Thank goodness, and Joanne, for a cell phone. Joanne? she gave it to me when I didn't think I wanted it. Monday afternoon I'd gone out to cultivate my corn which is about three miles from town. My 1951 John Deere A died. While I was checking the points the carburetor overflowed and filled the cylinders with gas. When I tried to start the tractor it wouldn't turn over because of the gas in the cylinders. I removed the spark plugs and ran the starter to pump the gas out. When I replaced the spark plugs the battery was too low to start the tractor.
I knew my friend, Lloyd, was visiting his brother, Marvin, in Sinai. Lloyd's cell phone number is in my directory so I called him to ask about Marvin and got Marvin's phone number. Marvin was just leaving Brookings, fifteen miles away and he said he'd swing by. We used his jumper cables to start the tractor. I drove to the end of the field and back and it died again. The spark was very weak so we went to Marvin's place to get a new condenser. With the new condenser in I made it to the end of the field and the tractor died again. Again there was a very weak spark so we took the magneto off and decided to try again in the morning.
Tuesday morning with a new magneto I made it to the end of the field before it died again. We disassembled the carburetor and discovered the float wasn't floating, it was full of gas. We took the carburetor to Marvin's and put in a new float. Back to the tractor and once again I got to the end of the field and stalled. Rain clouds were threatening but we were able to keep the tractor running at full throttle by turning the gas shut off valve down significantly. So I was able to finish cultivating.
Back at Marvin's place we disassembled the carburetor and found that the new float also had a leak in it. Now, do you see why I like farming?
PS It did rain and inch so cultivating would have had to wait for a couple of days at least by sich time I'd be back in MN.
PPS Marvin is a retired farmer, tractor collector and an excellent mechanic with a well supplied shop.
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