[AT] Cold snap

[Cecil Bearden]

I love reading these old stories.

Cecil in OKla


On 1/7/2018 7:19 AM, Dean Vinson wrote:
>> ...Dean when he was stationed in Greenland... Maybe the rule
>> should be an antique tractor has to be within 500 yards
> As it turns out, there was an International TD-18 crawler at the air base in Greenland.   But cold weather or not, it would have been hard to get it started (see attached photo).
>
> Dean VP, wow, that's another great story.   Must have made for some long days picking.   And the situation you describe with the bitter cold, high winds, horizontal snow and ropes to navigate sounds more like Greenland than anything I ever experienced in the U.S., and in Greenland we had the luxury of being able to stay inside.   (Actually ordered to stay inside, restricted to whatever building you happened to be in at the time for the typically 2-3 day duration of the storm, so provisions were always made in advance of the big storms to get everyone to a safe and sustainable place beforehand.   The mission buildings that had to remain in operation were equipped with the necessary food and living spaces.)
>
> Dean Vinson
> Saint Paris, Ohio (5°F this morning, but forecast to warm up considerably)
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com [mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of Dean VP
> Sent: Sunday, January 7, 2018 5:34 AM
> To: 'Antique tractor email discussion group' <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
> Subject: Re: [AT] Cold snap
>
> Spencer,
>
> In my case they weren't antiques yet. 😊 How about including starting an antique tractor in cold weather story to go with the submission?
>
>   In my case my story submission would be when we had a hand start JD A with a mounted two row Corn Picker on it. John Deere included a long shaft that one could attach a steering wheel to the  shaft and that shaft would slide through the flywheel side of the corn picker to reach the flywheel. This would allow starting a hand start tractor while the picker was mounted and ready to go.  A reasonably good idea but quite often the weather would be below freezing and the corn picker tractor might not cooperate, especially if it had been left out in the field.  So, another tractor was required to pull start the Corn Picker tractor.  However, if the tractor to pull the corn picker tractor wouldn't start it was not uncommon to light a CONTROLLED fire under the crankcase, if we got desperate.  I have no idea why we didn't blow up a tractor or ourselves in the process.  In those days multi-viscosity oils were not yet invented and warming up the oil in the crankcase was a great help in allowing the flywheel to be turned over faster. I don't recall block heaters being available then either. If they were we didn't have one.  My memory is very foggy on what container my Dad used for the Controlled Fire but was either lit by Kerosene or actually burned Kerosene.  I think it was kind of like Kerosene space heaters without the blower. Anyway the flame was really controlled and was much smaller than the actual crankcase casting.  It would get setup right under the drainplug.  Maybe it was something like the old Kerosene blow torches.  We thawed out frozen galvanized water pipes using two or three really dry corn cobs that had been soaked in Kerosene with some bailing wire wrapped around them with the wire extending out for a handle.  They burned in a controlled fashion and it didn't take long to thaw out watering fountains etc.  Maybe that is what we used under the tractor but I remember something more contained than that.  In NW Iowa the winter weather was viscous and -40 degrees F was not uncommon with wind chills off the charts.  I don't remember Wind Chills being measured or calculated then but many a farmer got killed when getting lost out in the farm yard in a blizzard with high winds and horizontal snow. Dad tied a rope between the house and the milking barn during those kinds of weather conditions.
>
> Dean VP
> Apache junction, AZ
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com [mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of Spencer Yost
> Sent: Saturday, January 6, 2018 9:46 PM
> To: Antique tractor email discussion group <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
> Subject: Re: [AT] Cold snap
>
> I'm splitting my bet.  Putting half on Ralph and half on Mattias.
>
> Do you have to live there? If not, the dark horse in this race might be Dean when he was stationed in Greenland.
>
> Maybe the rule should be an antique tractor has to be within 500 yards of the domicile you suffered through the cold  (-;
>
>
> Spencer Yost
>
>
> Spencer Yost
>> On Jan 6, 2018, at 9:52 PM, Dean VP <deanvp at att.net> wrote:
>>
>> Ok, who has the record of the most days in a row that the weather never got above 0 degrees?
>>
>> My entry is 26 days in the winter of 1961/1962 in NW Iowa.
>>
>> Dean VP
>> Apache junction, AZ
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> AT mailing list
> http://www.antique-tractor.com/mailman/listinfo/at