Less then restoration?

People ask me at setting shows and parades if I "restored" my tractor my self. Not really. I stopped all the oil leakes. put on new brakes and steering wheel. Spent near 100 hours on the tin work, and did a barnyard paint job. It won't win any prises, but I'm darn proud of it. But what would you call what I did? Must be a word better then I "fixed" it up?

Plumcrazy---Just call my efforts renovation. Sounds better than "fixed it up" and way more truthful than restoration.

You "restored" the brakes, tin work, paint, seals and gaskets, steering wheel. All to bring it back to what it was when it left the factory. The engine must not have needed to be restored(it was still working). The paint job is probably a better paint than was used back at the factory. I vote for restored. gobble

Ask 100 people the definition of "restoration" and I dare say you'll get that many different descriptions. To me that word means a complete return to original equipment specs, with original equipment parts including "period correct paint". Very few people can afford to do a "period correct" restoration. I don't belittle anyone for trying to make their pride and joy as correct or at least as nice as they possably can. After all that's what a hobby is all about. My compliments are more free to a Father and son project that shows a lot of time and care taken, than toward a $20,000 restoration that is fresh out of somebody's professional restoration shop. In all these years I guess I haven't heard "The Word" that most accurately describes the craziness that we do, But I suspect the word "restoration" was a tough one for Mr. Webster to define.

"Restoration" covers a lot of different things that we do to these.
"Complete" or "Total Restoration" would be where basically everything has been taken down and refurbished.
One thing that is funny is that some of the excellent paint jobs are 10 times better than what they had when they left the factory. It is not uncommon to find under painted areas and paint runs on original paint tractors.
The products of today such as clear coats did not even exist when these were produced.
No matter how they look, mechanical reliablity is always at the top of my list.

what about rebuilt the brakes? renewed the steering wheel? i just dont like the word restored, because it gets abused.

I call it refit. I did not use all MF parts. I did not take the wheels back to factory colors. It has an alternator. The engine compression has been upped and the gauges are VDO. I used all modern practical methods. It still took 5-7K to take a fencerow find into something presentable. I have had it in a show.

Aaron

When my son did his for his senior project in HS, one sage said if he didn't take it apart down to the last bolt and nut and replace all wearing parts to new, off the factory assembly line specs, he didn't do the job. so, based on that, he didn't restore it.

He spent almost 500 hours, had it pretty well torn down, all sheet metal off, replaced parts as necessary, cleaned and completely repainted.
Had a substantial amount of $ involved. But he didn't get the job done according to this sage.

Easy, call it "Unabused". When they look at you with a confused look, simply tell them you spent years abusing it and got tired of how bad it looked, so you fixed all the broken things and prettied it up again so it's now "Unabused"!

Rebuilt is usually the word for engines. "Reconditioned" for assemblies, and per cent and "restored" as in 70% restored?

Gordo

I "recondition" my tractors. The definition of restored seems to be restored back to exactly the way it came off of the factory assembly line. At least to the guys I run with.
I use mine, so they need to work well and be reliable. I will convert to 12V, replace sediment bowls with a ball valve and inline filter, My Farmall Super C has fenders off of a Farmall 240. I installed the gauges in a custom aluminum box attached to the touch control levers so they are easy to see.

The word to use is "YES".

you may want to add resurrected in the phrase to describe the restoration efforts ,, as for the old sage purist skrw, let him blow his ideas out his back side ,, and check the fruit on his own tree,,,. ,,,,, we have become a nation of critics , complainers and do nuthin whiners,, this demoralize the itsy bitsy spider to the point that few what to weather the rain to get to the sunshine for fear of once there in the sunshine, risk getting tomatoes thrown at them or the govm't and corporate greed communism pulling the rug out from under them ...

Thats an interesting handle you got there, "Plumcrazy".

Back in the late '80's I went to a truck and tractor pull, and one of the trucks, can't remember if it was blown and injected, or naturally asperated and injected but it was a beauty, and it was called "Plum Crazy". As I recall, it was a '40's or '50's Chevy, painted high gloss purple, and a beaut. Seems to me from memory that it took its category too.

Anyway, is an interesting handle.

Mark

I put mine back in operating condition......where they hold oil and crank, less the barnyard paint job. Paul

How about the guys that go around your tractor finding fault and nit picking things apart after you have spent big $$ and lots of time on it.? I ask them where is there tractor ?, "Oh it is home in the shed ,it s not finished or not good enough to show" . I have no time for those types & have been known to make a remark to them, Keep your comments to yourself then. clint

Re-stored means you take the tires off put it in the shed and leave it for the winter, unless you never stored it before than it would be stored.

Having been in auto restoration shops and see what a restoration actually is has cause me to not call any of my tractors restored. I like to take it really down and go thru every thing but I do take short cuts that a restoration shop would not take. I have been ask the same question but answer as you said. (It has been repaired and painted to the best of my ability)I don't restore, I just repair. I also take libertys in making some slight changes to the original design and specs.

I don't think I have put an engine back together to factory spec for over 20 years.
Example

Refurbished is what I would call your fixed units.

Refurbished in my opinion can leave a tractor as good as new, better than new with added or changed item such as better lighting, shade, electrical system, etc.

I never restore, I refurbish.

In the used-car trade, what you did used to be called "reconditioning."

My dad and grand-dad ran a tractor shop for 30 years after they quit selling new cars, and all they EVER did to a tractor was "recondition" it for resale. Sometimes that included replacing parts, sometimes that included rebuilding or refurbishing an assembly, most always included a credible repaint...but NEVER was considered a "restoration."

"Successsfully Repaired"

"Plum Crazy" was also the name of the distinctive purple paint on Dodge Challengers and other Mopar muscle cars back in the day, IIRC.

All I would say to anybody who thinks they "restored" a tractor is,go to the Henry Ford Museum and look at the old tractors on display. It'll humble you. I'll never call anything I do a restoration because I could never do anything like that to one.

i do that too, i call it 'refurbished' to return a tractor to original looking, fully operational condition to be used as a working tractor or sold as a working usable tractor, thats what is nice about most tractor shows, your well recieved by normal folks weather you bring a 8n that you sunk 20 grand into, or a 706 ih, that you had in the cow pen yesterday, id umm, powerwash that thing first however lol

Re-store

–verb (used with object), -stored, -stor·ing.
1. to bring back into existence, use, or the like; reestablish: to restore order.
2. to bring back to a former, original, or normal condition, as a building, statue, or painting.
3. to bring back to a state of health, soundness, or vigor.
4. to put back to a former place, or to a former position, rank, etc.: to restore the king to his throne.
5. to give back; make return or restitution of (anything taken away or lost).
6. to reproduce or reconstruct (an ancient building, extinct animal, etc.) in the original state.


...it is all in the eyes of who is looking at it.

I call it PRESERVATION so the next owner will have something to work with when he wants to restore it.

I think refurbished is good it kinda adds a disclaimer to the project just in case you want to sell it and the buyer launches a piston through the block the following week and tries to come back on you. I sometimes used do a walk around with a late friend of mine at tractor shows and his gauge was checking the drawbar hitch pin hole for elongation as to how much detail was put in the project, I"m not sure I agreed with that one I can"t remember when I"ve seen an H Farmall with a pristeen drawbar hole but the rest of the tractor looked flawless to me. IMHO

(quoted from post at 14:05:20 02/27/11) "Plum Crazy" was also the name of the distinctive purple paint on Dodge Challengers and other Mopar muscle cars back in the day, IIRC.

Click to expand...

Correct.

I know with cars they call it a "survivor" meaning it has only had service work and parts that need replacement replaced. Restored is where everything gets replaced or rebuilt.

I just stick with the terms "fixed up" or "fixed up and painted". I would not presume to call any of mine "restored", because they're not. They run good enough to make it through a few parades, and look good enough to the people who are watching them go by.
The correct police would have a field day with them, as they all have a few minor things on them that aren't perfectly "correct". But as long as I am happy with them, that's all that matters!

I haven't seen the word overhaul in any of the responses up to this point.

That still doesn't quite cover what you have done with your tractor.

Myself, I tracked down a family tractor, a '47 Farmall BN, and found it in awful shape, with a stuck motor half full of water. It took several years (most of that eaten up by delays, not by details), but I got 'er done.

Along the way every exposed/visible surface was taken down to metal and repainted with a paint of better quality and durability than the original stuff. All but one bearing and seal were replaced, and they will be when I one day noodle out why my first three efforts to remove the carrier failed. Some parts were reworked, some were replaced. The coil cap on the magneto was not pitted so badly that a little Armorall couldn't bring it back to life, and the original Delco-Remy cover on the cutout relay cleaned up and took new paint nicely. So up to that point it was technically a restoration.

But in a very few places, the dot head bolts were broken off in removal or looked untrustworthy and new bolts put in their places. And the 113 motor now has 3-1/8" Fire Crater pistons in place of the original step-heads. I grew up on that tractor, learned to drive on it, in fact, and chose to leave the egg in the hole on the drawbar as my own little way of acknowledging how hard and reliably this little tractor worked for a lot of years.

So, to the purist who has $30,000 or more to pay for a "true" restoration, it is just a loving overhaul. But it doesn't bother my conscience at all to call it a "2006 Restoration" on the signs I'm offered to fill out for it at shows.

Yeah, at one show in particular, there's a vanload of guys who show up every year. They all wear tailored khakis and matching polo shirts emblazoned with the logo of their little club, the Lower B*mf*ck Spark and Ladder Co., or somesuch. Looked 'em up online and found them to be from a wicked affluent community in southern Maine, a place where the natives have been driven out and replaced by the filthy rich from elsewhere. I don't doubt that anyone of these guys could sit down and write out a check tomorrow for a $150K restoration of a Studebaker. And they're as annoying as they are well off. They roam the grounds of the antique truck and tractor show, doing nothing but finding fault with everything they look at. Acouple of them stopped by my tractor and had fun tearing my work apart -- mind, talking for me to hear but not acknowledging that I was even there.

Got behind a couple others of them in line at the lunchstand one day. They were going on like the Muppets Statler and Waldorf about two or three machines they'd looked at. I overheard about enough and, like somebody else suggested, stuck my nose in and asked them where their machines were, as I'd like to see how it ought to be done. Whaddaya know! They didn't have anything there. If ya were to ask me, I'd say their talk is about like a bitter spinster callin' somebody's baby homely. Don't let them bother ya.

My BN is my princess. Then there's my SuperC. She ran when I bought her, but she'd been stuck before, and "whoever" freed her up by pullin' her and poppin' the clutch. It broke a couple of the oil rings, so I overhauled the motor myself (except for the head and sending the crank out to be turned down), overhauled the Touch Control, replacing the cluch and throw out bearing and a few odds and ends. Even for being stuck, she'd been shedded for the fifty years under her belt when I got her, and I've left her faded paint and decals just as they were. She runs just as well as, if not better than, the BN. And I make no pretense about her being restored. Very definitely an overhaul, but just as fine a tractor in every way that matters.

It's a matter of degree. Call the process waht you'd like. You've done the work to keep a fatherly machine running for another few decades. Think about it. My BN worked around the farm as the main tractor for cultivating, and the rest of the year as the utility tractor for 40 years. If someone will take care of her after I'm gone, she'll still be running more than a hundred years after she was built.

Be proud of your work and your accomplishment, and enjoy running and showing your tractor.

Personally I'm not going to worry about it. Mine are mechanically as good as I can get them without being crazy about replacing very serviceable parts with brand new ones. Some are very well painted by experienced painters and some are less than perfect done by me. Doesn't matter I have fun with all of them, and that's what it's about for me.

I call it preserved.