evan_nugget
New User
I wrote this back in high school and found it today. Figured you Oliver guys would like to read it, so here goes:
Memoirs of an Oliver 77
I m pretty sure one of my first words, if not my first word, was "tractor". With a childhood like mine, how could anyone have expected anything different? Tractors have been in my life since the very beginning. I m fairly certain the 3rd or 4th vehicle I had ever rode in/on in my entire life was my grandpa s (Pap s) 1949 Oliver 77. Since before I was born, Pap enjoyed buying, collecting, and restoring old farm equipment, especially tractors. He had purchased the Oliver a while before I was born. From what I remember him telling me, the structure it was in had collapsed around it and Pap had to replace the hood.
I was only 4 months old when my family moved to our new house. A few months later, Pap drove the Oliver over to pull out some shrubs. Somehow, when he was finished yanking out the bushes, baby Evan ended up riding around the yard in Pap s arms up on the old Oliver. I personally think he was trying to get me into tractors since day 1, and it worked. I was hooked. Pap had a pretty large collection of tractors (at least it seemed that way to 7-year old me), I think it was around 9 or 10 in its heyday. I know he had a 66 and possibly another 77, but I m not sure.
They say you don t miss something till it s gone, and it was the same way with Pap s collection. I distinctly remember coming to his house one weekend and when I looked out the back window to see all the tractors, well, they were all gone. I raced down to the sheds, and my fears were confirmed. Every tractor was gone sold at auction. Well, almost every tractor. Parked up close to the side of the shed, out of sight until I walked the whole way down, was the 77. For the life of me, I don t know why he kept THAT tractor, I can only hypothesize it s because Pap s always had a soft spot for Oliver machinery. I more preferred the Farmall H s and the Super C he had, plus the 930 Case (but that s a whole other story).
Neither Pap nor I live on a farm, so we never worked these tractors in a farm setting. That being said, most of the time I ve spent on a tractor (which was a lot of time) has been on the Oliver 77. A great deal of "firsts" involved that tractor. The Oliver was the first tractor I ever drove, with Pap handling the stopping and starting and leaving the steering to me. Once I was tall enough to reach the clutch pedal and see over the hood, Pap had me up on that tractor all by myself. That was the first tractor I ever drove alone. I had never even driven a garden tractor by myself. I went straight from the pedal tractor to the Fleetline Oliver. And boy, did I hate that darn tractor then. Being a 49 model, this Oliver has the older style clutch pedal, stiff with a very long travel. I also usually had to resort to standing on the pedal in order to get it to depress all the way. It was also common practice for me to stall the tractor repeatedly, not understanding that you need to release the clutch slowly, especially when the engine is still warming up. In addition, I usually had trouble starting the tractor, whether it was flooding the engine, draining the battery, forgetting to turn the fuel valve on, or even once going so far as to burn up the starter. All this led me to regard that tractor with a deep hatred. I didn t like it because it was too difficult for 10-14 year-old me to drive, and because operating that big of a machine slightly scared me. But we used that tractor for everything. I couldn t say for certain how many dump trailer loads of brush I ve taken up to the neighbor s farm to their trash pile, how many trailer loads of firewood I ve hauled with that tractor, how many other tractors I ve pull started with that Oliver, how many trees, shrubs, and stumps I ve pulled out with it, and how many times I ve just spent driving around Pap s yard and up and down his road on it. Heck, Pap and I drove it in a parade one time.
Some time when I was young enough to still need Pap s help to drive the tractor around, he and I were driving the tractor with a pull behind mower around the yard when I turned too sharp to the right. I heard a very loud noise, followed by some words my mother said I m not allowed to say. Turns out, the PTO shaft had been broken up inside the transmission from that maneuver. The tractor could still be driven, just with no operational PTO and a horrible grinding noise when it was in gear. We finally got around to fixing the tractor my freshman year of high school. That was the biggest project I d undertaken up to that point, and it was a great time. Long days and nights of disassembling, fixing, replacing parts, and reassembling the tractor, with Pap explaining how each and every part functioned and why it was important gave me a new sense of respect and understanding towards the old machine.
I think I fell in love with that tractor when I was 10 months old; and now, 19 years later, my fondness for it has slowly come back. Today, it and I have a sort of mutual understanding. It s far from the prettiest Oliver fleetline tractor you ll run across, but it gets the job done every time we need it, and it hasn t let us down once (that I can remember). I ve learned a lot of its quirks over the years. Anything from the fact that the tractor will not fully go into third gear for some reason, the right brake is less worn than the left and thus the pedal has less travel, that you cannot drive up a certain hill on our neighbor s farm towing a trailer with the Oliver in 6th gear (I don t want to talk about it), or that the darn thing won t start at all if the throttle lever is anywhere below the 2nd notch. I know it all. But I still have some issues firing the old thing up. I ll crank and crank until the battery s almost run down to nothing. That s when I ll call Pap, he ll come down to the sheds, fiddle with the throttle lever just a little bit, then turn the key. And the damn thing will fire on the second or third crank, every time. And even then, once I let it warm up for a few minutes, I ll gingerly let off the clutch, and the thing will stall. I swear, that 77 s always enjoyed making my life rough.
It s crazy how much use the tractor sees around a 2-acre homestead. I guess that s why it hasn t been properly restored yet. It still has work to do, and we can t afford to have it be unavailable. One of these days though, I ll strip down the old tractor, sandblast and paint it up nice, put some new decals on, and a nice chrome straight pipe. I think that for teaching me so much about mechanics, how to drive a tractor, how to maneuver farm implements and trailers, and the value of hard work, the Oliver deserves that at least.
10-month old me riding around on the Oliver
Riding in the parade was such a fun experience, maybe one day I'll finally drive all by myself.
Memoirs of an Oliver 77
I m pretty sure one of my first words, if not my first word, was "tractor". With a childhood like mine, how could anyone have expected anything different? Tractors have been in my life since the very beginning. I m fairly certain the 3rd or 4th vehicle I had ever rode in/on in my entire life was my grandpa s (Pap s) 1949 Oliver 77. Since before I was born, Pap enjoyed buying, collecting, and restoring old farm equipment, especially tractors. He had purchased the Oliver a while before I was born. From what I remember him telling me, the structure it was in had collapsed around it and Pap had to replace the hood.
I was only 4 months old when my family moved to our new house. A few months later, Pap drove the Oliver over to pull out some shrubs. Somehow, when he was finished yanking out the bushes, baby Evan ended up riding around the yard in Pap s arms up on the old Oliver. I personally think he was trying to get me into tractors since day 1, and it worked. I was hooked. Pap had a pretty large collection of tractors (at least it seemed that way to 7-year old me), I think it was around 9 or 10 in its heyday. I know he had a 66 and possibly another 77, but I m not sure.
They say you don t miss something till it s gone, and it was the same way with Pap s collection. I distinctly remember coming to his house one weekend and when I looked out the back window to see all the tractors, well, they were all gone. I raced down to the sheds, and my fears were confirmed. Every tractor was gone sold at auction. Well, almost every tractor. Parked up close to the side of the shed, out of sight until I walked the whole way down, was the 77. For the life of me, I don t know why he kept THAT tractor, I can only hypothesize it s because Pap s always had a soft spot for Oliver machinery. I more preferred the Farmall H s and the Super C he had, plus the 930 Case (but that s a whole other story).
Neither Pap nor I live on a farm, so we never worked these tractors in a farm setting. That being said, most of the time I ve spent on a tractor (which was a lot of time) has been on the Oliver 77. A great deal of "firsts" involved that tractor. The Oliver was the first tractor I ever drove, with Pap handling the stopping and starting and leaving the steering to me. Once I was tall enough to reach the clutch pedal and see over the hood, Pap had me up on that tractor all by myself. That was the first tractor I ever drove alone. I had never even driven a garden tractor by myself. I went straight from the pedal tractor to the Fleetline Oliver. And boy, did I hate that darn tractor then. Being a 49 model, this Oliver has the older style clutch pedal, stiff with a very long travel. I also usually had to resort to standing on the pedal in order to get it to depress all the way. It was also common practice for me to stall the tractor repeatedly, not understanding that you need to release the clutch slowly, especially when the engine is still warming up. In addition, I usually had trouble starting the tractor, whether it was flooding the engine, draining the battery, forgetting to turn the fuel valve on, or even once going so far as to burn up the starter. All this led me to regard that tractor with a deep hatred. I didn t like it because it was too difficult for 10-14 year-old me to drive, and because operating that big of a machine slightly scared me. But we used that tractor for everything. I couldn t say for certain how many dump trailer loads of brush I ve taken up to the neighbor s farm to their trash pile, how many trailer loads of firewood I ve hauled with that tractor, how many other tractors I ve pull started with that Oliver, how many trees, shrubs, and stumps I ve pulled out with it, and how many times I ve just spent driving around Pap s yard and up and down his road on it. Heck, Pap and I drove it in a parade one time.
Some time when I was young enough to still need Pap s help to drive the tractor around, he and I were driving the tractor with a pull behind mower around the yard when I turned too sharp to the right. I heard a very loud noise, followed by some words my mother said I m not allowed to say. Turns out, the PTO shaft had been broken up inside the transmission from that maneuver. The tractor could still be driven, just with no operational PTO and a horrible grinding noise when it was in gear. We finally got around to fixing the tractor my freshman year of high school. That was the biggest project I d undertaken up to that point, and it was a great time. Long days and nights of disassembling, fixing, replacing parts, and reassembling the tractor, with Pap explaining how each and every part functioned and why it was important gave me a new sense of respect and understanding towards the old machine.
I think I fell in love with that tractor when I was 10 months old; and now, 19 years later, my fondness for it has slowly come back. Today, it and I have a sort of mutual understanding. It s far from the prettiest Oliver fleetline tractor you ll run across, but it gets the job done every time we need it, and it hasn t let us down once (that I can remember). I ve learned a lot of its quirks over the years. Anything from the fact that the tractor will not fully go into third gear for some reason, the right brake is less worn than the left and thus the pedal has less travel, that you cannot drive up a certain hill on our neighbor s farm towing a trailer with the Oliver in 6th gear (I don t want to talk about it), or that the darn thing won t start at all if the throttle lever is anywhere below the 2nd notch. I know it all. But I still have some issues firing the old thing up. I ll crank and crank until the battery s almost run down to nothing. That s when I ll call Pap, he ll come down to the sheds, fiddle with the throttle lever just a little bit, then turn the key. And the damn thing will fire on the second or third crank, every time. And even then, once I let it warm up for a few minutes, I ll gingerly let off the clutch, and the thing will stall. I swear, that 77 s always enjoyed making my life rough.
It s crazy how much use the tractor sees around a 2-acre homestead. I guess that s why it hasn t been properly restored yet. It still has work to do, and we can t afford to have it be unavailable. One of these days though, I ll strip down the old tractor, sandblast and paint it up nice, put some new decals on, and a nice chrome straight pipe. I think that for teaching me so much about mechanics, how to drive a tractor, how to maneuver farm implements and trailers, and the value of hard work, the Oliver deserves that at least.
10-month old me riding around on the Oliver
Riding in the parade was such a fun experience, maybe one day I'll finally drive all by myself.
