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Me
and My Dad's John Deere Model A
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Hi my name is Randy Brence.... I live in Oklahoma . Last year at Thanksgiving
I was at my Mom and Dad's house and I told my Dad it was time for me to
get a tractor for my place . I had been talking about it for about 4 yrs.
My Dad turned 70 years old last year... he grew up in western Oklahoma
and grew up on the farm. He can remember using work horses to plow
and work in the fields . And his Dad had a Farmall F30 on steel and
he remembers working on that tractor for hours and hours . His Dad never
had a John Deere tractor but my Dad would hire out to other people in the
farm community and he remembers getting to use John Deere Model A, B, D,
and H tractors... he said they were so much nicer to work with than his
Dads F30 and always wanted one.
Well anyhow, at Thanksgiving I asked Dad what type of tractor he would
get if he were going to buy a tractor. I told him not the best deal
on a tractor. I wanted to know the tractor he always wanted and he
said an A, B ,or H John Deere. So we stared looking and found a 1950
model A John Deere 10 miles from his house. My Dad called the guy
who owned it and asked him how much he wanted for it... the guy said $600.00.
The guy said it ran but hadn't been started in 6months and it had also
set outside all this time. The tractor didn't have a hood and had a car
gas tank on it and no cover over the exhaust so everything was full of
water . Dad asked the guy that owned it why it didn't have a hood ? He
said it was rigged to run on propane and the original hood was cut to fit
the tank. Anyhow we offered the guy $400.00 for the tractor
and he said OK. So we started to work on it. My Dad went through
the carburetor and I cleaned out the crankcase and changed the oil.
I bet it had a gallon of water in it. We got all the water out of
the gas tank and put fresh in . We set the choke opened the petcocks and
cranked the engine. At first nothing happend and the cylinders filled
full of gas and it ran out of the petcocks . Well the carburetor float
had a hole in it so we fixed the hole and put it back together. While
Dad was fixing the float, I noticed the right cylinder didn't have any
compression so I pulled the valve cover and the exhaust valve was sticking
so I rapped on it and it came loose. Then we tried again. The engine
cranked over twice and it puffed and coughed. Then we cranked it
again and it turned over one time... maybe twice and it busted off and
blue smoke came out of the petcocks as they spit everytime a cylinder would
fire. Well anyhow.... Dad was like a kid getting a new toy.
Dad got it over to his house and he showed me how the tractor could turn
90 deg. And I found an old hood and a gas tank and painted it.
Dad installed it nd I hauled it to my house . On the way home I had to
stop and get fueled up and I had two people asked if I wanted to
sell the tractor..... at the time I had no idea people collected these
tractors . I told the people thanks for the offer but this tractor belongs
to my Dad and me and I just don't want to sell it . When I got it home,
everybody around came down to see the tractor.... it was a big event.
I got it off the trailer and drove it around out in the pasture doing the
90deg. turn demonstration for everybody .
The tractor is like part of the family now and my Dad comes over and uses
it . When he was here the last time, I filmed him driving it using the
springtooth... he looked like a professional on it .
And thats my story.... thanks for your time .
Randy
Brence
prattr985@worldnet.att.net
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