How many people have 1943 H's

He was fortunate to be able to get the H at all, and it came with magneto ignition, no battery, lights, or starter. He farmed with it one year on steel, then managed to get rubber on the front of it by obtaining one new, and one used wheel, and two worn-out car tires. I'll have to ask him exactly when the rears were cut down for rims with rubber tires, but I think that was in the spring of '45. I remember him saying that the H on steel was not as big a jump better than the F12 on steel as one might imagine. While it would pull a bigger load, it was heavier, and with steel all around it would not turn with a corn planter at the end of the corn rows in 4th gear!

I think he added the battery, generator, and lights before the war was over, but the starter may have come later. The mag was replaced with a distributor sometime after the war, and the tractor was only run on gasoline after '46 or so.

A loader was added in about '47. I can barely remember when the loader was new, and it was the first hydraulic loader in our community. The tractor and loader combination was an instant hit with the neighbors, and when someone realized how easily a hog or cow could be hung from the loader when butchering, the tractor became in instant demand! I remember him saying it was gone at one point for about a week, from place to place, when he didn't even know for sure where it was!
The H was the workhorse on our farm until '52, when acreage doubled, and an M was added to the operation. During those years it did the tillage, operated a 2-row pull-type JD corn picker, hay chopper, and did all the other farm chores. We used it hard until the early '60s, when it was retired to light chores and occasional work.

It was the tractor I learned to drive on, and after the M arrived, the H was the one I spent my summers with. I think I could recognize that tractor by not just by sound, but by a hundred subtle little things which became so familiar that they're not just a part of the tractor, but me! I'm in the early stages of prepping it for some restoration work later this spring and summer.

My H is nearly a year older than I am, and the only brand-new tractor my Dad ever owned. At a time when my sister and I were both in college, and bills were high, Dad sold it to a neighbor who had spent a lot of hours working for Dad as a kid. The neighbor hobby-farmed with it on 20 acres for a couple of years, but for most of that time, it stayed in our barn! He would come over to get a tractor for whatever chores he was doing, and often as not, would end up taking the M or SM instead of the H. We continued to use the H for the 3 or 4 years that Jack "technically" owned it. As finances eased in the mid '60s, Dad bought it back from him for the same $$ he'd sold it for. It really never left "home" for more than a few days at a time! Dad is 88 now, and still in pretty good health except for EXTENSIVE arthritis. I'd like to get it back into pretty good shape while he's still around to see it.

I bet that Cub is in the big hangar next to the highway.

• Chucks Farmall Site