Saving a Farmall M

[dfrisk]

Allen - Dad got a pair of decals for his M, they were a black rectangular decal with a yellow oval in the center.
I don't have the picture of them anywhere I can post on here but a Google search will show them on a Dec. 6, 2020 post in RED POWER MAGAZINE, I put Dad's decals on our Cub Cadet 70, it needed ALL the extra HP it could get.
It's just WAY too easy to drop a bigger engine in gear drive Cubbies, I have a 10 hp in my 70 and a hot-rodded 14 hp in my 72.

 

[JPrattico]

We went back again last Saturday. No more snow, figured I would send some pictures of the buildings as well as some more treasures saved.

These first 2 are the buildings by the house. The metal one is pretty much completely collapsed, the other is intact at the front but otherwise pretty collapsed. These 2 don't have much good stuff in them.

Then there's this first barn when you walk out back. It is also partially collapsed. Notice this old jack holding up one of the corners. The 2 hay wagons we are going to save.

Off to the left is two little buildings, one larger than the other. The tiny one is pretty much still solid, the other one is leaning pretty far to one side but still intact.

Then there's the big barn, at one point must have been an impressive structure. The other side looks a little better. That's where all the equipment is.

There's one other building behind the big barn, it is completely collapsed except for the very back end where the wall is concrete. There is actually a hay baler under this roof that is still in good shape that we are going to rescue.

 

[Doug Rusk]

Shame they got let go for so long and so far.

 

[JPrattico]

Then I went wandering around the property and found a ton of stuff we didn't even know was there. Unfortunately most of it is too far gone to save, but still incredible.

In order, an old hay rake, a whole Massey Harris clipper combine, a Wisconsin v4 powered New Holland baler (there's another one just like it in the big barn), an old buzz saw, a corn picker thing, another old rake, and an AMC Eagle (there's 2 of them on the property)

 

[JPrattico]

Shame they got let go for so long and so far.

It is a real shame, the property was probably pretty impressive about 10 years ago.

 

[JPrattico]

Okay now for some more treasures... I got these 2 old mowers. They were in what appeared to be the scrap bin. Both missing most parts. One of them still spins over, the other has a smashed block. That one also has a unique rear wheel chain drive off a second side output from the engine. I am going to be trying to resurrect this mower because I have never seen one like it before, fortunately the oil sump is not damaged.

Then I found this complete Briggs 3.5 horse in the barn under a suitcase. Seems to be in pretty good shape. I plan to swap the parts from the engine with the hole in it onto this one to make that mower run.

There's a bunch of other cool little things we pulled out that I don't have pictures of, but the one other thing I do have a picture of is these 3 cool hand crank bench grinders. None were completely stuck and I pretty easily got them all working.

 

[JPrattico]

Plan is to possibly head over to the farm again Saturday. We may try and see if we can remove the M from the barn and tow it out. In the meantime, I thought I'd show you all one other little thing we found on the property.

I don't know how well it shows up, but this is an old IH hubcap.

 

[gary noblit]

JP,That's a treasure trove of items.I remember Grandad using hand crank grinder even though he had electricity..A sa little guy he would have me crank so he could sharpen a sythe...I know of a similar situation of old tractors, machines, and autos:He won't part with anything.They're part of his farm memories...I don't know if you're lucky or not but finding all the old stuff would get me excited..No doubt there is a lot of smalls you haven't seen yet ..Happy for you...Go to town a buy a new wirebrush..you're going to need it..

 

[Bret McFarland]

I don't know how well it shows up, but this is an old IH hubcap.

Was curious as to what year, you may want to look for the other 3 ...

 

[JPrattico]

Well we did end up over at the farm last Saturday, though we did not pull the M out. It was unfortunately still too muddy. We did, however, grab some other treasures in the mean time. Pictures will follow eventually....

 

[-CӞ]

JP, is it safe to believe you’ve got landowner permission to obtain things from this farm?
Abandoned though it may seem, someone owns it.

I say this because we’ve had problems at my (late) grandad’s place, between thieving pickers, thieving scrappers, and trespassing hunters & even poachers.
If I only had a nickel for every pound of “abandoned” stuff stolen from the farm.

I’m not implying that you are out-of-bounds, but rather I’m calling attention to the importance of landowner permission.

 

[JPrattico]

JP, is it safe to believe you’ve got landowner permission to obtain things from this farm?
Abandoned though it may seem, someone owns it.

I say this because we’ve had problems at my (late) grandad’s place, between thieving pickers, thieving scrappers, and trespassing hunters & even poachers.
If I only had a nickel for every pound of “abandoned” stuff stolen from the farm.

I’m not implying that you are out-of-bounds, but rather I’m calling attention to the importance of landowner permission.

I definitely understand the concerns, in fact we have concerns about other people doing just that. However, we do have full landowner permission to be doing this. As I stated earlier on in the thread, this whole operation is happening because of the benefits of knowing the right people. We are tied to a local horse boarding farm, and the current owner of the property is actually the farrier for the farm. He inherited it from his late stepfather. All of the hay equipment has been paid for and is going to be put back into service on the horse farm to start up a hay operation for the horses. He otherwise is perfectly okay with us removing anything else from the property, as he does not have any attachment to any of it at all. In fact I do believe he would rather see us save stuff than have it all get bulldozed.

 

[JPrattico]

Much has happened since I last spoke of the farm, I forgot to ever send pictures of what I said happened last time. Major progress has now been made especially with what the original title of this thread is.....

 

[JPrattico]

To start, I had pulled some of the fragile parts off the M. We also took a bunch of other stuff home, pictures below...

These include an IH 2 bottom disk plow, a snow bird s226 snowblower, an unknown make rototiller, a locally built belt driven circular saw, the remains of a corn sheller, and an old scale (that still works!)

I went to work on the snowblower, tore it right apart and cleaned everything up and fixed everything. Then it was reassembled with a different engine temporarily, as the original needs to be dismantled to remove the old deteriorated points plunger. With the replacement engine, everything seems to function like it should.

 

[JPrattico]

Then we went back again for a bit, just to spend some time inside the barn searching around for anything worth saving. There's quite a lot of stuff inside, unfortunately not all of it is worth saving. Some stuff I took includes vintage spark plugs (a few new in box) vintage equipment parts also still in boxes, and also some other stuff pictured below.

The Webster tripolar oscillator magneto was a really cool find, it was in a pile of parts in a bucket. As was that piston and connecting rod, which I don't know what it came from. The old Erector set was just sitting in there. I quickly dug into the magneto and completely restored it.

The final picture shows 2 motors, the 3/4 horse GE that I restored next to another motor I had just found, which is up next to be restored.

 

[JPrattico]

Taking a break from the actual farm itself, the Farmall 460 that came with the rest of the equipment, that was sitting elsewhere, made it to the horse farm.

It didn't take much to have it running, albeit off a temporary fuel tank. That tank was in fact taken from inside the barn on the farm!

 

[JPrattico]

And now finally, yesterday and today. Yesterday, with the help of our neighbors (who also helped with moving the 460, the Farmall M was finally removed from the barn and transported to it's new home. We were able to get it out from the collapsing roof without causing any damage to it. The roof was lifted up, the door supporting it was removed, and replaced with a couple of wood boards placed far enough out of the way. This held up the roof allowing the tractor to be removed. One rear wheel was locked up so it was carried out from the rear. There was not enough space for the tractor and skid steer on one trailer, so they returned this morning with 2 trailers and got it home.

Once home I tweaked where I it was sitting with our bigger IH tractor that I have forgotten to show here. In doing so I managed to break free the stuck wheel.

Unfortunately, yesterday was not without incident. 2 days prior we were hit with a bad ice storm, leaving a thick sheet of ice everywhere. During the process of moving the tractor up to the front of the property, I slipped, fell, and ended up with a fractured wrist. Unfortunately for me I won't be able to do very much work to the M for a bit now. Fortunately it's not the worst it could be, and I have figured out that I can still operate a tractor with power steering!

 

[JPrattico]

Just a few more pictures. I located the missing side panels for the 460 that have the "460" badges on them.

A couple pictures from inside the barn

And then something cool i felt was necessary

Lastly, just a couple shots of the white paint showing under the peeling red. Though supposedly not from factory, from dealer this was yet another white demonstrator tractor. The old farmer purchased it directly from the world's fair and painted it red himself. Unfortunately I can't get a year as the tag is missing.

 

[Bret McFarland]

Taking a break from the actual farm itself, the Farmall 460 that came with the rest of the equipment, that was sitting elsewhere, made it to the horse farm.
View attachment 153067

That 460 looks in great condition. Had one just like it!

 

[gary noblit]

JP, you're just having way too much fun!!!Just look at all those projects!! Happy for ya'...