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Len Rahilly
10-01-2007 16:56:35
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Re: Row Crop tractors in reply to Tom Arnold, 09-29-2007 10:16:22
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Here is something right out of the horse's mouth. Notice which end I said. This comes from an original IHC brochure for H and M, published in the 1940s:
The tractors are pictured in the first pages of the brochure with the usual dual front wheels.
On pages 6 and 7, under Special Equipment, are pictures of various wheel options. For the fronts:
"Single front wheels for use in crops having narrow spacings." Another picture has:
"Adjustable tread front wheels adapt the tractor for work on ridges. Approximate treads are 8, 11, 13-1/2 and 16-1/2 inches. (Pneumatic-tired wheels only.)"
I grew up on a farm in central N. J. Dairy farmers, who grew corn and beans, usually favored the standard double front wheels. Potato farmers favored the single front wheel, because of the fairly-narrow space between the rows and because later in the season, they "hilled up" the potatoes and really had a little gulley between the rows. The single front wheel worked nicely there. I drove several double front-wheeled tractors ("Regular," F-20, F-12 and H) on my father's dairy farm, and a single front-wheeled F-12 on my grandfather's potato farm. I don't remember that there was too much difference in the way the two F-12s steered. The single wheel might have been a little easier to steer, but it's been over 50 years since Grandpa quit farming, so my memory of the exact difference between the two F-12s is just a teeny, tiny, wee bit fuzzy. In fact, my memory of a lot of things is getting a wee bit fuzzy. My guess is that the single wheel might mire down a little easier in mud, but I have no experience to prove it. I do have one memory of my dad's F-12, and now I can laugh about it. As you all probably know, the double front wheels were on a cast-iron stalk that went down between the wheels. One day, in my early teens, I went out one cold winter morning with a load of manure. Now, an F-12 will only do 4 mph flat out, pedal to the metal, and I was ALWAYS impatient to go faster. I would even hold the governor rod the little bit that it would go beyond the last notch, just to get an extra 10 rpms and go from 4 mph to 4.0001 mph. Our fields had the occasional groundhog hole, and sometimes a sinkhole caused by a washed-out underdrain (or "unnerdreen" in NJ talk). In the snow, these holes were hard to spot. I'm roaring along wide open when WHAM! the whole tractor drops about 2 feet and I find the nose digging into the ground and sliding along. When I got off, I found the stalk and the two front wheels in a sinkhole. The tractor had gone forward several feet before I could stop it. I walked about a half mile back to the house and told my dad, "I broke off the front wheels of the tractor." My dad did not talk much, and this time was no exception. He didn't say a word. He bought a new post and put it on the next day while I was in school. Never heard another word from him. Never used a tractor with wide front axle, but I would guess it would be more stable than a 3-point wheel configuration. One of the dangers with the 3-point type is short turns at high speeds could be dangerous--the kinds of speeds you can get in the road gear of certain beautiful red tractors that I used to drool over when they came out in 1939 (and still do, actually). The wide front axle might be some protection when attempting such foolishness. Luckily, I guess, I was just out of my teens when my father bought his first H, and I was beginning to transfer my interest to whipping around corners in cars instead of tractors. Now when my wife is a passenger, she makes little motions with her hands to get me to speed up (I tend not to drive too much above the speed limit these days).
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