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Hey everyone - and especially Mudcat49! ;-) I love the 1468, I love the 1468, I love the 1468. Haha, okay, enough of that for now. I guess I did forget about some good oldies, didn't I. I'll have to admit that I'm not completely IH oriented yet, part of that is due to my age... I'm eighteen now and still wet behind the ears when it comes to IH. I must have been five or six years old when IH died and CaseIH was born. That was a sad thing. :-( I love my Farmalls though and keep searching for more. I finally talked my father into the 1468, and he often complains how parts are rare, etc. Well, that never stopped me from searching for things, and I'm usually successful if I try hard enough. I guess I've forgotten about some other ones, as they have come and gone before my time and I never got totally acquainted with them. I'm used to the '66 and '86 series, probably because they're so common! I've seen a few here and there and like to visit the used IH tractor lot. The folks that run the place know me and are pretty kind to me. They let me get acquainted with the tractors and give them each a test drive - what a treat! I do remember driving a Farmall 826 around the lot a few times a long while back, and I fell in love it. It reminded me a lot of our old Farmall 544, except with a different transmission. I distinctly remember that the gears would grind a little, but it ran well. I might add that the Farmall 1026 looks like a lot of fun too, I assume it's virtually the same thing, just a bigger horse. My father used to have all sorts of Farmalls and has sold/traded them for bigger and better engines. We traded up from a Farmall 544 for a Farmall 966, and later sold a Farmall 686 and bought a Farmall 1468. In a way I miss the Farmall 544, and in a way, I don't. It was a narrow front end tractor, diesel, and it had some problems. I remember that it had compression problems and it didn't easily start unless we had warm weather. I know my dad would curse at it in the winter. He used to plug in the block heater and feed it ether. We eventually got sick of that and usually ended up parking it on a hillside so we could coasted it in fifth gear to start it. That was a riot! To be quite honest, it was more or less a safety hazard and a liability. I would like to find a diesel with low hours and a wide front end instead. I'll find one in good shape that I like, I suppose. The big kicker, our Farmall 686 left here looking absolutely mint with 3,400 hours. It ran like a champ. I learned to drive on that tractor and spent a lot of time cutting hay, raking, baling, planting, discing, picking corn, etc. I am really going to miss that tractor. It is the perfect little engine for any small farmer or anyone who wants a good decent sized tractor - especially to brush hog with. I'm going to miss that one. My next project is to restore the family's Farmall H which was bought new in 1951. It was worked like a dog and has seen better days. It's been rolled over a few times, wrecked, smashed, and everything else. I think the engine has been overhauled three times and it's ready for a fourth time. We keep fixing it and using it. I'm finally going to fix it up properly and retire it. It deserves a place in the barn next to the Farmall 1468. What I would really like to find is a Farmall Super M-TA Diesel. My grandfather had one and he died not long after I was born - it was his favorite tractor. I found pictures of him driving it around the farm - which from what I've learned, was something he liked to do on a warm sunny Sunday afternoon. It was later sold when my father needed a bigger horse at the time, and that's how the Farmall 686 came to be ours. I became upset when I learned that only 2,705 were made, which makes them tough to find now. I hope I can find out who bought his and see if I can track it down and possibly buy it back. I've never seen a small Farmall diesel like that, and I'm very inclined to go to some of these tractor shows to see if I can find one. Oh well, that's a bit of history here... On the lighter side of things, the 1468 has been nothing but FUN, FUN, FUN! Talk about horsepower! The man we bought this from said he measured 160 horspower on ours, which it was originally rated for 145 horsepower. I'm impressed! I just love the sound of the tractor idling at about 700 R.P.M. on four cylinders, and when you stick it under a load, all eight run. Pictures coming soon. Regards, John D. Lewis
jdlewis@electrosity.com
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