Three hillbilly boys and a Ford tractor

Down the Hill and Across the Road

So, these three boys Jim, Braxton and Marlin lived on a forty acre farm. They could find a use for anything that had an engine or wheels, preferably a machine that had both engine and wheels. It may not be the intended use of the machine but they had a use for the machine. One of the machines was a 2N Ford tractor.

Basically tractors are made for farming. I am sure this is what Henry Ford and Harry Ferguson had in mind for the N series Ford tractor with the famed three point hitch developed by Mr. Ferguson. Ford Motor Company made these N series tractors from 1939 thru 1952, which included the 9N model manufactured from 1939 through 1941, 2N model manufactured. 1942 thru 1947 and the 8N model manufactured 1948 thru 1952. These are great little tractors with all kinds of possibilities. When you add to the possibilities three hillbilly boys, you add ingenuity, danger, fear, pain, destruction, etc.  Such was the case of my brothers and me.  I am not sure how the three of us should be described when it comes to antics of us and that Ford tractor. Marlin is the youngest, then Braxton, and then me. We each had our own personal ideas when it came to a task that involved the three of us and the 2N Ford Tractor. Most of the time when we had our discussions about what we needed to accomplish, we made an effort to reduce the danger and destruction to a minimum and still get the job done.  One such venture, I recall was hauling water from old #5 mine hole. First we have to talk about the mine hole, which was located ¾ of a mile south of our house.  It was not your common ordinary mine hole. It was a mine shaft that had caved in and left a huge body of water. For a twelve year old kid it seemed to cover about an acre. No one knew how deep it was. Some said divers had gone down but never found the bottom. On the south side of #5 was a patch of gravel that sloped slightly down to the water, once to the water it dropped off abruptly and all one could see was beautiful deep blue water. This was where we loaded our water. With a 55 gallon drum sitting on the draw bar wired securely to the 3 point hitch arms and braces we backed the tractor down the gravel slope to the water until the drum was just barely over the water. Two of us rode on the back with the drum the third was the driver. The system was for the two on the back to fill the drum with water while the driver kept the tractor from rolling backward over into the water of the caved in mine. The driver’s job was to keep the tractor engine running while holding the brakes on. Each one had their responsibility. With each responsibility was an equal amount of danger. To accomplish the task each one had to have nerves of steel and fair amount of stupidity. The two water dippers did not have a safe place to stand. They were forced to grip the bars, braces and fenders on the back of the tractor with their feet and one hand, while with their free hand dipping water with a bucket into the drum until it was full. No one could lose their hold or we were all doomed. And that would make this story completely different and would have to be told by someone other than me. We accomplished that water hauling task many times.

The ford tractor was not in prime condition by any means especially mechanically, so we had to improvise. The engine burned a considerable amount of oil which fouled the spark plugs. We spent way too much time cleaning the spark plugs. We also found after cleaning a spark plug if it was still not firing it was possible to create a spark gap which would increase voltage to that particular plug. This was accomplished by raising the spark plug wire just about 1/8 of an inch from the tip of the spark plug where it connects to the spark plug wire. This was best done by using a small piece of wooden match, plus it made a nice snapping sound which sounded cool. For the water hauling the natural top speed of the tractor was entirely too slow. The top speed of the tractor could be increased by about one third by unhooking the governor rod and operating the carburetor directly using a piece of baling wire routed up to the driver. Since the carburetor and governor rods were connected by spring loaded ball and socket this modification only took seconds. However, to get maximum power and efficiency the distributor timing needed to be increased. This also was a simple job of loosing the distributor and turning the base to line up the marks we had scribed with a sharp nail on the engine block and distributor base for speed. The carburetor adjustments were also simple. The carburetor idle speed was always on high. Some positions we put the tractor in we just could not risk the engine dying, such as hauling water from # 5. The other carburetor adjustment was the power valve. The carburetor had an external power valve adjustment screw. This made it possible to adjust the power valve while the engine was running. For example if we were going to be plowing which required extra power from the tractor it was necessary to adjust the power valve.   This could be accomplished with the tractor engine running and the tractor sitting still and out of gear one could throttle it up against the governor and turn the power valve screw until the exhaust showed just a faint black color then turn it back until the black color disappeared. 

We didn’t have the implements that were designed for the tractor. What we had was horse drawn implements that could be easily modified to be pulled behind the tractor. We did a lot of work with the Ford 2N.  Also, we had a lot of fun and learned a lot. It was good we three stuck together since it was unlikely that we would all be killed at once, so, there would be one or two to tell how the others got killed.

The above picture is my wife and me on our 2N Ford tractor

Jim Gray

Peculiar MO