Ed S.
Well-known Member
- Location
- Middle Tennessee
This is my 2000th post to this board. I tried searching to find my oldest post, but the site only seems to reach back to around 2006 or so (at least using the search terms I tried). I’m pretty sure I was posting before then, though.
This is also very close to the ten year anniversary of owning my 1950 8N (front mount, 6v!).
I had just started work at my new job in the Middle West (moved from the Atlanta, GA area, first day at work was 9-10-2001), and saw the tractor by the side of the road with a for sale sign by it:
I took a few photos, and wrote the phone number down. Google wasn’t in the picture then (if I remember right), but somehow I managed to find John Smith’s excellent site, and read through the ID and “purchasing” sections several times. Another stop by the tractor revealed the serial number and from there, I knew what to look for based on John’s info.
Long story short, I bought the tractor, and a friend let me borrow a trailer to pick it up. It sat in storage for several months while we looked for a house (now that right there is the definition of faith - I bought the tractor before we knew if we would even have any ground to use it on!).
Once we “bought the farm,” a man at our church gave me several implements, including a two-bottom plow, disc and a back blade, which were plenty to get me started. Used the back blade scraping snow all winter (more snow than this Georgia boy had ever seen before!). Then used the shovel to dig the tractor out of said snow (did I mention I was fairly inexperienced in this area?).
After a year or two, the engine developed a knock, which to my semi-trained ear (I had a Vega years before), sounded ominous. So, I bought an FO-4 and dug in. I pulled the hood, and I think I had the front axle off before I discovered the noise was not from worn rods, but rather from a loose crank pulley. I should have stopped right there and tightened things up and put her back to work, but nooooo.
Long story short (again), I took the engine to a local vintage engine specialist to have it rebuilt, and then the fresh engine ended up sitting next to the pile of parts for about three years. During that time, I used a borrowed 8N (kept asking my friend when he wanted it back, and he kept saying to keep using it). Well finally, he did decide he could use it to move hay racks, so when he picked it up, I figured I needed to get busy… thus started Operation 8N (search the archives!).
This board was a wealth of information (sometimes too much!), as well as encouragement as I flew through the project. When I started working seriously on it, I had almost everything apart except the rear end. From that inglorious start, I had the tractor running in about 3-4 months by working on it 4-5 nights a week.
That was in the spring of 2008, so I’ve now used the tractor four seasons with no major breakdowns or problems. I’ve replaced the points once, and the battery once (bad cell) in that time. I’ve used the tractor to mow pasture, plow, disc, plant (both plateless 4-row and grain drill), harvest (corn picker and JD 30 combine), cut, rake and bale hay (my yootoob video of baling has over 40,000 views so far!) and push a veritable mountain of snow… Not to mention spread an almost-equivalent mountain of manure!
In short, my 8N is one of the handiest tools I have on the place, and this board is a huge part of making that happen.
It’s a pleasure to be able to “give back” a little of what I’ve learned over the years, both from you all, as well as from actual ‘teachable moments’ out in the field. Most of all, sharing the joy of using a 60-year old piece of history exactly for the purpose it was originally intended...
Thanks for sharing your experiences, wisdom and humor - look forward to more of the same as long as we’re all able…
es
This is also very close to the ten year anniversary of owning my 1950 8N (front mount, 6v!).
I had just started work at my new job in the Middle West (moved from the Atlanta, GA area, first day at work was 9-10-2001), and saw the tractor by the side of the road with a for sale sign by it:
I took a few photos, and wrote the phone number down. Google wasn’t in the picture then (if I remember right), but somehow I managed to find John Smith’s excellent site, and read through the ID and “purchasing” sections several times. Another stop by the tractor revealed the serial number and from there, I knew what to look for based on John’s info.
Long story short, I bought the tractor, and a friend let me borrow a trailer to pick it up. It sat in storage for several months while we looked for a house (now that right there is the definition of faith - I bought the tractor before we knew if we would even have any ground to use it on!).
Once we “bought the farm,” a man at our church gave me several implements, including a two-bottom plow, disc and a back blade, which were plenty to get me started. Used the back blade scraping snow all winter (more snow than this Georgia boy had ever seen before!). Then used the shovel to dig the tractor out of said snow (did I mention I was fairly inexperienced in this area?).
After a year or two, the engine developed a knock, which to my semi-trained ear (I had a Vega years before), sounded ominous. So, I bought an FO-4 and dug in. I pulled the hood, and I think I had the front axle off before I discovered the noise was not from worn rods, but rather from a loose crank pulley. I should have stopped right there and tightened things up and put her back to work, but nooooo.
Long story short (again), I took the engine to a local vintage engine specialist to have it rebuilt, and then the fresh engine ended up sitting next to the pile of parts for about three years. During that time, I used a borrowed 8N (kept asking my friend when he wanted it back, and he kept saying to keep using it). Well finally, he did decide he could use it to move hay racks, so when he picked it up, I figured I needed to get busy… thus started Operation 8N (search the archives!).
This board was a wealth of information (sometimes too much!), as well as encouragement as I flew through the project. When I started working seriously on it, I had almost everything apart except the rear end. From that inglorious start, I had the tractor running in about 3-4 months by working on it 4-5 nights a week.
That was in the spring of 2008, so I’ve now used the tractor four seasons with no major breakdowns or problems. I’ve replaced the points once, and the battery once (bad cell) in that time. I’ve used the tractor to mow pasture, plow, disc, plant (both plateless 4-row and grain drill), harvest (corn picker and JD 30 combine), cut, rake and bale hay (my yootoob video of baling has over 40,000 views so far!) and push a veritable mountain of snow… Not to mention spread an almost-equivalent mountain of manure!
In short, my 8N is one of the handiest tools I have on the place, and this board is a huge part of making that happen.
It’s a pleasure to be able to “give back” a little of what I’ve learned over the years, both from you all, as well as from actual ‘teachable moments’ out in the field. Most of all, sharing the joy of using a 60-year old piece of history exactly for the purpose it was originally intended...
Thanks for sharing your experiences, wisdom and humor - look forward to more of the same as long as we’re all able…
es
8) 
