Another Farmall H joins the fleet

[JPrattico]

My father purchased this local H for cheap in an auction. With a running H and M already on the farm we don't really have a use for it but for $500 we can't lose either way. The future of this tractor depends on whether or not it can be brought back to life. If it can, its an incredibly cheap running tractor. And if not, it has lots of parts that can be used to keep the other H and M going.

 

[mgwin]

Always love it when people try to rescue any old tractor. When they are gone, there are no more left!

 

[JPrattico]

Always love it when people try to rescue any old tractor. When they are gone, there are no more left!

yeah, its a shame. I really don't want it to end up as a parts tractor, I'm gonna do what I can to get it going. It's a late WWII tractor, built 1944, so it has magneto ignition and appears to still be 6 volt. Radiator is empty so the cooling system is questionable. If the magneto is still good I think it'll run. Everything appears to be there except the front grille and a seat.

 

[JPrattico]

People like this disappoint me.

 

[JPrattico]

oh it gets better!

because I told him I wasn't going to part the tractor out he's accusing me of acting like I know more than him. Not the case at all, I just hate to see a perfectly good machine get parted out!

 

[jkoenig]

Good for you JP. I have run into a few with parts that I wanted, but if I removed the parts I wanted, I would have caused a running tractor to become a parts roller, and that is not me either, so I have passed on those deals.

Good for you saving this one, and your 107, and whatever others you have saved, or will save!

 

[1811Cub]

I prefer to save them whenever it is humanly possible. Once they are gone, they are gone forever! Sometimes, it isn't about economics...

 

[JPrattico]

in my anger I realized that I never updated you all about this machine, and the good news is that it does run and provided i can find a few replacement parts it will be driveable. As mentioned I need rubber bushings in the coupling between the engine and transmission and possibly the mounting bolts, though if i must I can make the current ones work. I have a feeling that when the rubber bushings went out and it started making a racket they parked the tractor thinking the transmission had shredded a gear. The whole tractor is in pretty good shape still, and though it smokes a lot I think it's just stuck rings from sitting. The cooling system even worked, turns out it still had coolant in it, the level was just a bit too low. Its a little rough at idle but when you throttle it up it runs really smooth.

so basically, it runs, and it smokes like a train. First video is how it ran upon first startup, its only firing cylinders 1 and 3 resulting in sounds similar to that of an old John Deere. Second video is after cleaning the spark plugs on those 2 cylinders. Running much better.

 

[tkhoffman]

Someone mounted one rear tire backwards. Fix that and it should run better.
Seriously, what's the plan for #2 cylinder? Maybe a little marvel mystery in the cylinder for a few days?
It's true that you could probably make money parting it out. Friends do great parting out old motorcycles. BUT keep'n them on the road is more important to me. Same goes with your tractor, making it live again is so much more rewarding. Good luck

 

[mfrade]

It's the same deal with my 34 coupe. Guys want to tell me all the things I should've done or things I did wrong.. My answer is simple, it's the "Golden Rule"! He who has the gold makes the rule! I didn't build mine for you.. I made it for me. So get over yourself.

 

[dfrisk]

There were a LOT more M's than H's around where I grew up in NW Illinois, about 25 miles from where all those M's and H's were built. The H's were used to mow&rake hay, do hog chores like haul feed to the hog & cattle feeders.
The "Before" video that H sounds better than a JD B, the closest model to the Farmall H. Dad bought a 1940 JD B winter of 1968 after he traded the '39 H off for the '54 Super H. I tried to use the B for some things it could handle but it was so slow, and boring to run with no tractor radio, no electrical system at ALL, no hydraulics, and a choice of only 4 painfully slow gears, and once you got it started you kept it running till you were done with whatever you were doing, it had "Armstrong Start", you turned the flywheel over by hand to start it, but more than a couple times we pulled it with the pickup, another tractor, think we tried a Cub Cadet once, until we unhooked an M or H to do whatever.
TRACTOR DATA says FARMALL made 391,227 Farmall H's, so almost 400,000 made. Add in the W-4, and HV high clear tractors you end up over 416,500 H's and variants to pick from. It's really sad for me to see an old Farmall sitting out rusting away.