[AT] My M Farmall

[Al Jones]

Dean Vinson emailed me about a message I had posted a long time ago
about my desire to own a Farmall M.  I bought an IH 2MH corn picker
some time back and needed a M for it.  I kept Craigslist, Facebook,
and several other classified sites watched, and one in Rock Falls, IL
showed up that I liked.  It was 17 hours away, but it was a later M,
which I preferred, had original BFG rear ties in nice shape, was
fairly straight, and as a bonus had a M&W 9 speed transmission in it.
The price was also significantly less than anything I had found in my
area of eastern NC--even after fuel and paying  my friend for his
trouble I had significantly less in it than I would have if I had
bought the same quality of tractor locally. A good tractor collector
friend of mine has a Chevy 2500 and a gooseneck, so we made plans to
go get it.  Between our schedules, it ended up being in early January.
So, we left his house near Raleigh, NC and drove all night and all
day, (his wife came along to help with the driving) and arrived in
Rock Falls late in the afternoon.  We loaded the tractor, chatted a
bit, and then drove all night, getting back to Raleigh at about 12:00
in the afternoon---a roughly 32 hour round trip!  We joked that we
were Smokey and the Bandit reenactors, except without the Coors beer
and Jackie Gleason chasing us!  I think we also might be a little bit
insane.....  I should  mention that I came down with a mild stomach
bug somewhere between Winston Salem NC and Wytheville, VA.  The
symptoms were controllable with lots of Pepto chewables, but it made
for a pretty miserable trip until late Saturday night when I started
feeling better.....oh the things we do for old iron!

The tractor appears to be a good buy.  The steering is a little loose,
but everything else seems rock-solid. It's been converted to 12 volt,
but the conversion is well-done and you really can't tell unless you
look under the hood or in the battery box. The carb is set pretty rich
and I need to do some tuning but it starts right up with no blue
smoke. I've started getting it ready for the picker, I got the wheels
spread all the way out and started mounting brackets.  Plans are to
get it pretty close to mounted over the Christmas holiday when I have
plenty of downtime.

I'll try to be a little more conscientious about updates in the
future.....I need to tell you all about my early 1947 Super A I got
this summer.......it was only 13 hours away!

Al