The Farmall Super A

I had the tractor apart again this winter.  The Farmall Super A, which is older than I am but not quite as old as my oldest sister, is considered a classic.  (Could we then consider those pre-generation X specimens classics?  Nevermind – that’s another story.)  My task was to repair the right brake.  For those of you unfamiliar with tractor physiology, the main purpose of a tractor brake is for turning.  Stopping is a secondary consideration since hitting the clutch pedal will usually bring you do a dead stop (unless, of course, you’re on a hill – which I usually am – in which case you go faster.)   Tractors have two brake pedals and when you hit one or the other they will spin on the corresponding wheel, leaving you sitting in front of the next row of whatever you’re abusing at the time.  It’s a rush and one of the many reasons why men are obsessed with earth-moving equipment.

This particular brake had been inoperative since last fall.  One day I slammed my foot down on the pedal expecting the usual painful squeal and the sense of power that spinning 180 degrees on an implement 500 times my own weight brings, when nothing happened.   It’s times like these that mortality loses its theoretical aspect and confronts you with the adrenaline rush of near death – or maybe just a more intimate view of the manure pile.  But I survived and for the rest of the season I had to use the steering wheel to point myself in another direction.  Steering a pre-50’s tractor is like wrestling with a squid, so fixing the brake became a priority every time I mounted this lame beast.

At this point I should admit to my own mechanical shortcomings.  Although I consider myself moderately skilled at taking things apart and putting them back together, most of my knowledge has been gained by default.  I must confess to never having been enamored with the feel of a carburetor or the smell of gasoline in my hair as a youth – like so many of my friends.  I didn’t even know what a cam was until five years ago.  But I’ve been making up for lost time since I became a farmer.  I can now communicate with some degree of literacy with mechanics and the smell of hydraulic fluid has become one of those ethereal mental stimulants that bring on an unexpected rush of good memories from childhood.  Complete transformation into a true grease-monkey is highly unlikely, though, since I still haven’t developed the instinct for grabbing the right size wrench at first glance.  My aptitude in this regard is at the macro-lego stage and it doesn’t look like I’ll be growing out of it anytime soon.  Still, I manage to get things done once I’ve figured out whether the job calls for screwdriver or a sledge.

When I finally limped the Super A into the barn in January, I had a vague notion of where to start since this vintage tractor is basically a tinkertoy.  The brake is simplicity itself  and consists of a lined circular band attached to a short rod, which then attaches to an articulation point on the brake pedal.  When the brake is engaged the band simply crimps shut around the wheel cylinder and, presto, the virile rush!  It was the connection between the band and the rod that had broken.  Figuring this out was the easy part.  Getting to this simple device was the challenge.  Not only would I have to remove the wheel, but I would have to take off the bell housing that encased the whole right side of the tractor, which probably accounted for a fifth of its total gross weight.  Pondering this task for an hour or so, I organized my tools in a new and arbitrary arrangement, collected a few cinder blocks to give myself a sense of accomplishment, then went down to the house to make myself a cup of coffee and finish the book I’d been reading.  This was a job I knew I couldn’t rush.

A week later, during one of those exceptional winter days that makes me feel glad that I’m a farmer with hardly anything to do for a month out of the year, I found myself fitting sockets to bolts that hadn’t been broken in over a generation.  Aside from spending an hour engineering a suitable jack for the tractor, figuring out the previous week’s tool arrangement was my greatest challenge.  (Yes, I am a slob in the workshop and probably always will be no matter how many times I read “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”.)  Getting the tire off was easy enough.  It was the wheel weight that kept me wondering how many fingers and toes I’d have left after this operation.  Even if I got the 250 lb. slab of iron off  (which I did) I had no sure way of getting this mother of all slugs back in place (which I also, eventually, did).  After many trips back to the house for more coffee and a good read, I finally dismantled the hindquarters of this mid-century marvel.  And there it lay for weeks, like one of my son’s amputated Transformers.  Who knows what it was going to look like after I got done with it.

But I was unable to maintain my diligent avoidance of this job for long.  The weather was just too nice in February and I couldn’t resist spending my time outdoors.  Just like the early sap-flow in the trees, the warm breezes were forcing me into a farming mode that no amount of practiced dawdling could overcome.  So gathering chains and winches and scraps of lumber I devised a solution to this weighty problem (which is too convoluted to describe and probably defies replication, in any case.)  I’m sure, though, that  Archimedes would have been impressed.  I even managed to retain all my appendages.

The Super A is back on her feet and ready for another season of moving dirt around – so I can make a living playing in it.  Except for a few oil leaks and a worn out steering box, this tractor is still pretty much the same as when she came off the lot.  I often think about how the original owner must have felt when he first brought home this pinnacle of agricultural technology –  I’m sure not much different from the way I felt when I brought it home over 40 years later:  excited beyond words, but a little confused at how to get on the darn thing.  As one of my neighbors once commented, riding one of these little tractors with a mower strapped to its belly can make you feel like King Shit on a pile of buffalo pucky.  I’m still trying to figure out the hidden insult in this gem of wisdom. My instincts tell me it was one of those esoteric “guy things” that a real man would understand intuitively, but that I missed at some crucial juncture during a motorless adolescence.