Old Fords

Old Ford 8N tractors.  They’re everywhere, and a fellow in Chilhowee, Missouri must restore them.  I stopped and looked at some that were for sale last year, and took some pictures.  Those pictures are somewhere on one of my archived disks, but who knows where.

But as I was returning to KC yesterday, I spotted that again this year, there are more.  So I stopped again.  This time Loyce wasn’t with me to ask why I wanted to take pictures of 60 plus year old tractors.  Because!

This is the second tractor, but is almost identical to the first one.  Note the new style alternator, not too original. LOL

And a third, judging by the darker gray, this one must be a bunch older.  It has not been so extensively repainted.  Perhaps it is a 9N.  Headlights are different.

I know that the wheel bolt patterns depict what the models are, but not enough to report here with any certainty.

My granddad on my mother’s side was a vegetable farmer on an 80 acre plot North of Des Moines.  They sold on the city market in those years, during the depression and the war.  He had these Ford tractors in the mid thirties, with the original 9’s and later as he became older, the farm became an apple orchard.

He purchased new 8N’s in the late 40’s, and that was about the time I was born.  I fondly remember as a youngster, riding on the fender as we headed out into the trees.  He passed in 1957.

So now why, in 2009 do I haul over and take pictures of 60 year old tractors based on a model A Ford engine?    I dunno!

Retired Rod