Danbury, Iowa 51019
I just saw it at a swap meet two years ago. There it was-the
frame broken on both sides, one front wheel off, the other with
bearings out. The hood was rusted through; the gas tank rusted out,
but-I fell for it!
Now usually my wife and I like the same tractors, but when I
showed her the Sears she said ‘NO, we don’t need that
thing.’ So we went home without it.
That night I couldn’t sleep for thinking about that dumb
tractor, so at 4 A.M. I got up. As my wife was busy that day, I
called my brother, my son-in-law and my neighbor and hooked up the
trailer and took off. (It was 150 miles back to the swap meet.)
We all had a very enjoyable day and carefully loaded the tractor
so the whole front end wouldn’t break off and eventually we
headed for home.
I tore the tractor down and the motor was in very good shape
after getting loose. The motor didn’t look like it had done
much work. The bearings were like new so I didn’t even replace
them. I just put in new rings, all new valves, a few valve guides,
a new distributor and the rest of the things just needed a good
cleaning.
The motor and transmission in these tractors are out of model A
Ford cars. This tractor sold complete for $495.00 or $395.00
without motor or transmission in the late thirties.
We finished painting the Sears this last winter. I say
‘we’ as my wife thinks it is a great tractor now-she helps
quite a bit with cleaning and painting the tractors we restore.
The Sears took a little longer than usual because about two
weeks after I bought it, I got a chance to buy my DREAM tractor-a
M.M. Comfort tractor. So we restored that first and then went back
to the Sears.