[AT] Simple lessons

[Mike]

Nice story Dean, thanks for the good read, Murphy's Law certainly was 
working against you. I keep battery tenders on all my stuff that sees 
intermittent use. Cheap insurance, and with the price of batteries these 
days a money saver too.

Mike M

On 4/10/2014 10:06 PM, Dean Vinson wrote:
> 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
>
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