Fixing the tractor

I must have been about 12 or 13 years old when our Ford tractor just was not working right.  Dad told me to take it apart and don't lose any of the parts.  He wanted to see if I could find the problem.  Now at 13 that was more than a great deal.  Number one, what was important was that Dad trusted me to do what he said even though he knew I had never tore a motor apart or at least a tractor motor.  Now that I think about it we had an old lawnmower motor which Dad said I could have and I took it apart a few years earlier.   Second, he did not even seem concerned that I would screw it up (term meaning mess things up).  Third, he knew that I would be learning by doing.  Such a novel idea which even today I believe is the best way to learn and I also believe that is why country folks can critically think better than book smarts.  But of course I am just a dumb country boy who fell off the wagon one too many times.

Back to that tractor.  Sure enough once I got it apart, not knowing what words expressed what each part was and there were a lot, I found the problem.  Inside that old tractor where the pistons go up and down was a cylinder with an insert called a sleeve.  The sleeve was cracked from top to bottom and then shattered along the bottom which I assumed was causing the loss of pressure and therefore loss of power.  Now I wish it were that easy but of course not.  I don't remember how much a new sleeve cost but the problem when you live in the country is you just don't drop everything and run to the store.  I don't know about you but if we run out of milk or eggs we go to the store and get them right now but when we were on the farm (come to think of it this is not a good example) we just went without until there were a significant number of needs to warrant a trip to the store.  Back to the bad example:  we had cows and chickens and could get milk and eggs anytime we wanted so it was a bad example.  Well, all the tractor parts were in Ark City, Kansas which was about 55 miles from our house and since I only needed the one part I took off to get it.  

When I got home the sleeve did not fit the cylinder but only by a fraction.  I was sick with worry about what I was going to do but Dad came to my rescue.  He said put it in the freezer, yes the freezer.  Knowing what Dad was thinking I knew the sleeve would shrink enough to slide right in and it did, kinda.  The problem is the house is about 100 yards from the barn and the temperature was over 90 outside and over 100 in that barn and I did not cover it to keep it from unfreezing (thawing).  So about the time I got it half way down the cylinder it was big enough that it was stuck and I mean hard.  I figured Dad would kill me for this one (not literally for you lawyers or liberals).  But he just laughed and we tried a few things to get it down in the cylinder or to get it out, neither worked.  I broke it so off to Ark City (Arkansas City for you non-locals) to get another one.

This time I put it in the freezer for a few hours, wrapped it in towels, ran like crazy to the barn, dropped it in the hole/cylinder and boom I was in business.  Next I just had to get all the parts back in place.  It never happened but the tractor worked great for many years and those extra parts just went into the bin where we kept extra bolts and stuff for whatever need arises.

So what do you learn in the Osage?

• Sometimes you have to trust a person and allow them to fail or even succeed on their own
• I learned that book smarts has nothing to do with street smarts and I will bet on the street smarts person every time
• Preparation and planning are important elements if you want to obtain some wealth so prepare and plan (call me for financial planning because that is what we do for a living)

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com