Re: What Was The Worst Tractor ?

Posted by The Dukester on December 01, 2001 at 22:21:06 from (65.89.18.208):

In Reply to: What Was The Worst Tractor ? posted by YGHM (You're Gonna Hate Me) on December 01, 2001 at 13:59:27:

Well, this is mostly hearsay from my Dad and my Uncle, but anyway, in 1939, my Uncle bought a Avery Ro-trak. It was made in Peoria, Il by the Avery Power Machinery Co. This Avery Co. was pretty well respected and my Grand-dad had a big Avery thresher that was known as the biggest and best Threshing Machine around. The thresher was a 36-64 or 36-60 all steel, built around 1930, I think.
So anyhow, The "Avery Saga" started when Dad and Uncle went to Peoria to get this new tractor with rubber tires and a road gear and drive it home to so. Michigan. The tractor they got started acting up and the rear end got very hot about 12 miles from the factory. So Dad and Uncle called the factory and were told to leave the tractor there and come back to the factory and get another one. This they did, and once more headed for home in Michigan-and they made it this time, buy had quite an experience with rain, and the front wheels shimmying quite a lot on the tractor. They tried to pull the tractor with their car, Grand-dad's '34 Ford V-8, but the car would overheat going up most hills, so they gave that up and hummed along at Avery road gear speed, about 17-18 mph. I guess.
That spring the tractor was put to work plowing with a John Deere 2 bottom tractor plow. On the first clay hill, it became necessary to down shift to low for the Hercules- engined Avery to pull the hill. On the 2nd pull up the hill, the rear end went out of the Avery. Uncle called the factory and they sent people to repair the tractor right in Grand-dad's garage. Well, this problem plagued the Avery, you just couldn't pull it hard in low gear 'cause the rear end wouldn,t take it. Then the front wheel steering linkage was always bending or breaking, especially with the wheels set close together as you did when cultivating. I suppose the extra weight of the mounted 2 row cultivators was a little too much for the steering system.
If you know about Avery Ro-traks, you know their selling point over all other tractors was adjustable front wheel spacing, you could have wide wheels like a standard or a narrow front row crop configuration for planting and/or cultivating. Kind if a neat idea really, but just not durable enough.
Anyhow, after 2 years of ripped out rear ends and buggered up steering linkages, Uncle and Grand-dad decided the yellow beast had to go, so it got traded for a pretty red, reliable, Farmall H. The H never had the power on the belt the Avery had, but it pulled much better and was so much more reliable. Also, there were 5 IHC dealers within 25 miles of the farm. Uncle was lucky, he got one of the last rubber tired H's sold around here untill the war was winding down.

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