You Know You Own an Old Tractor When...


You install a hand-washing sink in the garage.

Your three-year-old asks "is this greasy" before he touches anything lying in the garage.

You dream of a tractor shed with more parking than your garage.

You are qualified to debate the relative merits of various brands of hand cleaners.

You have a larger assortment of lubricants, cleaners, and fuel and oil treatments than our local hardware store.

You know every gas station within ten miles which sells diesel and is open Sundays.

You slow down while driving to try to identify that rust heap under a brush pile.

You buy oil five gallons at a time.

You're stuck driving behind someone hauling equipment or behind a tractor, find yourself thinking about giving him enough space instead of about being late.

You start watching the weather on Thursday, hoping for good tractor weather on the weekend.

Every room in your house contains something that has been repaired with J-B weld.

Your dog's black back is not colourfast.

Your pillow looks a lot darker in the morning.

You drive by a farm bursting with llamas and horses and your 2-year-old daughter notices the 8N plowing the back field and says, "Oooh--Mommy's tractor!".

Your 7 year old daughter calls crueller style doughnuts: "Tractor tire doughnuts".

You own a Super-C that has been missing for over a month because you don't remember who asked to use it last.

You aren't concerned about it because you don't have anything to do with it anyway.

You get a warm feeling while you are in Japan that your tractor and brush hog may be clearing a field somewhere.

You hope that when you return to the states there will be a big enough snowstorm that you may get to use the tractor yourself to plow something.

You worry that you may actually qualify for the 100 acre farm you are trying to buy, but your tractor will have to be hauled in from the 'wild' to maintain the farm.

You spend entire weekends scanning the countryside in Europe and Japan hoping to see anything that resembles an Antique Tractor so you can take a picture for Spencer.

You hope to personally meet all of the people who regularly read and respond to the postings on this page.

You see tractors in places most people never do.

You can tell your passengers everything about the junk pile you just passed going 70 miles per hour.

Your tractors are older than you, and run better.

Even your farmer friends look at it and say "What the hell IS that thing?".

You put the kitchen remodeling job on hold so you can put new siding on the barn before winter. ( Surprisingly, the wife still talks to me!).

You look forward to the yearly barn sales just so you have an exuse to get inside those barns.

You subscribe to Successful Farming to read Ageless Iron.

You watch TV or movies and pay more attention to the farm equipment in the background than to the plot (if there is one). "Did you see that? I'm sure that it was a Deere LA, but I couldn't tell what kind of thresher it was. Stop the tape and back it up...".

You open the paper at the "For Sale - Farm Equipment" section of the classifieds before you look at the front page. "Hey, Honey, look at this! somebody's got a Fergeson TO-20 for only $900. I wonder what kind of shape it's in? Maybe I should give them a call...".

You try to schedule your vacation trips around the tractor shows, trying not to make it obvious to your family. "Maybe this summer we could drive to some place in Indiana, I understand there are a lot of interesting things happening around the 25th of August that the whole family would enjoy...".

When starting, you purposely leave the tin can over the exhust just to see if you can catch it.

When going up a hill or putting the tractor under a load you grab the gear shift to keep it from coming out of gear.

When plowing up potatoes the plow(#13 oliver) will work on any of your tractors (#13 oliver is a horse drawn plow)

Your idea of a Sunday drive is hooking up the trailer to the tractor and going to the local swimming hole.

You can make a fan belt for it from the one that is holding up your pants.

At a show an onlooker wants to know "What they used it for???".

It is easy to fill the radiator with a bucket.

You can take up the rods with out removing the pan.

You check the oil flow by watching it drip.

You lube it by giving each grease cup a turn.

You know it is hot when it boils.

You stay up late at night to add to this thread.

The local tractor parts places suggest to other customers they contact you for parts. Or call you for a list of people who still can repair a magneto. Or refuse to work on your machine because it has a magneto.

You purposely squirt excess grease into the fittings for later use.

You find yourself explaining the functional improvements provided by what others perceive as bailing wire and scrap metal.

5PSI of oil pressure seems kind of high.

You can trace the entire electrical system from several feet away.

Using another tractor you just assume there are no brakes.

The potato digger goes a whole row without clogging and it gets written in the family Bible.

You know which rock wall has the disk harrow weights.

Scars left in pavement by the disc harrow don't bother you because the harrow was there first.

The max RPM on your tractor is lower than the idle speed of your car engine.

Hand cranking is the normal way to start it.

At a show, coal dust and wheat chaff are status symbols.

You need 30 wt. non-detergent oil.

You know how to read all those funny letters on a piece of cast iron.

You know what the difference between a stationary engine and tractor is.

You have mangled snap-couplers around the house.

You know just how to prime an Allis C so it starts on the first crank (by hand).

You know how to unlock the starter of an IH M with the two-row tobacco planter attached and still in the ground.

You have run a tractor at such a low RPM that a three-inch dirt clump makes the engine kill (try doing that with a Diesel!).

Your hands get black after a day because the covering on the steering wheel is coming off.

You know how to put your front mounted cultivators on.

You yank on a piece of baling twine to raise your implement.

Your tool box on the tractor has more then two inches of grime in the bottom, and contains embedded in the grime square headed nuts.

Nobody has even heard of the implement dealer on the sticker on your hood.

You have ever pulled an implement out of a scrap pile.

You pay dues to a club to work like a dog so that other people can look at you and say "Oh, how quaint" at a place that has not one flush toilet within one mile.

Some days you talk to your tractor more than your wife.

You turn the steering wheel left and know the odds are slightly in your favor that the tractor will turn left.

You know where the sweet spot is on the carb for unsticking the float valve.

While mowing, you always keep an eye out for a good level place to park, in case you have "to set her down" for some "adjustments."

Half of the nick-nack shelf has cat figurines and half has tractor toys.

Showing someone your tractor you automatically say, "yes it runs."

Your dealer explains that the part you're looking for is called bailing wire.

You find yourself saying "come on baby, you can do it" to something made out of iron.

You never thought the headlights might actually work.

You bounce through a ditch and your engine smooths out.

It feels good to just stand there and watch it run.

You mow with wrenches in your back pocket.

You keep a clean stick close to the gas tank.

You are proud of your ability to field strip a carburetor.

You can say, with a straight face, "Well how about that, a tractor show" while on family vacation.

You stay up late at night downloading pictures,,,,,, of tractors.

It makes you feel good that something older than you still runs.

You buy parts and you have to be sure to shake the mice out first.

After returning from a tractor show you walk in with a grin on your face, a rusty exhaust manifold in one hand, and a ziplock bag of cornmeal in the other.

You have to make all the gaskets yourself.

Your only choice is to fabricate a part or find a parts tractor.

No dealerships ever selling that tractor are still in business.

At the local parts store the counterman asks for make and model, and you reply "It doesn't matter, it won't be in your book."

You can paint your tractor the wrong color and no one says it's wrong.

You start looking for parts sources for something you haven't completely identified yet.

Central Tractor gives you a rubber stamp with their name on it for your checkbook.

You can't use your tractor to bush hog the yard because there are too many other tractors to mow around.

You have several cases of oil on hand, but take the car to the local garage for an oil change.

You own more than one new six-volt battery.

Your wife didn't believe the engine hoist was really necessary for the kid's science project.

You were surprised to find the word "pull" had something to do with skeet shooting.

You have a piston as an ash tray.

You have a valve as a paper weight.

You begin to ask, "Do you have..." and the parts person immediately says "no".

You walk in a parts place, and all the people at the counter suddenly become frantic to find something else to do.

You start planning your vacation with the 'Steam and Gas Show Guide'.

Every time you go somewhere with your wife, she asks, while you're driving "should I drive?" because you spend more time looking at old farmsteads than watching the road.

Your husband looks at you strangely when you ask if he wants to go to the tractor boneyard with you on Saturday...

The local tractor parts places suggest to other customers they contact you for parts.

There are foot deep ruts in the lawn and you like the looks.

Every large rock in the yard has been tested for movability.

Neighbors call about an unusual tool and you loan them your spare.

Your wife knows the model,weight, HP rating, and features of every tractor on the way to town.

You marvel at enraged yuppies tailgating a large tractor, unaware that 18 mph on a tractor equals 100 mph in a Volvo.

You have a 1 acre garden.

You need to take down some of the artwork your wife bought to hang some tin signs.

The next parade has you scrambling to figure out how you can find enough people to drive some tractors.

Penetrating oil discussions are known as "politics".

You call your wife JOHN DEER and she looks at you kind of funny!!

It is suggested by the tractor parts supply houses to contact a museum for your parts.

Your car is outside and the tractor is inside.

You get a silly grin when your tractor starts.

You have more e-mail about tractors than work.

Two tons of iron doesn't seem that heavy.

With a look, smell, feel, and sometimes taste, you can tell the difference between gasoline, kerosene, diesel fuel, motor oil, hydraulic fluid, gear oil, and coolant.



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