ray54

It would seem the Harris combine and the skid steer tractor were made by the same company. Their combines were well like here. I had no idea of the skid steer. I have read of the Utah made ones and thought they in the 1930's before a lot of small farmers had a tractor. My dad had many stories of old guys and the trouble they had learning tractors in mid life. One neighbor cutting hay with a Ford N, he had a good hired man that knew Fords. The old guy had watched decide he could one little hillside himself. Ford got going faster than the wheels were turning, old guy hanging on for his life yelling WOO, WOO Woo. All ended well as it got leveler. Eimco built a decent machine with the dozer, just not designed for clearing brush. Uncle bought a none running one as it had new track chain the same as Cat D8. He was a Detroit guy so that was to be easy, just never got there. I help pull the V 6-71. But another guy came along with money and bought it before the engine got taken apart.

I have a 1950 Cat D6 always a farm tractor. It sat from 1985 until I bought 2012? It has had governor and inject pump work and a extra large dry air cleaner. But no history on how many hours on the engine. Or what oil had been used. I have been running Rotella because not using enough to buy barrels Rotella is at the box stores. The old Cat used a gallon in about 12 to 16 hours. But I put from 60 to 100 hour a year on it. So cheap oil it is the last few years, Tractor Supply special, or anything on sale. NAPA had a special on Standard Chevron Delo. Oil consumption has gone down to a gallon every 30+ hours. I had never heard about Rotella causing oil consumption. Consumption of TSC oil was the same as Rotella. But uses less than half with the Delo. I had been told stories like this by a few people claiming their favorite brand was better, but never really believed. 😵 So did Rotella cause it or 😵 did Delo fix it. Or just plan old luck 😇 , or lack of luck.😵

A lot of the old IH gas starts here in the old days, but good head for any is near impossible. A never repaired one is like looking for a unicorn.

Yep Grandpa looks wrapped right around the little guys finger already.

I have a 3/8 Craftsman ratchet that I dropped and direction change lever broke. I have had it to 4 to 6 Craftsman sellers ( several of them Ace Hardware) and all insisted they would only trade unless they had one with the same model number and none has. I may take the deck off the crawler that has the ratchet this one replaced riding under the steering clutch. But this is the first Craftsman tool that has not been replaced. I have been through 2 long handle 1/2 ratchets. But moved on to a Proto for the heavy us. But put new ratchet guts in it twice. I don't remember ever breaking a Craftsman combination wrench or any other brand. Working in the back end of old Cats double wrenching is the common practice. Also have 3/4 drive Craftsman ratchet after stripping a Chinese one in a set I was given by family. And surprisingly I never broke any of the cheap 3/4 drive sockets. And most of them have had 6 foot of pipe on the other end of breaker bar. I am past the stage in life I will be breaking many wrenches. Getting close to were my grandsons will have to be the muscle to break things. So unless my wrenches grow legs I should not have to decide which brand I need to buy. Craftsman gave me some good years, but the current owners of the brand have gotten all the mileage out of the once good name. SO CRAFTSMAN RIP

Hope your not out putting fires out, or feeding cows in a blizzard.

The corned beef went in the crockpot and we headed into town to restock the pantry. And find a head f cabbage, first store was out. Second store had it but a dollar a pound. Stayed home on Tues and Weds as we got 3.5 inches on really saturated ground since over 20 inches this year. That is average for all year. But another good shot coming on Mon and Tuesday. But have to wait until the community get to gather, that use to be community Farm Center meeting 😉 every 3rd Friday night.

Some of Fords problems started before 2000 already. Neighbor that like to come drive tractor 4 or 5 hours to just get out of the house, bought his wife a new Mustang and within months had rodents. Sat in the same place her other car had been for years and no problems. The biggest mess I ever had was a squirrel,😵 and 2 dogs chasing it in 1960 Chey C60. Lot of room in there one big dog one small. I believe they chewed hoses snapping at the squirrel. Pull whole pieces of wires out.

If the hole spacing is right, just buy the edge in what ever lengths you have to. Flame cutting will not hurt. I think TD 18A is a 1950's build, but the dozer blade could be older. For WW2 production bigger companies turned blue prints over to other companies to build. Antique Cats board had guys asking about such as others built D 7's during the war years. Several of us wondered if IH did the same, nobody knew. But if blade is a carbon copy of BE that would be my guess as to why. But that is a guess never the less.

No snow on the coastal side, just rain to be captured in reservoirs. Monterey county vegetable industry was thinking back in the 1950's. The county built at least 2 damms to hold 350,000 acre feet of water to add to the Salinas river the largest underground river in the world. Which made the Salinas Valley the salad bowl of the USA. And being in the Land of Fruits and Nuts the Salinas river flows north.

A picture would get you more help.

With the latest round of rain it had my pipe running as full as it could take but did not over flow my driveway.

You all missed the good news the "cheap spanners" look good to go another round of testing. I to will confess to those, NO, yep I did moments too. But since I don't do much less mistakes too.

Fun you should mention that according to the who ever keeps track ( was going to say weather service????) we were still considered "abnormally dry" a week or so ago. It was something with how much water is in wells or something. As deep as water is being pumped it takes years for water to get that deep. By my seat of the pants reckoning I would call us out of the drought. But you know how dumb we farmers can be. We just about double of what average is over most of California.

Sure is fun while the trill lasts to get a super yield you did not expect. We always think in tons out here in the far west. I had 17 acres make 53 tons of barley, non irrigated on a rock pile more cliff than hillside. Converted to bushels/ acre 130 bu/ ac. No idea what took it from the 30-40 bushels that is average to over 100.