It would take a brave man to try to tell readers of the Gas
Engine Magazine anything about the gasoline tractor.
This is a field in which even the angels fear to tread and of
which the full story has yet to be told.
In all modesty we can say that the Western Development Museum
has one of the largest and most varied collection of gas tractors
on the North American continent. Where else can you find a tractor
whose main and only frame is a 6 x 10 length of lumber. The front
wheel assembly bolted on to the front of the log and the rear wheel
to the back. It was built in Medicine Hat Alberta. Competent
visitors from all over the world express surprise and delight at
our gas tractor displays. There are about 250 all told and most of
them are restored to operating order.
In a companion letter, now going out to the Iron Men’s Album
the Museum tells the story of the Museum transition from a disused
air force hangar of World War Two to a new building on Exhibition
Park in Saskatoon. The writer of this article was an immigrant
coming from England to Saskatchewan in 1908. Enough said! This will
indicate that he was a witness to the birth pains of the coming of
the. gas tractor to the wheat fields of Saskatchewan in the early
years of the present century.
The term gas tractor covers a very broad field since such
tractors would burn anything from gunpowder, turpentine, water,
whiskey, powdered coal, distillate, coal oil and of course
gasoline. I personally knew an early gas tractor man who claimed he
had operated a Rumely Oil Pull on a quart of whiskey. This may have
been a sinful waste of good ‘likker’ but it at least proved
a point. John Froelich built a gas tractor in the United States in
1892. It was the forerunner of the Waterloo Boy. Two of the most
prominent names in gas engine history are Charlie Hart and Charlie
Paar. Their number one engine was produced in 1901. It weighed ten
tons and was rated at 45 horse power on the belt and 22 on the draw
bar. The Hart Paar was one of the first tractors to use fuel other
than gasoline.
What can the gas enthusiast expect to see at the Western
Development Museums in Saskatchewan in the way of internal
combustion engines–to give them their proper name. We are not like
the placid girl of whom it was said that her emotions ran all the
way from A to B. The Museum gas tractors start with the Allis
Chalmers and go all the way down to the Wallis. Along about the
1910 period it was open season for the makers of gas engines.
Anyone with wild ideas that he could build a gas tractor went ahead
and did it, even if he went broke at the job, as many did.
If such machines would operate on almost anything in the nature
of fuel the same thing applied to their driving. The Museum has
tractors driven by one wheel, by two or three or by four. And the
drive wheels go up to, and over, eight feet in height. The cop-out
is a Museum gas tractor with five wheels! Such engines were powered
with from one cylinder, as big as a barrel, all the way up to six.
One four cylinder engine was obligingly furnished with four
carburetors.
A good example of the unusual type is the Gray Drum Drive. The
one and only rear driving wheel is almost five feet across. It was
supposed to not pack the ground, leaving an imprint less than the
weight of a man’s foot. Private comments, and they are very
private, are that it was a rebel to steer. Another unusual machine
is the Bates Steel Mule. This strange looking machine is a 3 plow
tractor costing $1375, new in 1917. If it ran over a dead leaf it
would roll over on its side. Field equipment for this track type
machine was a team of horses with spare gas, water and oil. The
team was used for pulling the tractor upright again after a turn
over.
One of the early large I.H.C. Moguls was equipped with a one
horse power engine bolted on to the frame. If you were able to
start the small engine it was used to start the big one. The only
hitch in this arrangement was that you had to master the vagaries
of starting two engines instead of one. Anyone who has helped to
swing over two tons of fly wheel and cylinders on a cold and frosty
fall morning will believe that any help in starting was
appreciated.
A Museum Moline gas tractor was too light for the owner. He
removed the two drive wheels, laid them down in a cement mixture
and put a five hundred pound block of concrete in each wheel.
Another Museum tractor is one in which the driver rode the seed
drill or binder the tractor was hitched to and drove the machine
from the implement.
‘Alpha’ engine made for the De Laval Separator Company
by Lauson Power Products in May 1932, S. N. 75018, 1 to 2? HP, 850
to 1400 rpm. Wico type B rotary driven magneto was original
equipment which is not the type shown on the engine–(anyone have
one?)
Many of these early gas tractors were difficult to start, hard
to keep going and brutes to ride, but the farm boy of the 1920s
took them in his stride. It was said in those days that when a
steamer gave trouble it took ten minutes to find out the trouble
and a half a day to fix it. When a gas .engine balked it took half
a day to find out the difficulty and ten minutes to fix it. Very
often it was just a loose wire or an empty gas tank.
A significant advance in tractor manufacturing was made in the
1930s when the gas tractor changed over from steel to rubber tires
for the drive wheels. This lengthened the life of the tractor and,
incidentally the life of the operator. Another great forward step
was the use of diesel fuel.
Other features soon followed such as the power take off and
equipment for front and rear loading and hoisting. The modern farm
tractor is a moveable power plant on wheels. It is a living tribute
to those who wrestled with the early machines to bring them to the
perfection exemplified by the farm tractor today. It is hard to say
who deserves the most credit. The early gas tractor operator,
engaged in almost mortal com-bat with his ornery old style machine
or the dedicated experts working in the labs to give us this modern
mechanical marvel. We salute the grunt and groan boys of the early
gas engine era. See them all at Saskatoon or at our thriving
branches at North Battleford or York-ton. Come and see us. We enjoy
meeting you.
If you have charm, you don’t need to have anything else; and
if you don’t have it, it doesn’t matter what else you
have.
