[AT] My M Farmall

Dean Vinson dean at vinsonfarm.net
Sat Nov 25 09:23:07 PST 2017


Al, your road trip sounds like a success on all counts.

Loose steering is certainly common on M-series tractors.   First thing I'd
check is the sector gear in the worm gear housing at the top of the
radiator; sometimes they can be flipped over 180 degrees to put the worn
side away from the worm gear.

Curious about the 9-speed:   How low is 1st compared to a stock
transmission, and how high is 9th?   Are the ground speeds relatively
uniformly stepped up from 1st to 9th?

As I recall there was a low, low 1st gear option from IH for tractors with
mounted pickers.

My Super M has what I assume to be an aftermarket 5th gear, high enough that
I wonder how practical it would have really been in actual farm use.   27
mph top speed, which is more than I want on any but the best road and
without anything heavy in tow.

Dean Vinson
Saint Paris, Ohio


-----Original Message-----
From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
[mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of Al Jones
Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2017 1:12 AM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Subject: [AT] My M Farmall

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





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