Here"s a comment from a guy who, I guess, would now be called an old-timer. To me, your tractor is not "old"! I grew up on a diary farm in NJ and began driving an F-12 in 1938, when I could not even reach the clutch (somebody had to stand on the drawbar to do it), and started using a 10-20 in the field (alone! imagine what OHSA would say to that today) when I was 10. Also had a fair amount of experience with F-20s, "Regulars", an A and a B belonging to relatives and neighbors. When the H and M came out in 1939, I thought they were the most beautiful things I had ever seen--kinda the way a Piper Cub pilot might have looked at the Concorde when it came out. I got the first chance to drive an H when I boldly asked a cousin who lived nearby if I could "borrow" his tractor for the day. It is amazing that he didn"t say "git outta here, ya pipsqueak, why should I trust a 12-year old with my new tractor?" But he just said "sure, go ahead." Compared with the old bucks I had been driving, this tractor was COMFORTABLE--a good seat, a PLATFORM for your feet, dual foot brakes instead of those levers that were so common in the thirties, and a quiet engine because of a good muffler (they were almost unheard of in the thirties; if they were available, farmers didn"t buy them because they "cost money" when money was short). I know that compared to some of the machines that are available today, with their comfortable cabs, a/c, hydraulic everything, the H and M might seem crude, but to me, they will always be absolutely beautiful. Incidentally, I knew a big-time vegetable and fruit grower who had something like 40 tractors from the letter-series and Super letter-series tractors. He had them restored to perfection by a local mechanic, and used them for very specialized tasks so that his workers wouldn"t have to waste time mounting and dismounting cultivators, planters, sprayers and what-have-you. His total investment was probably less than the price of one big, new tractor, and he had great versatility.
I do have some advice, unsollicited, of course. These "old" tractors do present some dangers that recent tractors may not have. The row-crop tractors of the 30s and 40s have a high center-of-gravity because of the need to clear crops being cultivated. Be cautious on hillsides, AND do not make short turns at high speeds. The H and M are, I think, the fastest tractors in their day. They can do nearly 18 mph in 5th gear when not pulling a heavy load. The brakes MUST be locked together, and they MUST be adjusted to work evenly. One brake applied sharply at high speed is an invitation to an upset. On tractors like this, there is no protection for the driver if the machine overturns. The power take-off used to be a really dangerous device when the shields were left off. Lots of people just didn"t want to be bothered with the shields. Some of these people got their clothes entangled in the PTO shaft and, well, you can imagine what might happen to a human body being flung up against a machine at 540 rpm. The modern shields that go all the way around the PTO shaft, but do not turn with the shaft, are a much better arrangement. A lot of accidents with tractors and machines happen because people are in a hurry. An uncle lost most of one hand in a corn picker, because he couldn"t take the time to turn off the PTO shaft before he reached in to pull out some corn that was clogging the machine. Same thing used to happen with combines that got clogged up. I learned at some point to treat tractors and farm machines with great respect. Even if you do nothing more than a little mowing or bush-hogging, you have the same dangers as you might encounter with a farm machine.
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