 My story has a happier ending, I hope yours does someday. When my grandfather died, his son, my uncle, got the tractor, and when he died, a cousin of mine bought it from her stepmother, my uncle's wife. I saw the tractor at her house in about 1985 (and took a picture of it with my son and daughter on it). She and her husband divorced, and she told me that the tractor was in her stepfather's barn and she would let me know if she decided to sell it. A couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, a different cousin call me to say that the tractor had been sold to their stepfather at the time of the divorce (no shame in that, I know about needing money), and that it had been in his barn for 20 plus years, but that he was selling the barn and having an auction the next morning to sell a bunch of old implements, including the tractor. I got the stepfather's number from her and called him right away, thinking I might need to fly down and bid at the auction. He and I agreed that he would ask the auctioneer what he thought the sale price would be, and I could buy it for that, as long as I came to get it right away. So... I drove 4500 miles with a trailer over thanksgiving weekend (worth every inch!), and I now own the 8N that my grandfather bought in 1952 and taught me how to drive on shortly thereafter. Now, _I_ get to teach _MY_ grandson how to drive on it. it needs a lot of cleaning up, but it runs pretty decent, and the hydraulics work fine, now that I have the texas-style 90 weight (laced with water) out if it. Film below of the old fluid, and a link to some photos.
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