100 year old mower resurrected.

[Marveltone]

Two years ago, my dad and I pulled an old Minnesota No. 4 mower out of the woods. It belonged to my wife's father and grandfather before him. It just seemed right to restore the beast, seeing as it's been in the family so long. We've spent the last couple years searching for a supplier o sickle sections that will fit this beast and were happy to find we can get them locally, as well as a replacement Pittman arm. The draw-bar was made from a piece of ash, taken from a tree that fell in our yard a couple years ago. We then welded up a couple of pieces and freed up and lubed all moving parts. The result is we now have a working 5' sickle mower!

My dad was very eager to relive his childhood and climb on the mower and operate it for our initial test run. Everything worked without a hitch. I think he felt like a kid on a carnival ride!

Next, we have an old dump rake to drag out and tackle. After this, it wil be a piece of cake!

Yes, everything will be painted eventually. First, we get them running, then we worry about cosmetics.

Joe

 

[NHmitch]

Thats an incredible project! Glad to see that you got it going so well. That actually gives me quite a bit of hope for all of my grandfathers equipment that has been rusting on the side of his field for 20 years. Its amazing what a bit of grease will do. Actually, what type of grease did you use? I have to try to resurrect his sickle mower that looks like yours did. Are you going to paint it now to the original colors? Now you need to find the tractor in the field that went with it, unless it was a team of horses, and then I don't want you to try and bring them back from the dead I like how it has a foot tread cast into to axel. It is amazing how you use to ride your implements back in the day. Great job, and i'm glad to see that you could do the project with your Dad. Those are great memories for you to have with him!

 

[smalltown]

Joe nice job resurrecting that mower!
More importantly any time you can make your father happy like that kudos to you :thumbsup:

 

[MIKE R]

Looks great. I am currently restoring a 1925 Massey Harris NO.23 mower. I am giving mine a complete restore back to original condition as it just came off the factory floor. I hate to see any old equipment scraped and sent to China. I like the photo of your dad on it, I am sure he has many memory's of it.

 

[Marveltone]

Thats an incredible project! Glad to see that you got it going so well. That actually gives me quite a bit of hope for all of my grandfathers equipment that has been rusting on the side of his field for 20 years. Its amazing what a bit of grease will do. Actually, what type of grease did you use? I have to try to resurrect his sickle mower that looks like yours did. Are you going to paint it now to the original colors? Now you need to find the tractor in the field that went with it, unless it was a team of horses, and then I don't want you to try and bring them back from the dead I like how it has a foot tread cast into to axel. It is amazing how you use to ride your implements back in the day. Great job, and i'm glad to see that you could do the project with your Dad. Those are great memories for you to have with him!

Thanks!

All the zerks were shot up with lithium grease. The oil ports were filled with 40wt. motor oil. The only odd thing we did a little different was the gearbox. It was found filled with a slurry of oil, water and sludge. We drained off most of the water (all we could separate, at least) and filled the gearbox with old diesel oil, as it will clean and lubricate at the same time. We'll run it in diesel for a bit to really slosh everything inside real good. Once we're satisfied with that, we'll open it up, take a parts brush to whatever we can reach, scrub it as good as possible, drain it, and fill it with gear lube.

The mower will be painted to as close to original colors as we can manage. Horse drawn implements were often quite colorful, and Minnesota mowers were no exception. Pictures of original paint jobs are incredibly rare, but we have a catalog reprint with colored ink drawings, so they will have to suffice.

Unfortunately, the original tractor was sold off years ago, soon after he died, but long before my wife and I ever had a clue we would have a use for it. We never dreamed we would be getting the family farm at this point in our lives.

My dad is so indispensable for these restoration projects, as he grew up on the family farm and helped keep the equipment running. He has an engineer's mind, and such an incredible understanding of every aspect of farm equipment... He's like a walking antique farm equipment encyclopedia.

Joe

 

[BeezFun]

That's beautiful. My great uncle had a sickle bar mower very similar to that and a dump rake that was originally horse drawn. I thought it was the greatest thing in the world to ride that when I was a kid. Fortunately they still have the original family farm and every nut and bolt that ever went with it.

 

[John47]

There's an old identical mower sitting outside an old shed on my property rusting away.

 

[flusher]

Nice work:thumbsup:. A few years ago I did a similar job on an MF 31 sicklebar which was only about 40 years old.

 

[aczlan]

Need another project? I have a similar one sitting in the back field...

Aaron Z

 

[ddobson]

Cool stuff. Nice work.

 

[Bill 55]

Back in the 70's I mowed a 4 acre yard with an old IH. horse drawn sickle bar. As long as you kept the sections sharp and didn't let it get really high it did a great job. I never had anyone to ride on it. I pulled it with a 1939 B Allis Chalmers that I picked up and did a bunch of work on to get it back into running order. It had spun a rod bearing. I turned the crank with a dial caliper and a roll of emery paper. I ran that darn thing for seven years before I sold it. I love the old iron. It was built to be nearly indestructible. Things just aren't built like that anymore. Great job on bringing it back.

 

[chad22]

Good to see old equipment being preserved. I would like to operate that.

Chad

 

[Ridgewalker]

Very cool! Make sure to post pictures when you get it painted up!

 

[jinman]

Oh SURE! Anybody can restore a 100 yr old mower. I want to see you restore the 100 yr old horse that used to pull it.:laughing:

NICE JOB! That's a real beauty and the gearbox looks very good. The sickle seems to cut a very good swath. I'm not sure I'd like to sit on the mower and eat dust for 8-12 hours a day, but you could probably get on/off the tractor and make it a single operator/no operator attachment. The first operator probably had to control a mule and the mower from that seat.

 

[chad22]

Oh SURE! Anybody can restore a 100 yr old mower. I want to see you restore the 100 yr old horse that used to pull it.:laughing:

I would love to see the horse restored. That would be a sight to see.

Chad

 

[Smokepole62]

Its a crying shame so much of the old equipment has been scrapped. This sure is a good
way to show kids how to fix things instead of throwing them away. Teach them to turn
wrenches and take some pride in getting old tools running.
Maybe the next time the scrappers are driving slow down the road looking for easy
money to buy beer and cigs, we aught to tell them to push off.
Have your father teach the kids about this stuff. That is the real wealth in this
in this country.

 

[Marveltone]

Oh SURE! Anybody can restore a 100 yr old mower. I want to see you restore the 100 yr old horse that used to pull it.:laughing:

Hide glue doesn't count?

NICE JOB! That's a real beauty and the gearbox looks very good. The sickle seems to cut a very good swath. I'm not sure I'd like to sit on the mower and eat dust for 8-12 hours a day, but you could probably get on/off the tractor and make it a single operator/no operator attachment. The first operator probably had to control a mule and the mower from that seat.

We're pretty sure we've figured out how to operate the mower without a rider. I've got a few too many coals in the fire as of late, but once I get a couple things out of the way, I'll do the minor modifications, test our theories and post the results.

Joe

 

[Marveltone]

Very cool! Make sure to post pictures when you get it painted up!

Will do! :thumbsup:

Joe

 

[Treemonkey1000]

Wow that brings back memories. I don't know how many hours I sat on one of those mowing my parents field or my Uncle who owned the mower. Nice work guys.:thumbsup:

 

[jinman]

One of my neighbors has mules and covered wagons he built with rubber tires. He goes out for trail rides with his mules pretty often. and has built two nice wagons from scratch. About two weeks ago, he bought a 1902 International Wagon. I stopped in to talk to him yesterday and he said he'd sent his wooden spoked wheels off to be redone by Amish craftsmen. I can't wait to see how nice they turn out. He's struggliing with the rest of the wagon, but says that he thinks it is 100% complete as far as parts go. It's mostly torn apart now and I hope he knows how to put it back together. I'm not sure how he is doing it, but I'd have to have photos. I think he's doing it by the seat of his pants.:confused2: