Driving old iron --10-20

[LenNH]

How about writing about what it was like to use old tractors on farms?

I grew up with 3 F-12 (1 on steel), 2 10-20s (both steel), a Regular, an F-20, an A, a B, and two Hs, plus a 1930 Oliver HP RC on steel. After growing up (at least in my opinion), got to spend enough time on a Super M to get a good feel for it. Should mention that not all these tractors belonged to my father. Some belonged to relatives or neighbors, and I found various ways to get experience with them.
Here's my contribution on the McCormick-Deering 10-20, 1929 on steel.
Power: horsepower moderate, because the engine is low-compression, for kerosene, and it turns at only 1000 rpm. Torque: huge, because of the size of the engine (281 cubic inches!). Impossible to stall out in second gear with its normal load.
Gears: typical for its day: about 2, 3 and 4+ mph. Second gear always called "plowing gear" back then. The tractor would do no heavy work in third gear, because of the enormous waste of engine power through the steel wheels (that's why the rated drawbar horsepower was always about half the rated engine power: 10-20, 15-30, 22-36, etc.). Long, thick gearshift lever made shifting fairly easy, although you knew you had some pretty thick gears sliding through the heavy
ooze they used to call gear oil.
Steering: heavy and stiff. The "skid rings" on the front wheels did not work very well in plowed ground when a heavy load was behind, because the load at the center of the drawbar tended to keep the tractor going straight. One of the tractors I drove had higher skid rings, and they helped. No wheel brakes on standard tractors in those days. Slowing down in a turn helped a lot because it reduced the load on the drawbar.
Platform and controls: Pretty good....considering. A lot of tractors from the 20s and even 30s just put the driver wherever something else wasn't (look at the F-20: the driver sits on a stalk sticking out the back, and there is NO comfortable place for the feet).
The 10-20 has a pretty flat platform, except for the PTO shaft housing coming down the center, and the controls are pretty well placed, EXCEPT the governor control, which requires reaching under the steering wheel and to the left of the steering column. Visibility is good on both sides.
Governor: typical of the early governors that really work only when the throttle is wide open. The "variable governor" that came in at different times in the 30s (1932 in the case of the F-12) allowed governing over a pretty good range of engine speeds. The older type didn't work well throttled back under varying loads. If the load got lighter, the engine speeded up a lot, and if the load got heavier, the engine would die down too much.
Belt work: A real tiger because of all the torque. I've seen the 10-20s work threshers and ensilage choppers and be almost impossible to bog down. A modern tractor like an H, with a small high-speed engine, might even stall out if a thresher or ensilage chopper got overloaded.
Ride: Absolutely horrible on gravel roads or a hard farm yard. You had to drive at a crawl in order to stay on. When I went on the road to go to a field, I ran it in low gear at half throttle AND stood up. In the field, on sod, not bad, although you always knew you had lugs punching into the ground (they had a tendancy to
dig a little bit as they were pulling, and you could feel that). On plowed ground, fairly comfortable. The big platform allowed standing, too.
Reliability: outstanding, as long as you did the required greasing (and hand oiling of the valves). I don't think my father's 10-20 ever had even a valve job in 22 years of working. Of course it wasn't used as much as a modern rubber-tired tractor, so the main use was plowing, disking, threshing and silo-filling. Over the 22 years, probably not a huge number of hours compared to a modern all-purpose tractor (our rubber-tired F-12 was used every day, even in winter because we had to clean the dairy barn no matter what).
Noise: Plenty, even though there was a "muffler" of sorts coming out under the gas tank (there were various styles of manifolds used throughout the production of this tractor; ours had this so-called muffler).
Would like to read others' experiences with any tractor they've used enough to get very familiar with.

 

[Jack OH]

Thanks Len, I'm just a youngster,51, and didn't ever get to experience the really old iron. The details made it interesting.

Thanks

Jack

 

[Eric Bergstrom]

I agree. I"m 24, so I especially never had the opportunity to experience tractors that age. Even the ones I"ve restored were 10, 20, and even 30 years newer than that.

As someone who used to get farming/tractor stories from my grandpas (who have both passed away), it"s very cool to hear first hand stories like this.

Thanks!

 

[James Williams]

Len,I collect F series tractors that I never heard of as a child growing up on a farm and Im now 56 years old,From time to time I use my F12 in a parade,and very seldom do I meet people that ever used thes tractors.At our local Fair a lot of people visits my 1928 Farmall reg.in her work clothes and cant beleive people ever used these machines to farm with,pictures of my tractors seem to show up in our local paper during the summer months

jimmy

 

[bshannon]

I don't think I'm really THAT OLD, but I remember the old 15-30 on our farm. I've seen pictures of my dad chopping corn silage with a 1 row AC cut & throw chopper, though I don't remember this. I heard those old steel lugs were useless in the mud. Mostly I remember this tractor coming out for it's yearly job as belt power on the old long hopper NH blower. There was a spark retard and another lever, and I can still hear the pop, pop if they weren't set right. Driving across the yard and digging it up with those darn lugs as he tried to wrestle the beast into the proper position on the belt.

The farmall B was purchased new- before my time, in 1947 I believe. This little gem came equipped with electric start, lights and the pneumatic lift option with a two row mounted cultivator. With the wide left axle, I spent many hours riding there watching Mom or Dad rake haul, haul wagons, etc. It was the first tractor I "drove", sitting on Dad's lap. But it also was the first tractor I did drive myself as well. When about 10-12 years old I was given the job of cultivating corn. First off I had a tough time getting it through my head that there were sets of rows, and I had to stay on these rows or rip out the corn. Then to raise and lower the cultivator I had to pull out the pneumatic lift valve lever. I was cautioned this must be done quickly to avoid ruining the valve. Pretty tough for a young girl to get this done right. But cultivating corn years later with a 3 point mounted unit, I missed the great view of the field and rows from that little B.

 

[matt06br]

I am 21 and I have seven 10-20"s and working on getting my eighth. My family had a 10-20 that was bought brand new in 1923. It was sold in 1950. My grandpa used it regularly along with an Allis A. He has quite a few stories about driving the old 10-20(quite an experience).
As for me I dont mind it too much. I am converting two of mine to a rubber band around the steel wheels. I have others that I will use for plowing demonstrations.

 

[JimB2]

Hi, I am just a few months shy of 60 but the first tractor I ever steered on my Dad's knee was a 10-20. It originally had been steel but after the war someone had cut the spokes off and welded rims on it. It was dual fuel, would start on gas then after it had warmed up switch to kerosene. By the time I was old enough to remember tractors, it was only used to disk, drive the NH blower and threshing machine. We had SC for all the other work. Neighbour had 15-30 on steel that he used to run threshing machine and corn cutter. He also had SC as his main tractor.

JimB

 

[Bob Kerr]

Hi Len, I had a 29 10-20 just a few years back that I used every day. I have to agree with just about everything you said especially about the ride on hard ground or gravel. But on soft ground mine rode like a Cadillac and pulled like a mule! I skidded logs in Indiana Hill country and had a chance to run a sawmill and threshing machine at a few shows. On the sawmill they had a H on the belt but couldn't get the RPM s up enough with the small pulley so I belted up The 10-20 and it was just right! The sawyer had me on that mill all weekend! The thresher was a 32 inch JD which was just a bit big for the 10-20 but it did well, but was just barely underspeed at the thresher drive pulley. I also ran mine on Kerosene when it was cheap enough. I think I still have ringing in my ears from the noise! If you had the muffler yours was a 27 or 28. Mine steered ok, but could have been better if I had more than one skid ring but it did ok except in snow. Then just forget it! I am still working a dual fuel F-12 and was just running it last week. It does well , but I sure wish it had foot brakes in the hills I am in with it. That little bugger will sure tug a fat log up a hill! It makes a lot of racket too with that short exhaust pipe. It is on rubber and my 10-20 was on steel. Wish I hadn't sold the 10-20 but I got offered a lot for it and it needed the E4A mag worked on. I had an old fellow tell me to hook up my plow off center. I have a 2-14 little genius on steel and it got a better bite, both shares were cutting closer to the same amount, but the tractor did want to pull to the side some. Good sandy soil I could pull in 3rd but anything else it was 1st or second. Muck clay would want 1st gear. That ol gal would really tug big logs up hill. I did have a problem once though when one of the rear wheels found a buried rock that just happened to be right between the lugs. Stopped me cold in my tracks! The wheel just spun on top of that rock and I had to unhook and move over to miss it. I do my log skidding now with an H with 3 point, but I sure do have an appreiciation for how well built those oldies are and what the fellows before us went through using them. My 1935 F-12 I now use to pull the firewood trailer in the woods.

 

[Dakota Bob]

I sure enjoyed the back and forth about the old McCormick-Deerings. I'm 72 years young and still have my Grandpa's 22-36 that he bought new in 1929. I'll always remember my uncles grinding feed for the cattle with it back in about 1952. They belted it to an ancient grinder that still used brass bushing in the shafts rather than the more modern roller bearings. That caused it to pull very hard even with no grain in it. That old grinder got to be a testing ground for all the tractors in the neighborhood. It made the 22-36 bark real loud but it would pull it. One day a neighbor appeared with his brand new Super 88 Oliver and asked if he could try it out on our grinder. My uncle obliged and backed the 22-36 away and belted up the new Oliver. The neighbor smiled with pride as the new Oliver started spinning the old grinder. Then my uncle opened the grain chute like he would with the 22-36 and the Oliver roared and slowly ground to a silent halt. My uncle said nothing as the red-faced neighbor left the yard for home. The neighbor didn't realize that the Oliver had no chance with its short stroke engine and tiny belt pulley. It wasn't a fair fight.

 

[spiffy1]

(quoted from post at 11:35:30 10/31/08) I sure enjoyed the back and forth about the old McCormick-Deerings. I'm 72 years young and still have my Grandpa's 22-36 that he bought new in 1929.

Must post pictures!! Now would that be North or South, Dakota -though all those residing here know that it's really East and West Dakota :lol: - you're from?

I'm helping a neighbor fix up his Dad's '29 22-36 [no progress this week, figuring out parts yet, but there's a thread probably about 10pages back with progress pictures] and have one [as well as a 10-20 and a couple others] on the backburner myself.

 

[spiffy1]

(quoted from post at 14:34:43 10/30/08) How about writing about what it was like to use old tractors on farms?

Great thread LenNH! So when this one starts to fade away, are you going to start one on the Regular/F20, F12/F14, etc.?

 

[LenNH]

What a lot of great replies! I just have a minute right now, but I'll add that the spark-retard was really intended to stop knocking when the engine was running on kerosene, which had a strong tendancy to detonate in advance of the normal firing point. If you heard knocking under a heavy load, you reached down and pulled the spark over to the left until the knocking stopped.
Some models of this series (10-20, 15-30/22-36) had a third tank, for water. If the engine knocked, you could turn on a little water to
drip in (through the manifold, I think, but am not sure). I guess this cooled things off. Maybe somebody else knows exactly what this did?

Gosh, I'm really shy, but if you all insist, I will write about those other tractors that I drove and loved. A little aside: A few years ago,
when my father was still farming a little bit, I found a decent F-20 and bought it, thinking I'd restore it and use it on his farm. Bring back memories and all that. I lived quite a distance from his place and never really found the time to do the restoration. But one day, I decided to hook the old girl up to a Bush Hog and go into one of those meadows that were studded with those things we called "hassocks" (don't know the botanical name)--a plant that made a very hard clump right in the middle. The experience reminded me of what a real handful an F-20 can be in rough ground. You sit out there on a stalk, which bounces up when the front wheels go down into a rut or a depression, and it bounces down when the front wheels go over something abruptly. The steering is beautiful as far as driving goes; the heavy iron wheel could actually be spun at the end of a row, but at the same time, if the front wheels went into a rut and you weren't watching yourself, the heavy iron wheel would act like a flywheel and come back and get your thumb, or that arm you had laid on a spoke while you lazily thought about something else. Well, that day kinda cured me of my romance with the F-20. Well, not really.

 

[spiffy1]

(quoted from post at 19:22:08 10/31/08)
Some models of this series (10-20, 15-30/22-36) had a third tank, for water. If the engine knocked, you could turn on a little water to
drip in (through the manifold, I think, but am not sure). I guess this cooled things off. Maybe somebody else knows exactly what this did?

That day kinda cured me of my romance with the F-20. Well, not really.

I don't think 10-20s had water injection, but 15/30s [through the 22/36] had the dual tanks [plus starter tank]. The ones I've seen always have an additional float chamber for the water mounted under the fuel carb. A tube leads out of that to a pair of 'injectors' threaded into the top of the intake part of the manifold working from vacuum in the intake. You get the radiator near boiling on gas, switch it to tractor fuel; when the pinging get's loud, open the water valve to bring it back to a slight ping.

Now with a detailed description like that, you'd think I'd done it, but only gas so far for me [so I may be all 'wet' ] as I don't like the thought of rusting out the tank. With tank lining solutions having been quite well proven now though [I assume are effective with water too], I'm tempted to try it someday.