12a combine, pto vs luc

Dustyah

Member
I own my grandfathers 12a with luc, prolly hasn't been used in 30 yrs, I found a fellow selling one with a pto?? When and how many had a pto, didn't know that was a thing, anyone have info or ideas that's Dusty
 
My dad and his 2 brothers had a 12A with an engine. It was pulled with a model B tractor so no live PTO. When my one uncle traded his 36 B for a model 50 and they purchased a used 12A with a PTO. One less engine to take care. Now there is a restored 12A that comes to our fair some years that has the LUC power unit, But it sets lengthwise on the frame instead of cross wise. When did Deere do that?
 
They were available either way from the beginning. My grandfather had one with the engine, and pulled the rig with his long hood B. He did a fair amount of custom work, and claimed at one time to have worked
in the same field as a PTO 12A powered by the PTO of a late B. Grandpa claimed he had a bit more in the tank each round, because he could get a better match of ground speed to conditions with the engine
drive. Or, perhaps he just took a fuller swath than the other guy... :).

And yes, I have seen a couple with the engine mounted "the other way"... those seemed to have a hood like a JD L, too. The one I have seen in person like that was also on steel wheels, built during WWII.
 
PTO powered 12As were very common. The only reason to go with an engine in my opinion is if your tractor didn't have live pto which a lot of them didn't or to better match the capacity of the combine like the other poster mentioned. If you want to get into what is rare and what isn't here it is. For the very first year the engine option for the 12A was a 4 cylinder Hercules. The next year JD went to the LU or LUH which was basically a LA engine mounted inline with the hitch going into a right angle gearbox. We have a 1941 12A with the LU engine in our collection. 12As with either of those two engines I would consider rare nowadays. In 1943 JD switched to the LUC mounted at a 90 degree angle to eliminate the gear box and JD made a pile of those.
 
Thanks for the engine clarification. As for lack of need for an engine with live power, keep in mind 12A production ended when, about 1953? I know the 25 followed the 12A when the 50 and 60 were in production. I guess my point is Deere's tractor production with live PTO and the 12A production didn't overlap by very much- perhaps two years or so.
 
I have a piece of sales literature on a 12A and IIRC it has a date of 1952 either hand written with the price of a new unit or a printed date ? Either way I could hardly believe they made them that long after the LA tractor was gone from the line up but they did.
 
The engine driven ones were a lot heavier on that side. I think my uncles had a homemade dual wheel added to that side. Plus the grain tank was over there too.
 
I have the instruction manual for installing the engine kit onto the ones where it is mounted in line.
IIRC it also mentions a model 11 or 11A ? of which I do not think I have ever seen. Sure were a lot of 12A ones here in Ohio though. Not sure but maybe 1/2 of them I've seen had the LUC engine on them. I had 3 of them here at the same time ,but never used one.
 
I have the intro piece to the 25... I think it is from 53 or 54. I will have to look. I think engine drive on a 25 was a 4 cylinder???
 
When JD switched over to the 25 they also switched to the 4 cylinder HA-92 built in the Dubuque factory. I don?t know if those are rare or not but they are not near as plentiful as the 12A/Luc combo since not near as many 25s were built in the first place and most tractors by that time had a live pto.
 
One of the drawbacks of the LU engine on the hitch besides having to go through a gear box was the stress it put on the hitch. Ours has been beefed up by the previous owners plus there is a big bow in it.
 
That?s true but I?m wagering not every 12A was pulled by a JD tractor although I would agree most were. Cockshutt had a live pto in 1946 and Oliver in 1948. If it were me I would take either of those two tractors for PTO work over what JD offered at the time.
 
The 12 was before the 12A and right hand cut and the 11 & 11A were earlier and 5' instead of 6' cut.
 
My late uncle had at least 2 of the 25 models with engines. I think they are still there in the weeds ?
These engines looked just like a 4 cyl. version of the 2 cyl. used in the model M and MT tractors. I always wondered if they could bolt right into an M or MT ? I don't know if you would gain anything from it but it would make people do a double take ! and also drive the correct police NUTS ! lol. These engines were different than the ones used in 1010 & 2010 tractors too.
 
I'm not sure about the terminology of RH verse LH cut ??

The cutter bar is on the left side as you drive on the right side ?
 
The 11 and 12 had the header on the right side facing forward just like the bigger pull type combines. The 11/12 and 11A/12A are mirror images of each other.
 
The beauty of an engine is that you can throttle the tractor down for a ditch, an obstacle or a heavy or down spot. With a pto the tractor must be at full throttle at all times or you will slug the combine.
 

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