Good ole farmer mechanics!

GRRRRR I'm about fed up with people trying to tell me how great of mechanics farmers were/are. I've seen some cars and trucks with half baked repairs but the stuff I've been seeing on tractor and implements is retarded! I'm starting to think that any place in or around farming areas should have a written and hands on test before they sell any farmer parts or tools!

Just have to vent after spending a good deal of time doing some repairs to the haybine I got! Most of the reapirs were needed because yet another farmer should have owned a wrench!


Rick

I think the main concept of farmers being good mechanics is more referring to fixing something in the field with limited resources to keep the machine going. I am sure with a fully outfitted shop with unlimited part resources and unlimited fabrication tools most farmers would repair things at a much higher level. The problem is most temporary fixes in the field became permanent instead of re-fixing it in better environment.

When something breaks,we are "in the heat of battle".we dont have time to"fix it right",we have a crop that needs attention-yesterday!so we cobble it back together to finish the job-thinking we "fix it right" in the "slack"time-wich usually never comes!Most farmers donot have that fully equipped shop and fewer still have a "mechanic"hired to repair and maintain their equipment.

Maybe you should take up knitting instead, unless you find one used by a city/state or road construction chances are most old tractors were probably once owned by a farmer.

(quoted from post at 13:15:44 07/28/11) Maybe you should take up knitting instead, unless you find one used by a city/state or road construction chances are most old tractors were probably once owned by a farmer.

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I have a tractor that was once owned and maintained by the county roads department. I won't even begin to list the number of "make-do" repairs I have found on that tractor. At least most farmers do know when they are in over their heads and will take it to a real mechanic to be fixed right.

Well, you see, this is the beauty of a free county with private property. If it is mine, I can do most any danged thing to it I want. Now me, I am a pretty fair mechanic. I always try to fix something better than it was. I am a pretty good welder (Won FFA State Farm Mechanics award 3 years in a row) I like to clean my welds and paint the repairs. If I need new bolts, I use stainless steel on my boats and stuff around water, for good hard bolts I alway go to the Caterpillar dealership. I do good repairs. Now if you want to see some abused machinery, go down to the county road shed.

Gene

Here is one example. On my Farmall 656 the steering
arm got so I could not keep it tight on the shaft. I
tried re-keying it and it helped for a year or two.
The keyway in BOTH the shaft and the arm were worn.
So I welded it solid. What did I loose? Except that
when somebody else wants it fixed "right" THEY are
going to have to buy the parts and not me.

hello all,i consider myself a fair mechanic and can fix almost anything. apparently he has never been 2 days behind and rain movin in. if you don't know how to cobble it together to finish the job, then sell everything and move to town.most farmers in my area can't afford to have a high price mechanic work on stuff,so we do it ourselves. i have never paid someone to fix my stuff,i am capable of everything top to bottom,front to back.

I am going to sit back and watch this one. I have done both types of repairs, so I can't argue hard either way.............................I have a preference, but I would be lying if I didn't say, "necessity is the mother of all invention"............

If this one gets really exciting, I'll pop an adult beverage and sell tickets!

:wink:

(quoted from post at 11:18:31 07/28/11) I am sure with a fully outfitted shop with unlimited part resources and unlimited fabrication tools most farmers would repair things at a much higher level. The problem is most temporary fixes in the field became permanent instead of re-fixing it in better environment.

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LOL now thats funny! Go look at my BIL who is 58 and has farmed all his life. He would not have a clue as to how to fix something right with unlimited resources and a well equied shop! Got a local guy that stuck a reman engine in a tractor last year. While he had it apart he knew there were so issues line cooler lines and heater hoses that should be addressed. Did he? Nope, tolm me I'll just wait till they go. He also refused to have his injectors tested as per his warrenty on the reman. And he had to be pestered in to at least putting a new clutch, pressure plate and throw out bearing in while it was split.

Nothing wrong with a field reapir to get you through but when it's said and done fix it right.

Rick

Others have already said it...it's not about quality mechanics, it's about getting the job done and making enough to get thru another year. When I moved here my neighbor was an 80 year old farmer across the road. He worked half the township and when something broke he more often than not would cut a piece out of the old wire fencing around the field and cobble it back together rather than drive all the way back to the shop and do it "right". He was my neighbor and friend and his resourcefulness was just about endless. When he passed there was an actual line to get into the funeral home. He would be back earning a living while most would be in the shop waiting on parts.

Hats off to all you farmers who kept your family's feed by doing the repairs you did!

Oldtanker maybe you are fortunate enough to aford to fix everything before it goes to heck but I bet most farmers didn't. I bet all off them would love to fix it right. This day in age makes it 10 times easier to get parts find parts and get advice on fixing it. most of those old timers didn't have that luxary of that! I am very pround of my dad and my grandpa for things they thought of to finish the repair and get food on the table. Oh and I am sorry your brother in law can't fix stuff worth a heck but sounds like you can and you have money to fix things right maybe you can do it for him the "right way" Maybe his reasoning for not fixing suff before it breaks is money money is a driving factor in many repairs. if it grew on trees I would redo everything in new parts and hire someone to do it for me but since it doesn't grow on trees I will just keep making my tractors work and work hard any way I can to get the job done.
again I really think it is neat all the things I have found over the years and say what the heck were they thinking and just how long has thing thing run like this!

Fixing up old tractors is fun, and I am on both sides here. I can understand the need to keep machinery running during planting or harvesting, and repair costs are never going to get cheaper, BUT........... I have seen some "restorations" that would absolutely make you lose your lunch.
We certainly don't fix them up for fun or profit. On the other hand, how many times have you heard
" If he can do it full time for a living, I think I can figure out how to do a little of it "......There-in lies the problem......a good mechanic knows when to stop & get help.....a wrench turner gets in over his head, patches it up, then sells the mess to the unwary. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

My dad and grand-dad ran a Farmall garage for 50 years, from 1941 to 1991. Over the years we've seen about everything, from really great repairs done on the farm to the guy who got mad because the generator wouldn't charge on his Super C, so he removed it...with a sledge hammer.

A lot of the mis-repaired stuff kept my family in groceries when I was a kid...when the farmer finally realized that he was in WAY over his head and finally called us. So while some of it may not have been fun to work on, it was still business coming through our doors. "You can pay me now, or you can pay me later" might not have been our motto, but it dern sure could've been some days.

We had guys who would totally fudge things up before they called us...and we had one guy who brought his H to us every 6 months to have his front wheel bearings repacked, when he used the tractor so lightly that once every 6 years may have been too often to repack those bearings.

With the BIL he has the money to pay to have it done right, he isn't much of a mechanic.....he's just too tight to spent the money. Last year when his haybine was broke my sister told him just go buy a new one we can afford it (they don't take out loans for stuff like that). He patched it back up and is fighting it this year again. Heck he welds up guards!

It isn't that the repairs I have been doing are expensive, they aren't or at least haven't been but I do em right. I always figure if I don't have to the time to do it right where am I going to find the time to do it again! I can see in a pinch putting in a wrong bolt to finish a field but next time yer in town pick up the right one! I blew a hose on my haybine last week and pulled one off another piece of equipment, but while getting a new belt the other day I had a new hose made up and the hoses are where they belong.

Rick

A lot of old potato farmers in Northern Maine used to have the steering wheel in one hand and a welder in the other back in the 50's. At least the two M's I have look like it. I'm from "The County" and have picked my share of potatoes. When it's harvest time they don't have time to wait for for parts to arrive.

i think we can sum this up by just saying they are farmers not mechanics, i happen to be a mechanic and if i went and tried to plant 5 acres of beans there sure would be some good laughs amongst my farmer buddies!

Excellent reply.

Do you realize some day someone may say the same thing about you? In fact someone will probably say that about all of us at one time or another.

Had to laugh out loud at this post. Been going through this on a few pieces of auction equipment I got in past few years. Had a stack wagon that had so many bits and pieces welded to the second table to keep it together it amazed me. With all the time spent tacking on the junk the guy could of just taken it off and fixed it right. Took me a full day to cut and grind all the junk off so I could start with a clean sheet to repair it. I have said a few times farmers shouldn't be allowed to work on equipment with some of the stuff I have seen. I do remind myself that farmers are also the only ones that have to buy everything at retail prices and are forced to sale at wholesale paying the freight both ways. I've changed this old adage to "Everyone gets paid except the farmer". Sure glad some days farming is my hobby and not my profession. I do respect the guys that do this for real.

I can understand the frustration of what you might have run into, but . . .

I came back into the BN that my grandfather and his father bought new in '47. It's what I learned to drive on. It had got out of the family and left out for a few years when I tracked it down. A wreck with a stuck motor. Motor job is good. New bearings and seals from stem to stern. Stripped to bare metal, and the closest thing in the end to a resotration that my skills could manage.

But the imp in me thumbed my nose at the correct police, and painted and put back some of the bent nails and twisted fence staples that one or another of my forebears had made a field repair with. For all her new clothes, it makes it feel to me like the tractor I knew.

So that's one side. To step back and take your side for a minute . . . The picture is of me at seven years old in the seat of that same tractor, with my little brother in my lap. Notice the tread running backwards on the tires.

What I found when I went to start overhaulin' her (some 40 years after that picture was taken)was that the lugs on one rim had been welded to the wheel. Got it cut apart and found that they must have run too long with a couple of bolts loose, and egged out the holes through the wheels. So they welded her up to finish cultivatin' the beans or corn. At some point they decided to change their row-spacing, but had cut their options for spacing their wheels in half, thus the backwards tread. I did grumble about that one, but I did find a wheel and original rim to put at least that part of it back in order and have the wheel spacing I want.

So I can sympathize with your sentiment, but urge you not to get too spun up about it. As others have said, a lot of those repairs were made of necessity, whether to get the job done ahead of the weather, or just to get the machine back to the front of the farm. If the makeshift repairs held, they stayed where they were. One could argue that if they are still there, they were good repairs. ;8^)

Guess I was always taught 2 things.....if it's worth doing it's worth doing right and if ya can't find the time to do it right where are ya gonna find the time to do it over????

Rick

Personally I am amazed that guys are able to keep their equipment running with a fencing pliers, crescent wrench and a hammer. I watched our hired man replace a sickle section with nail pulled out of fence post. We were 5 miles from the home place and didn't have the time to drive all the way back for a rivet. Luckily we had a spare section in the toolbox. He clipped the nail and it served as the rivet we needed.
The F-20 I was gifted had been driven off a bridge by an enebriated hired hand (who survived with a few bruises) early in it's life. My granddad was Scottish.....IE frugal. Consequently he found a guy to weld up the pedestal, throttle linkage, air filter, carb, etc. Those repairs help up for 40 years. One of my buddies argued that I should leave it that way when I restored it. The correct police in me nudged me to search out pristine used parts. If you think about it I stripped some of the character out of the tractor when I made those improvements. Now it's just another nicely restored F20. In hindsight, I probably should have left it as is. Lesson 1 - One should temper their criticism unless they understand the circumstances. Lesson 2 -Not all farmers have the means or skill set to "do it right." Lesson 3 - Sit down, grab a beer and enjoy the experience. So ends the lesson.

The farmer may have been low on money. The farmer may have been short on skills. The farmer may have lost an arm or eye or have an illness. The farmer could have scrapped the machine.

Now that it is in your hands, and you have endless cash, outstanding skills, full dexterity, put it together your way.