Hacking Tractors

[Dick Noble]

Thanks for the pics. Brings back lots of memories. Notice in the pictures it has no seat. These tractors where built to replace a team of horses. I have head that the US Army came up with the idea. Mine had an after-market tractor (metal) seat. The engine was an Allis-Chambers that was a crank start. I did rig up a 1" drill and made a bit that I used to start it with. This was not too safe but it did work. Allis-Chambers did sell these things at one time but they had a bad habit of rolling on their back and killing the operator so the company destroyed all they had. Near as I could find out there were 47 of them left and most of those did not run. I sold mine to a fellow in Ill. who owned a Harley dealership but I lost contact information with him. Mine ran great, had a power take off and hydraulics. It had a type of transmission that allowed each side to be operated independently so one set of tires could go forward and one set could go backward, it could turn in its own length and also throw you out of the seat! The operating mechanism was made by Eaton Metal products in Salt Lake city. I called Eaton a long time ago and no one there knew anything about it. The name Eaton is stamped on the side of the running gear.

[Dick Noble]

Oh and the word is "rein" not rain. Rein means traces. These are made out of leather and were very long. You can see the farmer on the rake using them. They attached to arms that where spring loaded so they had to be pulled on to go back or allowed to slide forward to go forward. These things had wonderful traction. I pulled a friends truck that had slid down the side of a dirt road in snow, back onto the road. I pulled her up by attaching a chain to the side of her trucks frame and pulled her sideways. One problem was, you could yell "WHOA" all you wanted and that darn thing would not stop. It did have a single brake on the floor and sometimes that might work.

[bigb56]

My 2015 VW does that, if the battery needs to be changed, has to be reprogrammed. The whole car is networked.

Yep, my 2015 TDI is an engineering marvel, the engine management system is more sophisticated than some of the first NASA spacecraft. I hope it turns out to be reliable.