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Voting For Feature Tractor of March 2017

4K views 20 replies 14 participants last post by  DougT 
#1 ·
March 2017 Feature Tractor
Which tractor should we feature in March
MH81's Wards Chore-Trac57.69%
Bolens 1000's 1959 Bolens Versa-Matic1116.92%
jabelman's David Bradley23.08%
Alc's 1958 David Bradley 60057.69%
Rustysteele's Early 20s Standard Garden Tractor23.08%
Columbia236's Model E Vaughan Flex-tred2538.46%
Tbrooks 1936 Shaw D2T23.08%
Earthgrinder's 1946 B1-6 ROTOTILLER710.77%
GTpicker01's Wiseacre Tractor46.15%
Jimmy G's 1937 Wards Hoe-Trac23.08%
 
#2 · (Edited by Moderator)
Voting for GTtalk Featured Tractor of the Month for the month of March 2017 has now officially started and will end the last day of February. This month's theme is walk behinds.

The winner will be featured on the GTtalk Home Page for the entire month of March and in our Featured Tractor Section for infinity.

We have 10 nominations this month. Before voting please be sure to check out all the entries in the posts below. Good Luck to all the entrants!!

Let the Voting Begin!
 
#3 · (Edited by Moderator)
OK, I will toss my Chor Trac Wards Walk Behind into the ring.

20 years ago, When my bride to be and I bought our house, I was looking at something nimble enough to use to do some landscaping and gravel locating for the driveway. My Dad told me he had just the ticket. This little thing had a pair of 60# wheel weights and a set of chains and would work me into the ground.
I remember coming home from work and starting this gem up and really being ready for bedtime when the hour hit.
Along with the tractor, was a reel mower (as yet, I've never used it and just last winter, I managed to buy a rotary mower for it.
Someday, I hope to collect some rear attachments for it, but I am in no hurry and figure all in good time
It's a reminder of my Dad's impact in my life and was the first Garden tractor I could say I owned.

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#4 · (Edited by Moderator)
Since no one else is entering here we go,

This is my 1959 Bolens Heavy duty Versa-Matic tractor which kind of has a neat story behind it,

This tractor originally popped up for sale here on GTT and fellow member Bruce Dorsi who was a former Bolens dealer in NJ was nice enough to pick this up and store the machine for me until I could drive down to get it. Everything was kept in good shape and its likely the machine never spent a night outside, everything was clean and had its original paint, although I believe it was used pretty heavily judging by some wear marks and repairs on some stuff but never abused.

After some time passed the original owner sent Bruce a package in which they enclosed the Original receipt of when they bought this new in 1960 with all the implements pictured and it just happened to be purchased from Bruce's fathers shop in NJ! So it was pretty neat the tractor ended up coming back to where it was sold some 50+ years ago and got to sit once again in the old shop until I came to get it :D

The only thing I have done to the machine was rebuild the engine and put a new coil on it.

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#5 · (Edited by Moderator)
I will throw one in.

up for consideration is our db walk behind. a coworker of mine had it for years on his property. it hadn't been used in many years and was stored outside. rather than see it get scrapped he offered it to me. I am not really a walk behind collector but I always liked the look of the hoods on these and I thought it would make a nice addition to display with my db suburban.

sadly it was pretty rough but parts are common, I was able to track down a set rims, tires, gas tank and was able to pick up a nice engine here on the site.

the restoration was fairly straightforward as any other tractor. the biggest challenge was making a new lower section for the hood that was rotted out. the tractor is 95% finished still need to do a few small items in the spring.
I also have a snowplow, cultivator, plow and potato plow for it that someday will get redone

most importantly as with all my restoration it is a chance for my kids to turn wrenches and learn how things work and hopefully they will keep an interest in this old iron. they are the future of the hobby.
 

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#6 ·
I would like to nominate my 1958 David Bradley 600 that I bought June 2012 , It has a Wisconsin 6HP engine , speed changer , reverse and differential lock . The fellow said he couldn't get it started this year and just wanted to get rid of it . It came with an 8" dirt plow , snow plow , cultivator , spike tooth harrow , harrow packer , sickle bar and a home-made row marker . These are the pictures from the cl ad .

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It didn't take much to get it running , I started with a little starting fluid , nothing , then removed the plug to check for spark, it had what looked like a new Champion plug and as soon as I spun the motor over it lit off the starting fluid coming out of the spark plug hole ! Grabbed a plug from the garage installed and it fired right off ! It must have been used pretty hard , the saddle and handle bars were welded , and the dirt plow beam was bent ( which was why I had a hard time first time using it ) It smokes pretty good but this is my " go-to " one for most gardening chores . For the winter it's used for snow plowing .

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#7 ·
Here`s my odd-ball Standard, one of my more unusual walk-behinds, the early model (second generation?) mid-1920`s with the open flywheel and friction-drive cooling blower in front. It is equipped with 6 volt electric start, which I believe is adapted to it at the factory, since the battery box and other additional brackets are put together professionally with rivets, and where the starting crank holder bracket would be, is painted over with the original paint, a farmer or garage wouldn`t go through the trouble to make it look so nice. But a fussy mechanic who was also a skilled blacksmith could have done the conversion also. I think it was done in the late 1920`s or early 1930`s when farm tractors were starting to get electric starters, someone decided why not try it on a small tractor? And this beast was created.

This tractor had one major flaw, it could only be started with the electric starter, and it has battery ignition. I`ve tried using a regular Standard crank on it, without that bracket to hold the crank straight while you turn it, it just wobbles all over the place and destroys your knuckles. So if you were out in the back forty with it, stopped it for lunch or it stalls, there`s a very good chance that it won`t start, if the battery is worn down enough. then you`d have to bring out Old Dobbin to pull it back to the house to charge the battery, or carry the battery back to charge it for the afternoon. This machine still has most of the original paint, and it has super compression and runs like a top, so I doubt it saw a lot of use.

This has a novel method of starting. There is a belt that runs from the starter to the crankshaft pulley, the starter has a handle and is hinged so the belt can be tightened or loosened, with the starter button on the end of the handle. To start, you hold down the compression release on the intake valve, press the button to spin the starter, and tighten the belt to start the engine spinning. Then let go of the compression release, choke it, and it starts. Once it is running, loosen the starter belt, let go of the starter button, grab the wooden stick clamped onto the handle, and use it to pop the belt off of the engine pulley. Put the stick back on the handle, pick up the belt and put it on the handle, and away you go! Simple! I wish I could be more certain of it`s original history, it will probably never be known, but it certainly is a unique garden tractor, and possibly the first attempt to install an electric start on one!
 

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#8 ·
I would like to nominate my Vaughan model E Flex Tred , but first Thanks to Doug for brining back the Walk behind category. I found this Vaughan on Craig`s list four years ago in Connecticut, the second one I found in that state , strange considering they were made in Portland Oregon The tractor was purchased in the 40`s (used) and stayed in that family until the son sold it to me in 2013. This Vaughan made in the late 20`s to early 30`s as a guess no production records are known to exist, still very close to it`s original condition, Schebler carburetor , Bosch magneto , Powell oiler and fuel filter.The original magneto has been rebuilt and it runs good , what the early Vaughan`s lacked were turning brakes or individual clutches to make a turn with this it is a matter of strength. yours. The water cooled Vaughan`s made in models K , M, D , H , E , E1 and E2. E2 was the two cylinder model. After that came the models S , W WS and the factory built riding version of the WS These models were air cooled.

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#9 ·
Here is my 1936 Shaw D2T with the acme harrow attached. I am planning to start a complete restoration soon. Cliff Bridgford has been very helpful getting the parts I need to return it to original condition. I will try to take progress reports as it goes forward. Stay tuned, I will keep y'all posted. Wheel Automotive tire Motor vehicle Plant Agricultural machinery
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#10 · (Edited by Moderator)
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This is my 1946 B1-6 ROTOTILLER with 20" tiller and a B54 planter made for ROTOTILLER by the Danville Manufacturing Company. The ROTOTILLER came to me completely apart from a fellow from NY who delivered it on the way to Virginia on vacation. He just did not want to scrap it. He had several of these tillers and was cleaning out. Because of this and the fact it is a low serial number made the second month they were in production and two things I had not seen before - free wheeling hubs and a cast iron squirrel cage cooling fan. I learned these two things were only used on the early models of the production run.

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The B54 planter came to me via a fellow collector who lived down the street from the first ROTOTILLER dealer where this NOS planter sat for over 50 years. It was badly rusted from the very damp building it came from. I completely bead blasted all parts and repainted the planter. This planter was used by a variety of garden tractors and as a push unit with a front wheel and wooden handles added
 

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#11 ·
I would like to nominate my Wiseacre Tractor.

Now I really don't know anything about this tractor at all and when I did some research on it I came up empty. That is until I came here to GTTalk and asked some questions. Turns out member Tbrooks has two of these, but as far as we can tell, we are the only people that have one of these tractors. The Wiseacre Tractor Company was as division of United Associates Inc. Manufacturers and their office and factory was in Jersey Shore Pa. I have seen no literature so I couldn't tell you what all was offered for these, but I know Tbrooks has a garden plow, sickle bar, buzz saw, and spike tooth harrow so there were at least those attachments. As far as we know they didn't exist as a company for very long so I have no idea how many may be out there.

Now for a little discussion on the tractor itself. My uncle and I collaborated on this restoration quite a bit as it was a pretty intense restoration. We found this thing half grown into a tree and rotting into the ground and when we found the tag on it we had to save it. So the property owner was a friend of my uncle's and he had recently passed away, but his children let us have it for free if we could get rid of the tree too lol. I really wish I had taken a picture of it when it was in the tree!!!

Se we freed it from the tree by cutting the ends off of the axle and removing the axle completely and pulling the machine off the axle. It was rough and I mean rough. The one rim was totally unusable and every moving part was rusted stuck. The Briggs 8R6 engine was shot as the rod was blown out of the block. However, I happened to have a Briggs 8R6 that I took off a Bolens walk behind and we fixed that engine up as it was the exact same thing. So with a lot of heat and some cutting we got everything apart and sandblasted. The wheels were not usable so we made 2 Bolens wheels work by drilling new holes in the rim and mounted them up. The blue paint was matched as close as I could get it to the original blue color that was found under the grips on the handle bars. We also built a custom sulky for it so I could ride it around at shows.

Overall it was a collaborative effort in restoration and I am proud to be its owner now! If anyone ever comes across anything related to these please let me know as I would love to have an attachment for it or if anyone know something about the company I would love to know that too!

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#12 ·
I came to this site(after looking everywhere)for hard to find information on this M/W,three wise men and a wizard later I had a first generation simplicity hoe-trac,last month I gave this tractors history,this month I'll give the history from this tractor,this 1937 hoe-trac ended up being simplicitys first riding tractor( sulky)In the unstyled version(no grill,hood)In 1939.all styled M/W tractors built by simplicity were blue In 37 and 38,M/W found its colors on this tractor In 39 when simplicity started to badge tractors themselves,upgraded the(40?)41 hoe-trac with same grill and hood had little else In common with earlier models and simplicity had its post war platform ready,also their seems to be some collaboration with lauson as this engine was new for 37 and lauson was trying it's hand at smaller engine's,none of this is written In stone so any corrections or additional information would be much appreciated. On a side note it appears to me that simplicitys letter designation for thies early tractors is relative to size,A=coulti-mower,B=hoe-trac,C=3hp plow-trac? D=5hp plow-trac?
 

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#19 ·
What a wonderful array of tractors ! Each and every one of these captures the imagination , I had a hard time choosing one to vote for .

The Bolens , The Shaw , The Bradleys , The Wiseacre , The Rototiller , The Standard , and the Others are just darn interesting things from days gone by.

In the end ... I have a weakness for tracks , I guess I am not the only one .

I always select my choice before I look at the results.

Great Month - It has made me rethink my position on 2 wheel/track machines !
 
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