2019.06.16 Rust Pic

(quoted from post at 06:53:50 06/15/19) Still another Fordson

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I'm gonna give Goose a break for a day or too. Seems he can't handle seeing too many Fordsons, regardless of the amount of rust. :wink: *lol*

A Fordson was the first tractor I ever drove. I hadn't seen one in years, now they appear to be all over. I recall ours to be kind of a cantankerous old beast.

They had a "wet" clutch that wouldn't release when the transmission oil was cold. After first starting, you had to grit your teeth and jam it into gear until the transmission oil was warmed up and thinned out enough for the clutch to release. They had a three speed transmission with third gear too high to do much more than pull the empty tractor, and that only in rare situations. Ours ran its best when the radiator was boiling. In the winter, when my dad needed to grind feed or something, he would literally build a fire under it to warm it up enough to start.

And on and on. My dad did make an adjustable wide front end under ours before the manufacturers thought of it.

Thanks for the memories.

Thanks for the story Goose. Sounds like your dad was as good with tractors as mine was. First he got a small Speedex tractor. That was a huge step up from the push mower (especially in the Texas heat!), but he also had a disc for making Mom a garden. Seems he also had a plow, but gave up on using it in the hard, sun-baked soil. Was a good thing he was a sheet metal machinist cause he had to rebuild the belly mower.

When the Speedex died, he got the li'l Pasquali 986. Don't think I've ever seen anyone hate a machine more than he hated that one. And as much as he hated it, I loved it! Finally the Pasquali wore out the PTO bearings, so I talked Dad into getting an older, fully restored Ferguson T0-30. Was a beautiful tractor and handled like a dream, but by then Mom had planted too many trees to mow around, so Dad got rid of it. Nothing I could say could make him keep it, and I couldn't take it back to the dorms on base.

Come to think of it, Dad wasn't even as handy with equipment as I am, and I'm "[i:e6e3188982]almost[/i:e6e3188982]" a novice. *lol* His brother, on the other hand, was a great mechanic. Unfortunately he didn't live nearby.

Out of those tractors, the Speedex was the only one I didn't care for. The 3-pt was raised/lowered via a handle to the left of steering wheel. Ah, found a pic. This one somehow looks nicer than what I remember ours looking.