A New Project!

It's time for the faithful old Ford tractor I've been using to go back to her rightful owner. I've had her for nearly five years, nursed her through some hard times and enjoyed a lot of good times too.  Without that tractor, Sábado would be a very different place.

I was mentioning this to my good neighbor Rick, the rancher up the road who has so many old tractors on his place that he has never counted them. I asked him if he had anything that might work for me, and he told me he had taken another old Ford in trade for some work he did for a guy.

One thing led to another, and I am now the proud owner of a 1954 Ford Tractor.  I paid almost exactly what the tractor cost originally 66 years ago.  If you want to know how much that was, you'll have to look it up. 😊

Here she sits in Rick's yard, looking kind of forlorn and in need of some love.

One of the main things restorers look for is completeness. Are all the parts there? Doesn't matter too much what kind of shape they're in, as long as they're there.  This one is pretty complete. That missing gauge, along with just about any other part I might need will be readily available from vintage tractor suppliers.

It even comes with a three-way box grader.  The box can be rotated to have ripping shanks plow the dirt, a scoop blade to dig and move dirt, and the blade can be rotated backwards as a drag to smooth out the dirt.  I used that a lot on the other tractor to smooth out the drive after rain.

Missing a few teeth, but those can be bought.

My friend Andy does a lot of work at Rick's place and he had been tinkering with this one.  He stopped by the other day and said he had it running good and asked if I'd like to come drive it a bit, since I had already bought it.

It was indeed running well and in fact my little test drive turned out to be all the way home, a bit over a mile on the county road.  Andy followed in my truck with the flashers going.

Here she is.  My very own tractor.  Doesn't look like much now, but I once had a travel trailer that looked pretty sad, and that turned out okay...

The first thing on my list was to get rid of the front loader apparatus.  I rarely used the loader on the other tractor, and it's just heavy and in the way.  These were for farmers who had piles of manure or grain or other soft stuff to pick up and move.  It's not much good for earth moving, and so far, I have no piles of manure to move...

The loader weighs 850 pounds, so it wasn't coming off with a pair of pliers.  This picture was taken after several sweaty hours disconnecting it at the front.  It's held on with several large rusty bolts that can only be accessed while standing on your head or crawling in the dirt, and on top of that, some previous owner had welded the mounting plate to the tractor!  Thanks a lot, farmer!

I had to use a sawzall and metal cutting blade to cut through some quarter-inch steel, but I gott'er done eventually. The part that's welded to the tractor will have to be dealt with at a later date.

In the above picture I was taking the weight off of the back so I could knock out two large pins that attach the loader at the rear.

Once everything was disconnected, I needed to raise it way up to clear the front wheels as I backed the tractor out.  Luckily I still have the other tractor, and in this case, its loader came in mighty handy.

All Clear!

What a difference. That loader is now a permanent part of my landscape, tucked discretely away in a corner where it will live forever, unless some fool wants to buy it, but he'll have to replace some parts.




I had to remove some of the sheet metal parts to get to the loader mounts, but those will go back on and then I will start tinkering with things.

My Dream is that someday she'll look like this!

Watch this space.  But don't be in a hurry...