good old days

Wes bringing up the subject of a JD 50 brought back memories of cutting corn back in the early 1960's. We had our S-88 on a NH 800 chopper with a two row head. We had two flat bed hay wagons (one 17.5 ft. and one 16 ft.) that we put 4 ft. high side racks on with a false end gate for hauling chopped corn. We pulled the bigger of the two with an 88 and the 16 ft. wagon with our JD 50. We had our $125 dollar Cockshutt 30 with the hole in the block on the belt running the blower. Our hired man at the time (Mac) drove the 88 and I drove the 50. At the time Pop's 88 was tuned to an honest 49 hp. on a dyno. The JD was around 30 hp, and you lost another 1-2 hp. through the power steering unit, so the 88 had a 20 hp. advantage over the 50. Mac was constantly ragging on me because he could get to the barn, unload and be back by the time Pop had a wagon loaded and Pop always had to wait for me. Being a kid, this always drove me nuts.

I piled an incredible mount of abuse on that poor old JD 50 trying to cut my turn-around time. Once you came out of the corn field there was a level portion of the road for a couple of hundred feet and then a short hill that elevated 6-7 feet. Mac simply shifted to 6th gear as soon as he was out of the corn field and away he went. The only way I could get onto 6th was hold the governor wide open until the thing peaked out, snap the shifter out of 5th gear and jam it into 6th gear (without the use of the clutch) and if I timed it just right, I could get over that next hill in high gear with the rpm's so low the front end would jump every time the engine fired. Then I'd hold the governor wide open from there to the barn. We used an AC table style blower and I'd fork corn off the back of that load like a madman. All of this idiocy did actually shave about a minute and a half off my turn-around time and I would be coming into the corn piece just about the time Mac was finishing off his load. I am amazed to this day how that poor old 50 withstood that abuse and didn't simply collapse into a pile of parts in the middle of the road. That 50 was also our loader tractor from around 1958 to 1967.

Those were the days.

I know comments have been made here about the inefficiencies of upright silos and there is some validity to that but there is nothing more "romantic" in the business of farming from back then than filling the upright silo. Especially when you are younger and are not shouldering the financial aspect of farming. For many farms it was the one time when you got to see the whole fleet in action so to speak. And it was not as physically draining as putting up small square bales in the barn especially if your farm did not use a baler with a kicker and basket wagons.

You were lucky that 50 held together ! I have spent a lot of hours in 2 cyl. trannies because of people who shifted them on the fly ! They were not designed to do that.

Many fond memories of filling silo when I was a youngster. We had a one row JD chopper with a Wisconsin engine instead of PTO. I still recall the sound it made under a heavy load. The wagons had no hyd. lifts, so each wagon had a rough sawn oak frame on angle iron for a "pull frame" with 2 cables attached. Needed a designated "pull tractor" to unload. My job was to get up in the silo and stomp down the mound to the sides. Blower was JD belt driven. Women cooked a giant noon meal.

I resemble these statements only in my case the victim was a Farmall H. Never did hurt it. Ten years later I respected the bigger tractors it was a privilege to drive.

We used to race home from the threshing run against a Deere model B. Of course the H farmall would only go as fast as the stop in the governor allowed you but the other guy could reach right down onto that governor spring on the Deere and really wind it up. He didn't dare leave it there very long though so we always won with the H.

Pete if you want to make a H get up and roll take the spring out of the gov. and go to the hardware store and buy a new spring just a 1/8 inch shorter and you will see a big difference.

Bob

For some reason that just reminded me of a story Dad told about Uncle Donald. Uncle Claude had an Oliver 88 diesel and a Fox one row chopper,two false engate wagons and an AC table blower. They used to do custom chopping and probably filled every silo in three zip codes around her at one time or another. Dad said he and Donald were in an upright one time walking around packing it,because they'd fill one in half a day and couldn't wait for it to settle. Anyway,they were filling one with no roof. He said Donald looked up and saw the clouds going over. He dove on his face in the silage and yelled "Hang on,it's going over". lol

That would make me stain my underwear especially as I have seen very few silos under 30 feet of height. Dad did a little custom filling after he bought the 4010 diesel new and a new 2 row IH forage harvester.

There is just something about silo filling. It is many peoples (and my) favorite job. Dad did lots of custom work in the 60's and 70's with his two new 4020's. They tore up alot of old equipment like running 540 pto blowers at 1000 rpm. I do not even know where to start and maybe it should be a new topic. Tom

Oh I understand the governors on the H quite well as I have repaired many. But , when you are a 12 year old kid, pulling on the throttle harder doesn't make the H go any faster.

Dad tells story of him and buddy filling silo in 40's. Smart a## kid up in silo running distributor pipe. At end of last load for day buddy took watermelon ,wrapped in old shirt ,screaming loudly, chucked it in running blower, kid just about fell down chute. Dad and buddy still laughed about it 40years later. Never got to run distributor pipe when I was kid . They had gone to permanent pipe on each silo. Lucky me, that was the dirtiest job.