Guest Blog Series from our friend David Paul
In Part 1 we learned that David wasn’t going to be able to trailer the Flabob Farmall to the show at the Harley Davidson dealership and had decided to drive it from the Flabob Airport (in Riverside, CA). Our story picks up as he is reporting to his “CO” at Flabob, Col Jon Goldenbaum USAF (ret) and T.W. Cook long time Farmall H tractor historian and restorer about how he made up his mind to drive it and starts preparing for the adventure.
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Went out and using a flashlight, loaded my truck up with all the “accessories”, flags and poles I had removed during the attempt to load on to a neighbor’s trailer at Flabob Thursday. Done by 11:00pm.
Woke up at 3:30am in the morning and of course couldn’t get back to sleep thinking about what was going to happen.
At 6:00 I arrived at the Harley dealership, set up the 5 service flags using the Flabob bases around the dealerships tall metal flag pole. Then told young lady running the event what my friend and I were planning to do. Got a high five and a “Way Cool!, good luck!” from her.
My friend picked me up at the dealership after he had finished some early morning chores at 8:45 and off to Flabob we went.
Got to Flabob, fired up the Farmall and drove her out of the hanger. It took maybe two revolutions for the engine to catch. My friend, who was seeing the Farmall for the first time, commented with a big smile “when are you going to fix her starting problem?”. We have taken more than a half hour to get one his model T’s running.
Re-mounted Flabob sign, front flag pole had brand new 50 star US flag double zip tied to it and loaded. Bolted on winglet brackets and using “self contouring fairing material”(aka duct tape) secured the winglets in place. Winglets didn’t so much as twitch on the tour over. May just keep as is just for conversation value. Re-mounted and tested “Sonic Cannons”.
As to the Flabob sign, I decided not to lose the PR opportunity for Flabob this mad tour would provide. From all the “Where’s Flabob? Riverside! and you drove it here from there? How cool is that!” definitely was right thing to do. You can’t believe all the honks, waives and especially all the camera shots the Farmall received on the road. Haven’t checked Twitter or Youtube yet to see if any pics made it there.
Closed and locked hanger and took off. Waved to various visitors as we left Flabob. My friend following as blocker in his truck with his flashers going. Worked great for entire tour. He was to warn me if he saw anything fall off or that looked bad. Said tractor looked great. Cruised at a rock steady 14 mph. Worse piece of road was at Mission and Milliken in Ontario. Ragged road from all the big semi’s going to 60 freeway from truck stop made it rougher than I thought. Popped me out of my seat a couple of times so I had to go dead slow to finish intersection. Thinking later using old farm tractor as road inspection vehicles would certainly show up rough road sections.
As it turned out, best accessory I added to Farmall for the trip were the motorcycle rear view mirrors. Really added to the safety of the drive. So easy to do for a Farmall. Style of mirrors looks “right” as well.
Gassed up at ARCO station on corner of Mission and Rubidoux. Had first picture request before leaving. Tractor got up to speed on Mission and cruised right along. Waiving, honking and passenger picture taking started immediately. Delighted when local fire truck driver going the other way gave a toot and big friendly wave.
Soon after encountered first “Mounties” going our way stopped at an up coming intersection. Signal changed before I pulled along side. They turned around to opposite direction without looking back. Later in Ontario, local officer drove by us never slowing down. The concern they would think we were crazy and haul us off was unfounded….
Watch for Part 3 Next Friday
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