1942 W4, bought new by my dad

I think it was also changed to distributor ingnition at some point. I recall a session my dad had trying to crank start it all day. At the end of the day after milking his cows as he walked by the W4 he gave a casual flip of the crank and it fired up. I think dad decided at that point it was the end of cranking, no lights and a tempermental magneto for him. I remember the day these options were added, just don't remember if distributor was added, not for certain anyhow.

Hi Hugh, That picture deserves to be on the forum. Hal

Didn't you recently make the comment that standard tractors were bought by old men who couldn't mount rowcrops? I suppose your father must have been in his thirties when that picture was taken. Why did he buy that tractor?

Yeah, some vehicles have a very ridgid starting protocol. I have an antique Harley that requires a pre-start adhearance to my mental checklist. If I forget one step, I could easily work up a sweat getting it started. When I am careful, it will always start in one or two kicks.

They wanted something better and the IH dealer had a good supply of W4s. He never said, however what I saw in later years was big volumes of W4s in the area of early 40s vintage and almost all of them had steel and rubber. I know dad used the steel at first, couldn't get rubber during the war. The Hs down there are late 40s-50s vintage. I suspect row crops were in such big demand at points west. I do know that in the late 40s early 50s the local dealer put together a K5 S/A tractor and trailer to haul Cubs, SA and C from Chicago to Nova Scotia. It was the only way he could be sure of getting them. The old guy that drove the truck, told me the first round trip to Chicago took 2 weeks. It was alway the feeling IH sent whatever was in good supply down east.

I think I also said, dad did trade the W4 for an H in 51, improvement big time.

I love old photos. In fact I love everything thats old or related to history.

Two years ago I went thru all our old photos and wrote the names on the back of who they were. Some VERY good photos my grand-mother had no one knew who the people were, not even my father. I hate to throw them away but what good are they.

Write the names of people on the backs of your old photos. Someone might want to know some day who the kids were on the tractor.