Today marked the start of LaGrange County’s annual Steam & Gas show so we got Dad’s antique tractors out. These were my grandfather’s tractors and Dad spent much of his childhood on both of them.
They are both 1940 models. One is a John Deere A and the other is a Ford 9N. They are both in excellent running shape and the John Deere is in great shape visually as well. Unfortunately, the shop that literally took years (I’m not being sarcastic) to overhaul the engine on the Ford left it sitting outside a lot, so it probably needs a paint job.
1940 John Deere A and Ford 9N
Starting the John Deere A is a bit more complicated than pressing the remote start button on your key FOB. It is started manually by hand turning the flywheel. In order to make it easier to turn the flywheel, there is a petcock on both cylinders that you open to reduce compression. Then you turn the flywheel (which turns significantly harder than the Wheel of Fortune game wheel) and once the engine starts firing, you close both petcocks (there’s also some carburetor choke action if you’re cold starting).
After a little cleanup on the John Deere A we took both tractors out to the 4-H Fairgrounds at the John Deer A’s top speed of 6MPH. Sadly, the time has come to find good new homes for these tractors and Dad placed “For Sale” signs on both of them.
There was a lot of activity at the Steam & Gas show and many incredible looking old tractors. Some of them would have been fairly young back in the late 70’s when I was working at LaGrange County Ford Tractor (in High School), so I’m not sure how they could be considered “antiques” (it’s barely been 40 years), but it was still fun to see them.