For Sale: The Entire Contents Of Heathrow Terminal 1

[Skeptic]

Originally Posted by callee

Just yesterday, I stopped in on a friend who was excitedly tuning up his "new" sickle mower. He has a large country property with tall fields to keep trim. The very fact that he has a sickle mower is interesting, since they are generally not allowed anymore - they were declared not to meet modern safety standards. So just having any sickle mower at all is to thumb your nose at the present. But for tall fields, a sickle mower is simply superior to any modern style of mower.

My brother recently moved on to long-abandoned acreage on a river front, and it was overgrown with tall thick grass and lantana reaching up about 6 feet high. He has a 60 year old Ford tractor that flattened it in no time, and he dragged a slasher behind to cut it down.

The tractor is one of the amazing ones where the engine is effectively the frame of the vehicle. Each end of the engine is attached to one of the axles. Pure simplicity and great to service as everything is exposed.

[WildaBeast]

My grandfather had a bunch of rusty old tractors abandoned on his farm, many of them old enough to have a hand crank sticking out the front. I'm not sure how old that would make them; I imagine tractors didn't get electric starters until well after cars did. Most of these tractors appear to have been modified to have an electric starter, though; they also have car battery mounted in front of the steering wheel. Or was there a time when tractors had starters but also had hand cranks as a backup should the battery or starter fail? He would have started farming there in the 1940s, but of course the tractors could have been bought secondhand.

[RichardM]

From personal experience dating from the 1960s, Farmall tractors had both crank and electric starters. Also from personal experience, MG cars and Triumph cars from the same period had electric starters plus provisions for crank starting.

ETA: See this photo of a TR3 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triump...lifted_TR3.JPG

The round hole in the center of the grill is so a crank can be inserted if needed.

[thorny locust]

Interesting. My 1950's Olivers are battery start, with no sign of a crank or any place to put one.

-- I used to know someone who would have been able to answer this question in great detail; but unfortunately he's no longer with us.