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Old rope steer tractor?

A

Anonymous-0

Well-known Member
Anybody ever see a picture of a rope steer tractor? My neighbor is 90 and remembers the farm up the road was quite progressive and bought a tractor steered by ropes. He remembers them getting to the end of a row and the tractor getting away from the operator and heading for the bank. The operator yelled 'hey Arron, shall I reverse her or let the d#m thing go over the bank?' I'd like to show him a picture. Thanks! joe fabregas
 
GOOGLE "rein-drive tractor" or "Power Horse".

There were a number of other brands, as well.

<img src = "http://www.farmcollector.com/cache/phpthumb/Static/1106/ph17-gallery.jpg">
 
I believe it's called a LaCrosse. A club members family had one.After his Mother and Father passed away, They donated it to Mt. Pleasant Old Threashers at Mount Pleasant Iowa.
 

that could have been a sampson, built by general motors when durante was ceo.
see under tractor photo on this site.
1919 sampson iron horse
 
I"ve seen this one in my lifetime. To reverse it you pulled both ropes back. Better not use too much throttle or it was hard to control.The Power Unit they used to say was from an AC WC.To change Gears etc. you had to stand alongside it.Braking was by another Rope seperate from the Steering Ropes. A stupid design I always thought.My dad came near buying one back in the 40"s when Tractors were hard to get.
 
I found my picture. There was a 1914 LaCrosse, 7-14 HP 2-cylinder engine that steered with reins. Called a LaCrosse Rein-Drive. At Mount Pleasant Iowa.
 
Before my sister and I were big enough to ride the grain binder, my father rigged a system of ropes where he could steer a Fordson tractor while he was riding the binder.

He told of one time one of the steering ropes broke, and when he tried to pull the clutch rope the clutch rope broke too. He had to let it run in circles while he jumped off the binder and got on the tractor.
 
No- not from the WC, it was the B/C engine that powered that unit. One writer thought it was the forerunner of the skidsteer- that was total BS! Skidsteer was invented by Edie Velo, turkey farmer from MN, who went to a blacksmith shop in
Rothsay, MN in the late 50s, and wanted a little machine to clean out his second story turkey barns. Voila!!! That is how Melroe, Bobcat, got started!.
 
Well thanks for the enlightenment.Like I said it was a long time ago and I was a little Kid having been born in 1937. I remember seeing the one I was talking about up into the 1950's and then I don't know what happened to it.Glad it never came to our place. I had a hard enough time as a 10-12 year old manageing the real Horses and an old 4 wheel John Deere Manure Spreader every Saturday cleaning 10 Calf Pens in what we called the Calf Barn . We Milked around 40 Head of Purebred Gurnseys year around so we always had plenty of Calfs of various ages..
 
Hey- just sitting by the "puter, with some books alongside- it would be in Wendel"s book that he talks about the little bugger, being the forerunner of the skidloader- really a stretch of the imagination. I always thought that AC had some really good ideas...but never maximized their development. They could have done so much better with their tractors if they just put bigger wheels on them- takes rubber on the ground to turn into traction. But, Traction Booster, Power-Shift Wheels, Roll-Shift front axle...they pioneered all of that!.
 
A Universal ? I know where one is and it runs.Steered by leather reins,not ropes.
 
There were several (engine units controlled by reins) if I recall the ref books correctly; they were a transition from horse-drawn to actual tractors. Operator rode on implement or whatever being pulled.
Only one I can bring to mind was the Line Drive Tractor Company, Milwaukie. WI, who built a 15-25 in 1917 with a Wauk 4cyl.
 
Heres a picture of a Rumely Rein-Drive. The fella that owns this,also has a LaCrosse Rein-Drive. Don't know why I can't find pictures of it.
scan0002-1.jpg

scan0001-5.jpg
 
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