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jcarter: I've used one many many years ago. My first experience when I was roughly 6 to 8 years old. Dad said, " your going to drive the W4 pulling wagon and Cockshutt hayloader." My grand father had done this job in the past, but he was getting a bit vicious on the clutch and hired hands on the load of hay were complaining. He said, You've got a job as long as you don't upset anyone on the load. You straddled the hay windrow with these hay loaders, they picked up the hay and pushed it up onto back of wagon. Usually two men with pitch forks on load would do what they called building a load of hay. Some of these men could build 12' wide loads of hay on an 7' wide wagon. If the tractor driver drove too fast he could bury the guys on the load. They first pulled these with horses and wagon. I don't remember that on our farm. You asked if they are worth restoring, good question. You almost have to keep these machines inside. I can remember dad putting our hay loader away soon as the hay was off. It doesn't take much of a wind to blow them away and usually smash them to bits. Even during haying if dad thought there would be wind, he would park the hay loader in the shelter of trees or buildings. Of course, being built mainly of wood they didn't stand up to the perrils of weather very well. I remember very well, story of an old couple had done this job with horses. She drove the horses as well as tramped hay. He took the hay away from loader placing it building the load of hay. All the neighbors had started using tractors. Angus bought a Farmall Cub tractor with side mount sickle mower. He mowed and raked with Cub, but still used horses on wagon and hay loader, Cub just wouldn't handle the load. Their son and some friends had just come back from military and WW#2. They knew where there was some military hardware at surplus outlets. They built Angus a tractor 4x4 using two military front ends, 1/2 dozen or so transmissions and a 6 cylinder flat head truck engine. By the time they were done it weighed about 8,000 lbs. Angus showed the Mrs how to drive the tractor but neglected to tell her about using the brakes. Hay loading with these had always been about ocasionally stopping to give men on load time to build load and a bit of rest. At the crest of a hill, Angus yelled whoa, she pushed in clutch, and the weight of this home built tractor took them barrelling down the hill, hay was coming so fast and furious, it completely burried Angus, wrecked his hay loader as it was never designed for 20 mph. I've never heard Angus tell this, but understand he'd get quite excited. I did hear him describe the tractor once, he claimed it had pistons like stove pipes, and with all those transmissions, sometimes it would go forward in reverse. This old guy used very colorful language when describing something. A great old guy, he was.
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