So easy a boy can do it!

I see this phrase used commonly in mounted
implement advertising. I just put the plow on the
Allis G to break the garden. This is one of those
jobs I never look forward to. I am a 39 year old
man, and I always end up bleeding. There's a lot
of heavy, finger pinching pieces to line up. I'm
sure a single bottom plow is pretty mild as
mounted implements go. It begs the question, what
were you boys made of back then?
cvphoto16921.jpg
 
Hello. Back in the day, when I was a lad, it meant backing up the horse to the whipple tree
and then taking hold of those two lovely long sticks that connected you to the plow, and after a couple of hours of manoevering
we had a good piece of garden turned over. I was seven when my dad taught how. I can still turn a furrow with one of those
contraptions. We graduated to a Farmall 230 with fast hitch. Great way to hook up implements.
May the wind be at your back and the sun shine warmly on your fields
 
Worst mounted implement we had was dad's Allis Chalmers mid-mount sickle mower. No matter how careful we tried to be we ended up knocking it off the blocks about half the time. Had to use two jacks to get it back up and attached. It was a dream to run once mounted, but getting there wasn't much fun. I don't think there were very many implements that were truly easy to mount. Two row cornpickers had to be the worst, lots of guys just left them on an old tractor.
 
Putting the 227 mounted picker on the 630 involved a full day widening the rear wheels on the axles and the rims on the tractor, removing the three point hitch completely, wrestling the undercarriage under the tractor and removing the grille and mounting the super snoot. All done without air wrench and on a dirt floor. The next day involved driving into a corn picker that had settled down crooked from the previous fall and took jacking to get it level but there was nothing good to jack under. Once the picker was mounted we needed two good men to lift the elevator into place. We had to make sure we changed oil before the undercarriage went on. I can see why some guys left it mounted on a tractor year round.
 
Wow, two days to mount a corn picker? I once mounted my 237 on a 2510 in less than a day with no help. Not fun but I did get it done. I will agree that mounted pickers were the worst implement to mount. Tom
 
One of the worst things for me was the manual fold pull type rotary hoe,IH tool bar with a JD hoe and I weighed about 80 lb soaking wet.(that is not a problem anymore) I started carrying a small fence post for leverage.
 
My nightmare implement mounting was the two row cultivator on the Massey Harris 44. You slip the square solid bar through the front of the tractor and synch down the hold down plates. Then it got hard.

The very front heavy front sections had to be slid on the square bar sideways.

Then the rear rockshaft had to be mounted to the axle getting the bolts to line up with the slots.

These two items make my back hurt just thinking about them. I always did this alone.

Paul
 
I agree with the replies below about the mounted pickers. Always had to do it myself couldn't even begin to do it now. Another thing was changing heads on combines that weren't quick-tach on dirt, would settle on one side or the other. I don't have to worry about any of it as I retired last fall after 56 years of farming with lots of memories.
 
Worst thing we had was an MT JD. Dad had every implement, mounted plow, 1 row mounted corn picker, belly mower, 2 row cultivator, etc. It had a sticker on the side of the little tractor that said Quick Tach. The only thing quick about that hunk of junk was the fact it was quick to pinch fingers, hands and feet. It took minutes to put the cultivator on the WD45. It took an hour or more to mount up anything to that darn Deere.
 
Tom if I wouldn’t have had to move the rear rims on the 630 from dished in to dished out and remove the three point sway blocks it would have been a lot easier. We had the rear rims dished in to space the wheels narrow enough for the mounted plow. And again, no air tools. I was the kid so I got stuck with the job. I’m glad those days are over. I have heard of guys taking off the dual wheel narrow front and putting a single wheel front on the tractor for mud clearance. Someone mentioned the old non-quick attach heads on the Deere combines. When I took the 635 corn head off of the 105 I was very careful to block the head at just the right height and level so it would go back on easier. If the head dropped or moved just a bit when I backed away from it I knew I was in for a bigger job getting it back on. You are probably familiar with what I am talking about. The younger generation who grew up with quick attach equipment don’t realize how good they have it.
 
That?s a nice setup you?ve got there with the plow up front and the cultivator shanks in back you could plow and drop the cultivator to break up the plow pan
 
One thing that might help is if you would make a jig to hold the implement in the proper position while your installing the pins/bolts. When I worked in industrial maintenance we often had to change big heavy awkward parts and we designed jigs to hold them in the right position for installation. I have built a nice rack to hang my post-hole auger from so I can easily mount it, and I built a lifting jig for installing my wheel weights, they weigh about 200 pounds apiece.
 
Ther worst part of mounting a 227 picker on a late A was sliding the wheels out and after harvest sliding them back in. No 3 point to mess with and I would not have put it on ever if I had one. See no use for a 3 point on any 2 cylinder Deere. And that elevator mounting was not bad if you did it acording to the book. When you took picker off you turned around and put the elevator on top of picker with elevator top end over front snout. If I remember correctly you were to lay a 4x4 across the picker for it to lay on. The tractor would lay it down into place. And when you wanted to put the picker back on you put the elevator on first and tractor did all the work. When I bought the picker widened out the wheels early and drove it 25 mile to where we mounted the picker. Think it took 2 days to mount but that included time to find the correct mounts as the ones for an A are different than for a 70D and drove it back home that 25 mile. Just had to drive so no bounce. Used it several years untill it broke a shaft on husking bed. Bought a parts picker but never repaired it. At that time we had gotten a 45 combine with 210 head so did not need the mounted picker to poen fields any more. Got a 2 row pull type to do what picking we wanted. The front mount cultivators both 2 or 4 row were not bad to mount on either the late A or B. Now on the unstyled 38 A it was a different story as they did not have the quick-tach mounting. In a half hour I could have the front end of the 4 row mounted and I cannot see a MT 2 row being that hard to mount if you had all the correct parts and read the operators manual to know procediure. That quick tatch on the cultivator was easy to mount. and the quick tach should have been an easy job to mount a No 5 mower
 
I forget the procidure but I think my IH hoe folded them up by itself only having to pull them into place to put transport bar on. I had the Ih sections but also had a JD 4 row drag hoe and hated them as they would not penetrate my ground. I got rid of them as soon as I could and got a Ford hoe that was a dream do use against the IH or Deere.
 

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