Ever Have A Cat In Your Water Hopper?

By Staff
Published on January 1, 1991

807 Pine Georgetown, Texas 78626.

My brother and I have a collection of old tractors and a repair
shop here in Georgetown, Texas.

I was doing a little job for a man and he said that his friend
had found a real old tractor in a sand pit on the Rio Grande River
on the Mexican border. I told him that I would give him the job if
he would check into it for me and he did.

Several weeks later he took me to meet his friend and the old
tractor.

The old tractor turned out to be an 8-16 Mogul in pretty bad
condition. So we went back home, three hundred miles. I completed
several more free jobs for the man for his telephoning to his
friend in the valley. I finally bought the tractor, and my brother
went and brought it home.

The next morning I was out looking at the old Mogul and a cat
came out of the water hopper! So I looked in the water hopper and
there were four little kittens in there! The mother cat and her
four little cats had ridden three hundred miles in the Mogul water
tank!

I carried the old Mogul to our big annual show in its stuck
condition and it attracted lots of attention. I met a man at the
show who claimed to know all about the big flood they had in the
Rio Grande River in 1927. He said that the old Mogul was sitting on
the bank of the river pumping water and the flood water worked the
dirt from under the Mogul. It fell in, nose first, and was covered
with sand and the river changed its course. Sixty years later the
land owner was loading sand when he hit something, so he got some
help and they dug the tractor out by hand.

I told the people at the show that I would have it back at the
show next year in running condition but nobody believes me. I’m
going to try anyway.

I have a friend who is a genius at working on magnetos and he
came and got the magneto of the Mogul and he said that he wanted
the challenge of repairing it if I could bring the Mogul back to
life.

I’m starting to take it apart and it is working better than
I expected but I can’t use wrenches because the bolt heads are
rusted so badly that all that will fit is a vice-grip pliers.

One thing about this tractor is, it is complete, because nobody
could rob parts off it and a friend said it couldn’t rain on it
if it was underground for over sixty years!

Online Store Logo
Need Help? Call 1-866-624-9388