On Tue, 18 Nov 2014 12:27:07 -0500, wrote:

On Tue, 18 Nov 2014 08:33:22 -0600, dpb wrote:

On 11/18/2014 12:20 AM, wrote:
On Mon, 17 Nov 2014 23:59:49 -0600, wrote:

On 11/17/2014 7:27 PM, wrote:
...

My kid brother has an old Allis D series - I think it's a 17 - about
a 1958 model?

That'd be early one; first series was '57 thru '59 or perhaps '60;
stayed in production thru the Series IV up to about '69 or '70...ours
was a Series II in '60 or '61.
The stove on his manifold was burned through - didn't run worth squat
'till I found him a new manifold. Too much EGR!!!
He's got one of those crappy old British International tractors too -
a B414 diesel with a front end loader. Darn things never did steer
well with a loader on them - you need biceps like Popeye. Miserable
things to start anything below about 55 F too. - even with new glo
plugs.(and almost perfect compression).

"Know nuthink!" about British International but one had to be a man
before power steering on any of 'em. The little WD45 was bad enough,
the old Twin City steel wheel was nearly impossible to get out of a
furrow in the sand out here. It was relegated to the equipment line by
the time I was working in fields but it still ran and used it some for
spot duty. Even around the farmstead on hard ground was all I could do
to turn it at all at age 12 or so...
The old Massy was easy to turn compared to the 540. We had a big
counterweight on the back, but you still pretty well had to have the
bucket on the ground to turn the front wheels. The Massy was something
like 8 or 10 turns lock to lock, from what I remember, and the 540
and the B414 were closer to 6

When I was 10-12 and started driving, we had two old Massey-Harris's
(about 50 hp) and a JD D-model popping johnny. They were all bears at
that age. Especially the first time over a cut over rice field. I
remember pulling a 3-bottom plow once, never used one again.

I once broke two of the hub mounting bolts on a Case 932 (row crop
version) when I fell in some ruts from a stuck JD 5010. The whole
damned tractor with its Taylor-Weigh (sp?) disc-plow spun 90 degrees
and dropped in the ruts. No way out but to follow them out.

When I came out the other end, I noticed the left wheel precessing in
a big arc. We fixed that, then the next day, the front wheels rotated
under because the row crop clamps weren't up to cut over rice field
duty. My great uncle Bill (same guy who made the awful Austin
lawnmowers) welded them solid with nickel rod.

The next day he got to apply the same treatment to the arms on the
splined sockets on top the front wheel spindles. This was on one
measly 26 acre field. Took a week counting the repairs. Never
underestimate the havoc cutting a field wet can create.

Pete Keillor

(above formatted for Lloyd )