[AT] Tractor tool box standard items.

[Cecil Bearden]

In the old days of the MF 50 Diesel, the tool box was in the side of the 
fender.  We had a 12in crescent wrench about 50 years old, a pair of 
water pump pliers, a 10in pair of common pliers that Dad had bought at a 
discount store, and one of those dog bone looking wrenches that had 4 
hex sizes on each end.  It was a Power Kraft from Montgomery Wards way 
back when.  I found it last year.  I noticed that tractor supply had a 
pair of them with Metric and SAE and bought them last year.   Then there 
was the odd bolts and hitch pins and hairpins and lynch pins in the 
box.  When Plowing, we had a big John Deere Box wrench that had the size 
of the plow coulter nuts and drawbar nuts to adjust the plow.  We found 
the wrench in the field about 4 years after a custom operator had disked 
the field with John Deere Equip.  By that time the poor guy had tried to 
beat a train across the tracks and failed.  Dad said he left it for us 
to remember him by...

I read a shop trick in Farm Journal as a kid about welding a 3/4 in bolt 
into a pal pein hammer head to use as a hammer and as a hitch pin to 
carry in the tool box.  The first lick I hit with it as a hammer nearly 
broke my hand!!  I found a piece of rubber hose to put over the handle 
and pulled it off when I needed the pin. I don't remember it getting 
much use as either!!

I can't begin to count how many hammers we have planted in this 
country.  You would think that with enough fertilizer they would sprout!!
Cecil

On 5/10/2020 11:55 AM, Doug Tallman wrote:
>
> We need a box bigger than the tractor!  :-) Doug T
>
> On 5/10/2020 12:45 PM, szabelski at wildblue.net wrote:
>> Come-along and chainsaw, plus a five gallon gas can.😜
>>
>> Carl
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Indiana Robinson<robinson46176 at gmail.com>
>> To:at at lists.antique-tractor.com
>> Sent: Sun, 10 May 2020 11:32:42 -0400 (EDT)
>> Subject: [AT] Tractor tool box standard items.
>>
>> During a lifetime of farming my father and I and later my son and I built
>> and installed a lot of tool boxes on a lot of tractors. Many factory tool
>> boxes were kind of a joke. The one in the left step/running board of the
>> new Jubilee Ford was OK for a plow wrench and maybe a few lynch-pins or a
>> hitch pin but it was prone to fill with dirt and wouldn't keep anything dry.
>> They built a small box in front of the base of the dash on my VAC Case that
>> if you want something out of it you first spray it with wasp killer then
>> drag the mouse nest out of it...
>> The one on the TO-20 up under the hood in front of the fuel tank isn't too
>> bad but needs to be larger.
>> Those things don't matter so much these days but I do need to add some
>> decent boxes to the three or so small tractors I find useful for daily use
>> now. Those 3 are my TO-20 Ferguson, an 8N Ford and the VAC Case.
>> Being smaller tractors it can a little harder to fit in a more useful
>> toolbox.
>> I have a list of things I like to always have at hand in a tractor tool
>> box. The first one is a decent sized ball peen hammer. Not one of those
>> tiny tappy things but at least 16 oz. or larger. You never know when you
>> might just feel the need to pound the hell out of something.  :-)  I prefer
>> 2 adjustable wrenches, one about 8" to 10" and one at least 12" and heavy
>> for things like hitch-balls etc. I also want a very sturdy straight
>> screwdriver, not something to tighten your glasses frames but something
>> that will survive using often as a small crowbar or once in a while to
>> actually turn a big screw. I have also been buying a lot of those fairly
>> decent but low cost screwdrivers that you pull out the shaft and can flip
>> bits around to have 2 straight blades and 2 Phillips blades.
>> I want something in the pliers family, a common pair is OK or water-pump
>> pliers or Vise-Grips. I'm pretty flexible there, for cutting wire, working
>> with cotter-pins etc. On Vise-Grips see also "pounding the hell out of
>> something" above.
>> A place where the factories failed was log chains, at least a 12' "tractor"
>> chain. What kind of fool goes out to work on a farm (or on a group tractor
>> drive) without a chain.
>> For me a bonus is a spot for a pair of limb loppers, an axe and a box for
>> rocks.
>> And don't forget a drink holder.
>> What did I miss?
>>
>>
>> .
>>
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> AT mailing list
> AT at lists.antique-tractor.com
> http://lists.antique-tractor.com/listinfo.cgi/at-antique-tractor.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.antique-tractor.com/pipermail/at-antique-tractor.com/attachments/20200510/e2049719/attachment.htm>