Wrenching it

When we traded for this old John Deere we still had the cows. I have sat upon it many times running the PTO to dispense feed for whomever was feeding them that day. I liked that job if I wasn't setting up and washing stuff in the milk house. There is a lot of time to ponder life and watch the sky while waiting to shove that lever.....

The tractor has always knocked. Always.

Borked

Anyhow the knock got serious recently so Alan had the boss park it while he looked it over to see what was going on and ordered some parts.

Borked vs unborked

Yesterday he and Jade tore it down and applied a fix that should get it through whatever hay weather we get the rest of the season. At one point it was barely recognizable as a tractor at all.

At least some of the tools were supplied by the farm girl

Then they need to replace a shaft in it, which clearly was defective right from the factory. They figure that some of the parts were designed to let it wobble!

Peggy and Uncle Alan wrenching on the tractors (Photo stolen from Liz who took it)

Anyhow there was a lot of grease and southern clay (still caked here and there from its original home) involved. Even though Peggy wasn't feeling the best, she got her own green tractor out and wrenched on it too. It was fixed quite quickly, as she was tired and wanted to rest. The big one will do for now as long as the boss babies it. No asking it to toss bales all the way to the back of the wagon until they have time to replace that shaft.