.  But it
> worked and saved me a possibly career altering request for a repeat pull
> out.  (I kept a long chain on the tractor to pull the plow out from
> firmer ground.)   Also learned to use older and weaker baling twine to
> attach the plow trip to the tractor seat.  The first time the plow was
> released in a wet spot, the trip rope from the released plow pulled the
> tractor seat as violently as fast, and the newbie operator was almost
> launched off the tractor when the rope broke.
>
> Chuck Bealke
> Dallas, TX
=====================================


I blew this picture up (control +++++ on my browser) and looked at it
a couple of times. What I thought might have been a bracket at the
front wheels turns out to be just looking past the wide post of the
tricycle front and the image of a uniform white line being formed by
the background. The tractor does have the mud scrapers installed.
Where the rod attaches to the tractor front it appears to be fastened
to a heavy stand-off bracket that is maybe thick cast iron and maybe
two pieces. The end of the rod appears to have a bigger bell shaped
shoulder to stop it from moving forward and so I guess it may likely
have a big nut on the front of the rod.
Blown up you can see the trip rope attached to the post better. What I
once believed to be a trip rope attached to the back of the seat I now
believe to be the drawstrings that tie the seat cushion in place. That
is obviously a rope trip plow but my hydraulic lift pull type plow
also had both adjusting levers.



-- 
Have you hugged your horses today?

Francis Robinson
aka "farmer"
Central Indiana USA
robinson46176 at gmail.com