Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Best Show on Tracks 2008

The following post has some of the pictures that I took at this years Best Show on Tracks in Woodland Cal. They have many tractors along with crawlers. They even have the first track vehicle built by Cl Best! If you have any information about any of the tractor or crawler models, please feel free to post them.

Enjoy,
Chas

Best Show on Tracks 2008

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Lost Animals worth more than Lost People?!?


The other day, an acquaintance from the coffee shop that I used to frequent, had lost her cat and was asking every customer including myself if we had seen him? I politely asked what he looked like? She brought up a picture on her computer, showed it to me and I answered her question with a no. She said that he had been gone for one day and she didn't get much sleep because she was worried about him.
Anyway, I got to thinking about all of the flyers, and craig list ads that people put up when they have lost their animals. On craigs list, people offer reward money up to $2000 to get their lost animal back! People go missing everyday, all the time yet you don't see as many fliers or craig list ads for people as you do for animals? And you will never see a reward offered for a missing person. Which are more important, humans or animals ? Of coarse, everyone will answer, humans are! But we spend soo much money and time on the care and feeding and recovery of our animals that it would make one think...

Chas

Monday, June 9, 2008

Tractor Tip: Stabilizer Bars Dragging??


For those of you who use stabilizer bars with your 3 point, one of the nagging little problems arises when you drop an implement and have to maneuver and back up to another implement is that the dragging stabilizer bars dig into the ground when you back up. So you have to take them off, back up to the implement and put them right back on, what a pain! My lower lift arms have brackets on them for holding the lynch pins when not in use, so I got to thinking that if I attach a small chain to the bracket and the pins I can use it to hold up the stabilizer bars and keep them from dragging. Life just got a little bit easier!

Chas

Massey-Harris Ferguson DEO 25 Hay Rake





This last weekend I finished restoring a1953 Massey-Harris Ferguson DEO 25 9 foot side delivery hay rake. This rake is 3pt, PTO driven, not ground driven like all of the other rakes available from the other manufacturers. This is one of the largest implements that Harry Ferguson made for his tractors. It weighs in at approximately 1000lbs and the tractor is required to have front wheel weight in order to lift the rake and still be able to steer properly. The DEO 20, 7 foot model was way more popular than the larger 9 foot model. I purchased this rake from the family of a retired farmer in Livermore California. I pulled it out of the weeds 8 months ago and now it is good as new and field ready to work for another 5o+ years.

The curious thing about this particular rake is that it was made by Massey-Harris Ferguson in Canada. Previous DEO's were made in Detroit and the manufacturers metal plate states the name of the company as Harry Ferguson Inc. Detroit Michigan. After 5 years of producing the TO tractors in Detroit, Harry decided to quit producing tractors in the USA and wanted to find someone to produce his tractors. He met with Massey of the Massey-Harris tractor company in Canada and Massey agreed to buy the Ferguson company for 16 million dollars in 1953. As a result, the new company named Massey-Harris Ferguson was born. All of the tractor and implement manufacturing moved from Detroit to Toronto. In 1955 the company changed it's name to Massey-Ferguson as Harris had left the company before Massey bought Ferguson. The Massey-Ferguson company still exists today and is owned by Agco. The Massey-Harris Ferguson company only existed for 2 years before the name change in 1955. This rake was gray as all of the rakes from Harry Ferguson and Massey-Harris Ferguson were. The rakes produced from 1955 on were all Massey-Ferguson red.

Chas