dad's 34 A John Deere working

In 1964 when the movie was made, dad was 66 and semi retired from farming and from his town job. Dad loved tinkering with the old two cylinder john Deere's and old equipment. He kept 11 acres to play on.


About 1958, he found this old A in a salvage yard complete but needing engine work. It had a bad wrist pin and needed a set of rings. Soon, it was running good again.

I thought it might be a 35 or 36 but my brother remembered it had a plunger for and oil pressure indicator. I guess that makes it a 34 which I understand was the first year John Deere made the A model.

My younger brother had a 49 B with a power pack at this time and the B would outwork the A especially when disking plowed ground. The A was heavy and I remember commenting that the old A could hardly pull itself over plowed ground. It was like 2nd gear to pull itself and low gear to pull a small disc.

It had a power lift when dad got it so dad proceeded to mount a 2 row lister on it with a planter attachment behind the lister. Dad was having fun in the movie. Dad seemed to be in his element when he was cobbling.


Farming during the Great Depression in the 1930s and then WW2 was definitely NOT fun for dad. In the 40s, dad had an old 20s vintage Fordson and a 20s vintage Rumley DoAll. We were poor folks. The early 50s found dad with a C Case and a 35 B John Deere.
 
Thanks for posting the film. When he got back on after fueling it appears he put it in second gear and judging by the speed he was going he just might have been in the high side, but the movie was speeded up a bit too, sooooo? I have a 35 A built April 5 of 35 and it has the oil stick. I tried pulling a 2x14's plow with it last fall and it had the power but not the traction on rubber without weights. Jim
 
Over the years, I thought of this tractor as a 35. That information probably came from dad back in the 50s when he got it. We had no serial # information in those days. My brother thought it a 34 because of the oil stick. Maybe it is a 35.

Knowing dad, he would not plant in 4th. 2nd would have been dad's style to plant and maybe 3rd at the end of the movie driving along the end. 4th was for the road.

Dad's motto seemed to be slow and easy. Most of his tractors were someone else's junk and needed to be ran easy to avoid breakage. My 8mm camera was spring powered and it slowed down as the spring unwound. This had the effect of speeding up the movie.
 
Dad was planting within a 100 yards of the house. Our chickens ran loose during the day and we had a pair of dogs that would quickly deal with any varmint that came around. It was rare that a varmint caught a chicken.

Our chicken house had roosts, nests, and feeders. All the chickens would return to the chicken house by sun down and lay their eggs in the chicken house. I don't remember any exceptions. One of my chores at an early age was to open and close the chicken house door.
 
No matter if it's a 34 or 35 it's a nice movie and worth keeping. I myself was doubting 4th gear cause 4th is about 6 1/2 MPH wide open on a gravel road with the governor tweaked a bit on our 35. Those old planters were made to operate in the 3-4 mph range. Jim
 

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