Stock 8N Ford opinions

[kide]

From Dennis.. (Excerpt moved from Main Forum - OT)
"Neighbor across the road from the farm I grew up on owned two 8N Ford tractors. One was stock, other had a FUNK Conversion with a large in-line 6-cyl.flat head engine in it, the most popular FUNK conversion was the flat-head V8.<font color="ff0000"> The stock tractor was totally worthless, and the Funk conversion was almost as worthless.</font><font color="000000"> Guy farmed 320 acres with a 560-gas Farmall, those two Fords, and a Cub Farmall to mow his lawn. Last year he farmed he bought an old W9 IH to ease the work-load on the 560. The 560 did ALL the plowing, disking, planting, cultivating, spraying until that last year. He had a little new IH 203 combine with a 13 ft grain platform & 2-row corn head to combine all his crops with so the 560 never had to run a picker. Most years he started combining corn between Labor Day & Halloween and finished after New Year's Day. NO cab on that little combine either. If we got an early big snow storm it would be spring before he was done combining! Just in time to start plowing! "</font>

Dennis - the Fords were never intended for large scale farming( in those days, in many areas of the country, 320 acres was a large farm). They were Henry's solution (going back to the Fordson) for the 80 acre farmer.. My grandfather and then uncle ran a family farm of less than 80 acres to provide for the family and did it well first with a couple of horses and then Ford tractors (never more than one, I believe there were two or three over the years, partly because my cousins had a habit of putting the 8N in places where it shouldn't be, like the river, the old basement or down in the cattle stalls from up above... The Funk flathead V8 conversion was worthless because, even though a flatty has decent low end torque, it didn't have a flywheel nor grunt of an old four cylinder off idle... My dad's '48 Ford/Fergason had the Sherman Hi/Lo range addition to the gearbox, which gave a low/low that was pretty cool when using it with a gravel scoop on the 3 point...

 

[jchamberlin]

Gerry: Thank you for providing a counter point to Dennis' statement. My intuition told me that his assertion was mighty broad and open to question, and I'm happy you responded: we are all better informed because of it. I think at one time "40 acres and a mule" was the American dream. Times change.

I also applaud you for starting a thread in the Sandbox in response to an Off Topic comment on the Main Forum. I still struggle to get my head around the vision of those who started this Forum, and I don't always understand the reasoning behind why one thread belongs in one place and a second thread belongs in another. I am not familiar with the history of how these distinctions have been made, and you've helped me understand some of the finer points. To wit: I previously failed to grasp that the Sandbox was originally conceived as a place for "Off Topic" discussions which may be of a technical nature as well as just general BS. In other words, I thought the Sandbox was just for BS, and didn't understand that serious technical discussions --of things other than pre-1981 IH Cub Cadets-- could be hosted here.

Thank you, Sir.