Dad bought a 1940 styled B at a farm sale in December 1968. It's ONLY use was to pull our Deere model R
spreader thru our Hog House. We modified Our 1939 FARMALL H to fit, cut the rear axles, modified the rims to
fit deeper on the cast rear wheels. But the '39 H was traded for a REALLY sharp low hour '54 Super H and we
wanted to keep it as stock as possible. Oh, we still have the Super H, still have the 1951 FARMALL M DAD
bought brand new too.
Anyhow, the day we bought the Deere B we cranked on that stupid flywheel for 2-3 hours, never got a pop
out of it, we knew it ran, was running when we got to the sale. We had somebody pull the B out to the road,
the barnyard was completely ice covered, the road was completely bare. We pulled that B two miles and a tiny
bit of smoke but not a single pop. We only paid $90 for it, I guess we expected too much.
The following weekend we drove the 20-25 miles to the farm the B was on, new plugs and plug wires, couple
cans of ether, also had the neighbor's narrow front tractor dolly to pull it home running or not, it took a
lot of messing around but we got the B running, loaded it on the dolly, Mr. GREEN JEANS at Dad's favorite
Deere dealer said the engine needed to be running to lubricate some bearing in the transmission or rearend, so
with it running & loaded we head for home. Hour or two later we get home, park in a barn or shed while it's
still running. This was all happening in December, think it was about April or May before we messed with it
again. We messed with it some to improve starting. I hooked it to the waterwagon to haul water to the hogs in
the pasture, about 50% of the time I unhooked it and pushed it out of the way, I did rake 20 acres of hay with
it one day it started on about the second spin of the flywheel. Keep in mind my Super H did most things wide
open in 4th gear, 6-1/2 mph, the B went about 4 to 4-1/2 mph in 4th gear. The B got used less and less as we
owned it. WE did have enough of the right Green Deere paint and I bought a quart or 2 of yellow for the
wheels, and Dad had a decal set for the R we had for a bit over a Month, the R & B decal sets were identical,
so the week before I left for college I repainted the B. December of 1972 the B we paid $90 for, I put
slightly mismatched 11x38 tires on it replacing poor 9-38's, and repainted it, and it sold for $125.
Over the 21 years Dad farmed, he owned 3 Deere tractors, a '49 R diesel he bought used in December 1964,
was going to be MY TRACTOR for fieldwork from then on. Keep in mind in 1963 I had plowed, disced, mowed &
raked hay, cultivated corn all with the SM-TA FARMALL. We still had 16 acres left to plow that spring when the
Township road Commissioner talked Dad out of the R. The SM-TA was traded for a FARMALL 450 the following
spring. I ABSOLUTELY lived on that tractor spring & summer. We had NEVER hooked anything to the R's pto, we
just engaged it because it also ran the Live? hydraulic system? Oh, and Dad added Char-Lynn power steering
onto the R, it really wasn't easy to steer then, just better than nothing. THE road commissioner did used the
pto to run a 4 or 5 ft rototiller to chew up windows of scarified dirt roads, and proceeded to tear up the pto
drivetrain 4 times in 4 years. I RAN an Oliver 770 diesel doing the same job for 2 years with the same
rototiller with NO Problems. I bet the township is still using that Oliver.
Our Last Deere was a 1963 4010 diesel, supposedly was overhauled with a Deere 4020 kit, and used 5 quarts of
oil per tank of fuel while plowing, Dad had optimistically traded our 4-14 Case pull type plow for a 5-14,
plus he widened our Midwest plow harrow and we were down in 2nd & 3rd gear plowing in old corn ground. On
lighter work it didn't use as much oil, like cultivating corn with 4 row cultivator, would only use 2-3 quarts
a day. The bolt-on rear pto stub shaft was probably the stupidest thing Deere did. I chopped all our corn
stalks with a 6 ft Brillion rotary chopper, mowed 60 acres of hay with it too, NEVER had a problem except with
the cheap junk shearbolts Dad bought for Me to use, He bought Grade 8-PLUS for the Brillion when he hooked to
the 4010, my cheap shear bolts wouldn't survive the engagement of the pto. Anyhow, Dad made too many short
turns mowing grass waterways and mowing around buildings and the pto shaft really hammered, worked the 4 grade
8 capscrews with red Locktite and lockwashers loose and the pto tried shifting from 540 to 1000 rpm, I don't
know what that cost, probably the cost of the Brillion chopper itself.
Anyhow, the Super H is still here, '51 M is still here, the M ground 8000 bushels of ear corn every year it
was on the farm from 1951 to 1972. Dad also had a '47 M he mounted the 2M-E picker on a few years, had a '48
M as his main fieldwork tractor before I was old enough to help. I REALLY had hoped Dad would have been able
to find an 806 diesel when he was tractor shopping in 1968. He kept talking about a 706 gas, which was the C-
263 a 560 gas or 656 had, the 706 diesel wasn't much better, the D-282 had glow plugs.
Anyhow, I bought a New in Box set of IH Fire-Crater pistons, rings, and sleeves for my Super H 2-3 years
ago. I or some REALLY good IH mechanic will over haul the SH's engine, 69 years and it's NEVER been
overhauled, it's my #1 snow mover every winter. It's moved a WHOLE LOT of snow since 1995 when I got it here
in Wisconsin.
