Tom Harrower
11-07-2001 14:28:51
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Greetings! I made the trip to Northern California this past weekend and am now the tired but happy owner of a 1934 McCormick Deering / IHC Crawler. I have had the crawler bug for some time now, at first , I had run accross a Cat 15 that really got my interest, but the price was out of reach for me, since then I have looked at some other non running crawlers that I probably could have afforded, but the fact that the tractors were missing parts, and had not ran in so long, and the fact that I have no experience with crawlers, kind of shy'ed me away from getting too serious. A month or so back I attended a small tractor show, there was a very nice gentleman who had a small cletrac crawler and let me operate it...that was so cool! At first I was nervous and worried about bulldozing down all the nice tractors that were lined up, so the owner pulled it out in a clear area and off I went. This old crawler looked as if it had been sitting for years, no paint, rust and oil everywhere, all the good stuff, but it moved so smooth, I was really impressed. After a few minutes on the old crawler I was smiling from ear to ear, thinking I'd really like to have one of my own. A week or so later I spotted this T-20 in the classifieds here at YT , and after hesitating a little I contacted the owner and he told me all about it and sent me some pictures. I guess what got me interested in this particular tractor was the fact that it was located in the same state I live in, and that it is in running condition, and that is was for the most part complete, and the fact that it was in my price range made it sound like a good candidate for my growing collection of old tractors. Thanks very much to the generosity of my prior employer for supplying a truck and trailer for me to use(THANKS MONTE !!!) The T-20 is mine and now and I get to bug all you guys and gals on the Crawler board!! The tractor is a toy more or less for me, it would be nice to restore it to original at some time, but there is no hurry at this point. When I can afford to I will purchase manuals for it, untill then I'll just "wing it". I have figured out how to start it on just a few cranks, I just need to figure out why it doesent steer very well ( barely at all ) to the left. There seems to be a lot of wear to the mechanism for the left steering control as it doesent pull much on the lever that goes through the clutch housing on the rear case even when the steering lever is pulled all the way through its travel.If anyone has any tips on this I'd love to hear from you! This crawler is really a blast, it should be quite an interesting project, Good Day All!!!....Tom
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