This is a sad posting. I guess all of us have some stories like this. In my own younger days on my father's farm, a farmhand's boy was filling a tractor that was running (a 10-20 with the exhaust pipe under the gas tank--almost seems like an accident designed to happen). The tank got too full, spilled over, the gas hit the exhaust, and up it went. The boy spilled some gas on himself and was engulfed in flames. Don't need to tell the rest.
An uncle, always in a hurry, tried to "clean out" a cornpicker while it was running. Several fingers of the right hand were taken off instantly.
A friend overturned a W-6 on a hillside. Somehow, he got out of it, but I expect most people don't survive a rollover. Hillsides deserve our extreme respect.
The PTO certainly ranks at the top of the danger list.
I remember decals on our H's that warned against driving in fifth without locking the brakes together. Hitting one brake while barreling down the road is asking for the tractor to slew sideways, and under certain conditions, that could cause a rollover.
Another warning was against making sharp turns at high speed. The old tricycle-style tractors are probably the most likely to roll, but I think any tractor deserves the utmost respect. It is a lot heavier than any of us.
Cranking used to break a lot of arms, more than anything because people thought they would get a better spark by "spinning" the crank. I doubt if this is true. The impulse coupling provides the spark by spinning the mag after it trips. The real problem with starting is with engines that are not tuned up (good points, plugs, maybe condenser), or with a hot engine, maybe some vapor lock. We didn't know about vapor lock way back then, but I often think of our Case baler with a Wisconsin VE-4 on it. It had a tiny crank and was a nasty little devil to start when it was hot. Now, I suspect it was nothing more than the heat of running that vaporized some of the fuel in the carb or fuel line. A wet rag might have might the thing a lot easier to start, but, as I say, we didn't know about the problem then.
Another danger, especially with an old mag that hasn't been brought up to snuff. The impulse coupling doesn't always engage. If you are cranking without an impulse, the engine will probably fire BEF0RE TDC and the crank will be thrown backward. IF you have the foresight to be pulling up only, and keeping your thumb out of the way, the crank will probably slip out of your hand. If you are lucky, the crank won't fly off and hit you in the teeth.
I got in the habit of listening to the impulse coupling before I pulled up the crank. On the IHC F-4 mags that I used so much, there was a little clanking noise that meant the impulse pawl had dropped in the notch. Then it was safe to pull up. Of course, if the impulse is manually-operated, as on the E-4A and probably other mags of the 20s and early 30s, it is entirely up to the operator to remember to set the pawl. Even here, there is a possible problem. If the engine fires a couple of times, but does not start, the pawl will be thrown out of engagement and have to be reset.
I always hope that people younger than I am who get into this hobby are aware of the real dangers surrounding tractors, especially the older ones with hand-starting, no rollover protection, belt pulleys, exposed PTOs, and so on.
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Today's Featured Article - Identifying Tractor Noises - by Curtis Von Fange. Listening To Your Tractor : Part 3 - In this series we are continuing to learn the fine art of listening to our tractor in hopes of keeping it running longer. One particularly important facet is to hear and identify the particular noises that our
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