[AT] Simple lessons

[Dean Vinson]

I'm preparing to move my 53 Super M from its and my suburban home to our
long-awaited little old farm in the country, and the onset of warm weather
makes me think I'll simply drive it the 35 miles rather than arrange to have
it hauled.   This evening's chore was to take it down to the corner gas
station and fill the tank, and then change the oil once back home, and 70+
degree temperatures and warm evening sunlight made it seem like a simple
task.

First discovery was that my battery was dead, again, somewhat to my surprise
since I had removed it from the tractor and fully charged it not that long
ago.  Okay, it was probably six months ago, but in my mind it was very
recent.   So I threw the charger back on it for a while and attended to some
household chores, but as sunset approached I thought I'd best get on my way
so I took the charger off, flipped the seat base back down over the battery
and bolted it tight, and cranked the engine over.  Fired right up like the
fine old girl she is, and I chugged my way down to the station.

Chugged being the right word, too, since last year's remnant of gasoline was
looking rather orange in the sediment bowl and seemed to cause the engine to
be undecided about what RPM it ought to be running at, or possibly whether
it ought to be running at all.   In hindsight, I notice my factory-sealed
little bottle of StaBil sitting right there near the battery charger where I
set it not that long ago, intending to put it in the tank before winter.
Okay, it was six months ago, but in my mind it was very recent.   

$63.00 worth of fresh gasoline later, I climbed back up, listened to that
familiar rhythm of clank-rattle-rattle-squeak-click-scratch (clutch in, make
sure gear shift's in neutral, little tug on throttle, pull out ignition
switch, pull back starter rod).   As always, that part sounded great.    But
the following "click-click-silence" wasn't so endearing a tune.   #@*$! that
battery.

Now, I refer to this place as the "corner gas station," since it is in fact
a gas station and on a corner, and I like it because one of the roads that
forms the corner is a quiet neighborhood street that links up to some other
quiet neighborhood streets, one of which eventually links up with my
driveway.  Trouble is, the other road on the corner is a six-lane divided
artery two-tenths of a mile from the interstate off-ramp and one-tenth in
the other direction from a traffic light at the entrance to the mall, and it
turns out I wasn't the only one who'd thought to stop at the gas station
this evening.   I was the only one with an old farm tractor, to be sure, but
the fact that it was dead silent and blocking one of the service aisles at
the station detracted somewhat from whatever cachet I imagined I'd had up to
that point.

So I left it in neutral, climbed back off, and proceeded to roll it out of
the way.   For a 6000-pound machine, it rolls pretty easily on nice smooth
level asphalt, which would have come in right handy if the gas station
parking lot had had very much of that.  As it was, I was working up a sweat
leaning into one of the rear wheels and inching my way along over potholes
and patches, when a young man pulled up in the next aisle and came over to
ask if I needed jumper cables.    I thanked him and said yes, that would be
terrific, since my alternate plan was to inch my way the remaining two
hundred yards or so to where I hoped the road sloped down steeply enough and
for far enough that I could roll-start the tractor.   So he hopped back in
his SUV, pulled around and parked nose-to-nose with the tractor, and got out
with his jumper cables.   Then after I showed him that the battery was
actually under the operator's seat at the back of the tractor, he patiently
drove back around to the back.

By then I'd climbed up to open the toolbox to get the big crescent wrench to
loosen the battery-cover bolts, only to be greeted by its distinct absence
along with a crystal-clear mental image of it sitting on the bench in my
garage where I'd set it about 12 minutes earlier after tightening hell out
of those bolts.   Evan (as the young man was named, I later learned), turned
out to be more patient and helpful than I could have hoped for and offered
to drive me home to get the wrench.   So we made a quick round trip, opened
up the battery box, and hooked up the cables.   I realized I'd have to break
my rule about never starting the tractor unless I'm in the seat with the
clutch in, since the seat was flipped back over and the
jumper-cabled-battery didn't seem too appealing an alternative.  So after
making sure it was in neutral with the brakes set I settled for the
squeak-click-scratch of throttle/ignition/starter rod, and the Super M fired
right up like the fine old girl she is.

Evan said his goodbyes as I bolted the seat base/battery cover back down,
and then I hopped up, switched the lights onto Low, and hummed off into the
darkness.   Hummed being the right word, too, since that new yellow gasoline
flushed the sediment bowl and flowed on down to the carburetor and made it
nice and easy for the engine to know right what RPM it ought to be running
at.   

Dean Vinson
(Soon to be from) Saint Paris, Ohio