Base of Operations Program 11/44

[jbaker]

Luther I would like to ask the guy who put that one on thereone question,,,,, Why over the

 

[lhinds]

I just don't want to take it off. It does look bad enough to. Someday i will paint this tractor and fix it then. I used to have tractors from 7 or 8 different states and they all put them in different places.

 

[lhinds]

This is the dealership sticker on my #2 100

 

[jbaker]

This was reposted from Josh Sterz 682 restore thread

This is in my top 3 coolest dealer stickers

 

[wbest]

Bryan, there is a very good chance that I sold that 1200 to the original owner. I worked as a salesman/partsman in 1977 for The Ohio Valley Truck and Tractor Co. in New Albany. I remember selling a lot of the Quietlines. The picture of the decal brought back some fond memories.

 

[jstertz]

Here is, as promised, a few slides that my dad took back when he worked at Chief Equipment. It was an IH dealership located in Oshkosh, WI until just a few years ago when it finally succumbed to the economy.

Here dad is oiling the chain on this 815 combine. A keen eye, or a good set of bifocals, will notice the new manure spreader set up and ready to be put into service, a set of old school fuel pumps over the tire on the far side of the machine and in the distance an old orange IH semi truck!

This one is a classic! Dad said that they received these two combines to set up for delivery.

While I was looking at this picture, I commented that it looked like a lot of work to set these large machines up for service. Dad chuckled and said that it normally was plenty of work but in this case much more!!! He said that the driver had hit an overpass on his way to the dealership! It slammed into the back side top of the cab of the first combine

.

It pushed the cab into the hopper housing of the second combine. You can see the guys staring at it wondering what they are going to do now. Thankfully the driver was going slow enough that it wasn't a total loss. However, dad said they had to order a bunch of parts and as he recalls a new cab for the combine! It took a week or so but they got it back together and out to the farmer who ordered it.

 

[dfrisk]

JOSHUA - I wonder how much IH equipment was damaged in transit from the plants to the dealers. About the summer of '76 when I was working at FARMALL, on my way home I met a semi-truck with a 1486 on the low-boy flatbed trailer and the 1486 looked "Funny" After I met it and looked at it again in the mirror, the whole top of the cab was ripped off and hanging over the back window of the cab. It only took about 3 minutes to install the cab on the finish line at FARMALL, but to remove & replace the cab at a dealer probably took several days.

Please keep posting more pictures if you have them.

 

[jbaker]

Josh,
nice pics and story,

I see some thing yellowish in the back ground, under the combine, possibly a industrial use color cub tractor.

 

[jstertz]

Jeff--I'm not sure to the area that you are referring to but it wouldn't surprise me if there was one on the lot at the time.

Dennis F--Classic story with the 1486. Reminds me of Bill Engvalls classic here's your sign, "State patrolman asks the trucker if he got his truck stuck and he responds, 'No I was delivering this overpass and I ran out of fuel!'"

I culled through the slides and found a few more of snow removal at the time.

This would've been about 1978 and back in those days we were getting hit with some big snow storms here in Wisconsin. Snow removal was a huge task back then, especially for a commercial property that had a big lot.

Gotta keep that IH 3500 fueled up and working!

 

[dfrisk]

JOSH - LOTS of snow all over the midwest the winter of '78 & '79. I was driving package car for UPS on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River in the Quad-Cities until Jan 2nd of '79 then went back to FARMALL Jan 3rd of '79.

Around the end of Febuary the boss's at FARMALL were so happy that we never had to shut the plant down because of lack of parts from trucks being stranded or stuck they took our entire department plus our spouses out for supper at the best restaurant in the Quad-Cities. Thirteen people plus their spouses and all our bosses had supper and drinks on IHC. The table where my wife & I sat, total of six people, three people had lobster, two prime ribs, and I had shrimp because I love shrimp. Bill for our table alone was $300 without the bar tab.

CHIEF must have been a good dealership for IH, selling both IH ag and construction equipment. Did they handle any of the truck line? Back around 1960 it was surprising how many IH pickups there were around our area. By 1970 it was all either GM of Ford.

 

[kide]

Dennis - that was the winter I spent 32 hpurs straight at work during a mid-Michigan blizzard (supervised third shift in the computer center, had to keep the LEIN network running 24x7).. In the 30th hour, I was on the phone with the Ops Manager and he mentioned that when we rotated back to our own shift, we were on straight time (no kidding..). I told him my Chevelle wagon would have no problem with the 7 mile trip home and he'd better have somebody there , as my crew was leaving.... The Blue Gooses with the red bubble gum machines on top suddenly were able to help get some replacements in......

BTW - my 129 came from an IH industrial side dealer in Lansing .... Dealer sticker is still on it.. (don't think I've got a good pic with me..)

 

[kmcconaughey]

Joshua, thanks for posting these great old slides!!! Any chance you could email high resolution versions of them to me? If so, I could start a thread with the high res versions, or just continue to post them here. As a mod I do not have a limit on the size of the photos I can post and it would be nice to be able to see more detail in them.

 

[thoffman]

Kraig/Josh,

 

[jstertz]

Kraig--I'm crazy busy the next few days but as soon as I can ill email those to you and you can start a thread with them as you see fit. I'm culling through them looking for other good ones. I have a few more that dad took while working at chief and lots more of my family farming with the off topic Case equipment from the 50's and 60's.

Great stories guys from that winter. I just unearthed some Photos of my family clearing a path through a 60" tall x 250' long drift to get the milk truck through. It took a v plow on the old LA and the loader on the VAC and some men with shovels to make it happen!!!

Pics to follow...

 

[jchamberlin]

Joshua, I remember the winter of '78-'79 very well. What doesn't get reported about that winter was that not only did we get a lot of snow, but the temperature dropped below the 17 degree F required for salt to be effective --and stayed there. The snow froze into semi-solid ice parted only by tire ruts. The plows couldn't bust it up. So, as Tom Hoffman may remember, the streets of Chicago were full of abandoned cars. Mayor Bilandic called for tow trucks from all over the Midwest. They towed the cars to the lakeshore, where they were quickly converted into "donors" by enterprising residents. The snow storm effectively ended Bilandic's term as Chicago's mayor. I don't think the tow truck drivers ever got paid. I was out of work for two weeks because the roads were impassable. Everyone was miserable. I didn't have my Cub Cadet at that time, but I doubt the hydrostatic would have started with the engine full of 30W.

 

[rbeem]

Joshua,
Great pictures. I bet Warren Transport does not have THOSE pictures on display in their lobbey!
Funny, I drive past their truck lot in Waterloo, IA all the time.
They are across the highway from Deere Waterloo works downtown plant. Usually sitting there loaded with green.
Glad to see some IH on one of their IH trucks.

 

[kide]

Jeremiah:
My 129 sat in a 16x16 dirt floor shed every winter until the winter of 2006-2007... It started in weather as cold as -10 degrees with 30 weight oil in it.. (before starting to put a block heater on the hydro) I can assure you that with a well tuned engine, a fully charged battery and good gas, they'll start - sometimes not willingly (not sure how long the record is for a K301 firing "chuff chuff chuff chuff" on the ACR but not spinning fast enough to close it (or how many kickbacks I've seen when it WOULD close and fire). Obviously a block heater on the hydro, multi weight oil in the engine and even better a warm garage so the seat isn't cold when you get on it are all improvements, but as I say, they'll start even with 30 weight in 'em if you've got the patience)

 

[jstertz]

Jeremiah--Great story! I had never heard that before.

Rick--I couldn't agree with you more but I guess that every major company has things that they would like to forget. How interesting that they are still in business after all these years!

 

[thoffman]

Jeremiah is 100% correct, I remember it well. I was running a CAT 988 at the companies gravel pit operations and we were called out to the Village of Skokie a suburb sharing the north border with Chicago.
One noght about 2-3 in the morning I was headed down a cleared street to go to another part of town when I spotted a pile of snow on the side of the road. Look kinda' funny, so I figured that I'll just hit it at ramming speed it would clear out real fast. Well, I hit 4th gear at hit the pile....or shoud I say a pile of snow located on top of a car. The car shoots out and I say ohhhhh $--t! So I gather up some "fluff" sprimkel on on the car/pile and go on my way. Never reard anything mor about it.

 

[jbaker]

Tom, I always wondered what happend to my car that night, I think you owe me some $$$ compensation