Tractor Story: 1945 Farmall H I’m 16 years old currently and over the past 2½ years my dad and I have been working on bringing this H back up to working order. The tractor was bought by my great-grandma for my grandfather and his brothers to use on the family’s 86 acre farm in 1946 or 47. It was used for numerous different jobs through the 1970’s. After 5-10 years of sitting outside with little use my uncle and his cousin did a total overhaul on the engine and gave it a quick coat of paint. It was used a little until the early 1990’s, running on and off throughout this time. It then sat with no use until summer of 2011. Not knowing what exactly was wrong with the engine, my dad and I started with a carb rebuild. When that didn’t work we weren’t sure what to do for a while. We worked more on it in October, starting with a distributor rebuild and new battery. We tried cranking the engine over, and we had spark, but still the engine didn’t start. So we took the carb apart and found the float wasn’t set right, and put the carb back on after a little bending. We tried starting it again and it would fire a few times, then after more adjustments it would run for 10-15 seconds. After more tweaking it ran like a charm. Since then I have replaced all fluids, installed a new sediment bowl, and a new thermostat. My next project on it this spring will be to remove the head and have a valve job done on it. We now use it for pulling loads of wood around my grandparent’s farm and cutting some grass with a sickle-bar mower. We have tried breaking some sod with a two-bottom plow for a deer food plot, but it doesn’t have enough power to effectively break through 30 years of roots. We are thinking of getting a one-bottom plow for it. It may not be the prettiest tractor in the world, but hey, the sentimental value is what really counts!
Aaron Langfoss
Marshfield, Wisconsin