Re: Wardner / Hugh McKay

Posted by farmallhal on March 20, 2007 at 19:11:22 from (64.85.223.173):

In Reply to: Re: Wardner / Hugh McKay posted by Mike CA on March 20, 2007 at 08:06:19:

Mike, I don't know what to add here but will share how I obtained my first two Farmalls, 1951 H and M. Both were sort of like Hugh mentioned below came at an opportune time. The H was from a person who was given the tractor by a friend of his father-in-law after it had set in a ditch for 20 years. He did a fairly good first tractor restoration with the thought of making a puller out of it. Had a complete machine shop out of frame engine overhaul with high compression pistons and other engine improvements to make it a hot H. Replace most all bearing and seals in the drive train. In the end he became just tied of dealing with it as he really wanted a green tractor. It had new tires and a lot of other parts on it along with a fairly decent paint job. He sold it for the $1800 he had in the engine work and the new rear tires. It still had issues like the 6 volt electrical system was incapable of starting it with the compression hopped up and had to be pulled started. One of my first items of work on it was to convert it to a 12 volt system. I had a lot of help from Bob Melville here on the forum along with a few others and got into it enough to think this is really neat working on these old tractors. I then bought the M which had an extremely nice total restoration on it with professional sheetmetal repairs and paint job which was a beautiful tractor. This one became available after a tornado came through the area where the owner had it stored as he had moved 800 miles or so away. When the tornado came through down came the building and several things mostly sheel metal on the top, hood, gas tank, grill, aircleaner, etc. needed repair. The owner had the tractor insured so insurance took care of most of the damage. I then bought the tractor for a fraction of the $9,000 he had in it's restoration he did himself along with a son-in-law seven years before as he hadn't been near the tractor for the preceeding four years.
Unless you just have to jump in feet first these opportunities do come along. Being in California you are not in as great a location as back here in the mid-west where there is an abundance of tractors of this era. I think with very little patience and effort a fairly nice, good running and hopefully trouble free H will come along even in your area. This will give you the opportunity to get your feet wet in fixing one up like Grandpa's H without having to do a total restoration which can seem overwhelming in the beginning. With what you learn in correcting some of the required obvious problems you will certainly get the feel and knowledge to tackle larger restorations. Another thing, a H is high enough off the ground and fairly good size (a M is much worse) that it will take a couple of people to handle a lot of the parts during disassembly and reassembly along with other mechanical lifting and holding tools. I certainly wish you luck in whatever direction you go but would suggest finding one that doesn't just need a total to start with. Best wishes in your project whatever it turns out to be, Hal.

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