JD B

This is one more tractor my dad had,It was not in good shape when he bought it ,he used it for cultivating corn,Later it got in really rough shape,and years after my dad passed away,my nephew fixed it up and painted it,His grandpa would be proud of him. Does anyone have a JD B ,or stories of one to share?

I spent countless hours on a "43 B (hand crank) everything from cultivating corn to picking corn with a 101 semi mounted single row picker. Good old tractor. I have it yet, but haven't restored it.

These are the first two tractors I restored. Both of them came from up around the Omaha Nebraska area. Both are 1936 model B's . Dave

We have a 47 B which I horse traded for my cousin. We traded even up for a 8n ford . My cousin told me he wanted a different tractor but he didn't know what to buy and doesn't know anything about mechanics. Another friend wanted a 3pt tractor wanted to know if I had one,I told him yes and asked if we could trade even up! YOU BET we can so I went and traded and haven't look back. The before and after.

Plenty stories......2 Late Styled JD "B" tractors were all the folks started with..(Run 'em all day, HEAR em all night)..!!!!

You CAN put 3 full tanks of gas thru them, if the Day is LONG enough...!!

Ever heard one with a straight pipe, pulling a 2-14" plow on ONE Cylinder..??
(it aint pretty)..!!


Ron..

Ron..

My late father-in-law used to talk about when his Dad bought a new JD B with a cotton stripper in the early 50's to replace the "illegal aliens" that pulled cotton by hand.
He said it was a pretty big deal since it was one of the first strippers in the area. Other farmers in the area would come by to watch it run and see how good a job it did.

Dad had a '49. Spent many, MANY hours in the seat cultivating corn and soybeans with a four row front mount cultivator.

That first pass over corn with the shields on and running about 1/2 throttle in (maybe) 2nd gear was mind-numbing.

Or, if you dozed off and cultivated out some corn, Dad made sure it was butt-numbing...

Several years ago we bought a pair of rear spoke wheels from a young man in Arkansas.

The young man said that he had bought them to put on his Model B tractor.

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He had been working on his tractor for about 5 years and had lost interest in the project.

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He offered to sell the tractor to us if interested.

The tractor was dismantled, but he assured us that all the parts were still there.

We returned about a month later to get the tractor.

Put wheels and tires on the tractor and loaded it on the trailer for the trip back to NE Texas.

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The young man told us that the originally the tractor belonged to his Uncle Earl.

After about two years, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIjNH2ghdTA&feature=share&list=FL4gFuJx6qHbiK0FRREh2lDw">finally got "Uncle Earl" put back together and running again</a>.

Posted several videos of "Uncle Earl" on YouTube and got a comment from another young man in Arkansas.

He wrote that his father was named Earl and that he had once owned a 39 B.

Not sure if his father was the original owner, but made a good story.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbWw1_yOHUA&feature=share&list=PL9C67AC7D554C5F88">"Uncle Earl" pulls the hay rake</a>, displays the flag on holidays, and once won first place at a car show.

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James how much did those round spoke rims set you back?

I didn't spend many hours on a 50 doing the same thing. But I sure can remember it. Because I couldn't handle it.- Neither turning on the ends, nor the falling asleep! What were they thinking? I would never put a youngster on something like that, creeping along in the hot sun, in my corn?!

We had a late 40's B and I have a photo of it, in the background on the spreader near the barn, I really need to gather up some of these old photos, years go by and things get put away.

Nothing really significant, about the tractor, was an inexpensive addition to the farm early 70's, some shaft inside it snapped, not sure what it was, remember it apart, was sold soon after. I had not been on a 2cylinder Deere in a long time, back in '09 we were using the 620 at my neighbors farm, the ole hand clutch, the sound, funny, the hand clutch on these are the reverse of my D7 Cat, had to pause when I used it, old habits die hard.

I can remember at about five years old siiting with dad "driving" a John Deere B the only thing I remember doing with that tractor was pulling a disc when I was about 12 or so while dad plowed with a WD Allis.

I have a B story. In the early 60's when I was in high school, our neighbor has about 1500 acres in the soil bank,(same as crp now) He wanted it mowed. Dad had a No 9 JD sickle bar mower. I bought a 52 B for $400. I got 1.50 a acre to mow. Got paid every week, he tried to pay every day! I made more money that summer than any kid could imagine. But it wasn't all roses, that ground was rough, and there was junk all over. A lot of days 10 acres, sometimes 20. Learned a lot with that old tractor.

My dad found one sitting along the road one morning on his way to work. Called and told me about it, and I happened to be home from work with a daughter that wasn't feeling well. Later in the day she was feeling better, so we took a drive to look at the tractor. Ended up being a slant dash B, which there are not many of, out there. Had brand new tires on it, good sheet metal, and ran excellent. Guy wanted $1200. I couldn't pass it up for that. Tires alone had to be almost that much. Then I found out it also had a loader with two buckets that came with it. If I wanted it, I could have it, otherwise it would go for scrap. Ended up being a nice little loader with a pto pump for the hydraulics, a very nice snow bucket, and a manure bucket in excellent shape. All in all, a good day to take a drive and look at a tractor.

The wheels were on "Lazarus" our 40B.

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Paid $600 for the tractor just to get the wheels.

Both wheels were stuck hard on the axles.

James I don't recall Lazarus in any of the videos. You junk it? That is one heck of a price for those round spokes. Everything I have seen has been closer to $2,000.

Heck of a good deal!

I know what you're saying, and this is not aimed at you, but it pushes one of my hot buttons.

It was the 60's. Dad worked full time as an industrial electrician in addition to farming.

Older brothers were gone: Two married and on their own, 2 in the Air Force.

Ya did what needed doing. We did a LOT of things that overprotective, lawyer-ridden, nanny-state parents wouldn't dare do today. By 10 years old, I was feeding the beef critters (including climbing up a 40 foot concrete silo and pitching down the silage...no unloaders then), pitching manure with a fork (no loader tractors, and they wouldn'tve fit anyway) and running the spreader by myself (same JD-B), running the disk over fresh plowing (JD-B again) following that with a spring-tooth harrow and cultipacker, stacking hay in the mow (after we moved up to a square baler from an A-C Rotobaler), unloading gravity wagons of ear corn, hauling wheat and oats in the same wagon...you know, all that old-fashioned farm stuff.

You'd probably get arrested for having anyone under 18 doing that today. Can't say I call that an improvement.

First tractor I ever learned to drive was 1941 B for a neighboring family when I was 8 years old. Also a great uncle Earl had a1937 B I learned to drive the same year--1942.

Here's a picture of my two B's. 1937 & 1944 models. The '44 is used almost daily, the '37 is mostly at shows or hauling firewood.