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oliver2-44

Ford Tractor Shop Stories

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oliver2-44

As I've mentioned before, I worked in a Ford Tractor Shop during my impressionable high school years.

Seems like everyone there was a character of sorts.

All sorta good small town characters. 

 

This will be a running thread that I add stories too as I'm inspired, so check back in if you see the title pop back up.

 

Owner/Boss was a talker and a very conservative/tight old German business man.

Parts-man knew his part numbers by memory but was quite a smart-alex....smarter than anyone else in the shop he thought

Top Mechanic #1 He was a really good mechanic, short-thin wiry guy, when he got mad his foul mouth would light off and if was really bad large wrenches would fly across the shop and hit the shop walls with a bang.  Drank too much Friday nights at the beer joint!

Mechanic #2 was just a quiet hard working guy.

Mechanic #3  talked with a bad studder, not the sharpest guy, but did a lot of new equipment assembly and general mechanical

PAINT Shop Old Guy he had a bit of a foul mouth, but took me under his wing and always told me to go to college and "not to be like all the other clowns that worked there".

Delivery Truck Driver Mid-Twenties young guy that got teased about having to make late afternoon deliveries to neighboring towns....had a girl friend in every town. drove the BIG 11/2 ton truck with goose-neck trailer 

Office Lady A sweet lady that keep everyone's time, part charges and job work orders straight

I left off Me High School Shop Flunky - worked afternoons and summers, steam cleaning filthy tractors, helping whoever hollered.. git your *!#* over here and hold this, backup (small) delivery repaired lawn tractors

Shop Manager Poor guy that ran around looking lost all day trying to keep people getting there work done and not killing each other.  

Customers  Many that had day jobs and ran the inherited family farm after hours and many full time and many Full time Farmers and Ranchers . Good country folk and some outstanding characters among them.

New Customers Houstonites buying these new 10-20 acre ranchetes 

Location La Grange, Tx  settled by Germans, Czechs, Bohemians, all good conservative people.  A little over an hours drive from Houston, which was booming in the 1970's   

 

Speaking of conservative:  Whats the difference between a German and a Czech:  One's got homemade sausage for supper and the other has got still has the first dollar he ever made.......I still cant figure out which one is which.   

 

1st Story

Bosses Monthly Friday Afternoon - Saturdays Challenge 

About once a month the boss would leave early Friday afternoon. Parts-Man would come back in the shop and holler "Boss just cleaned the cash out of the safe.... ya'll get ready for "Saturday Morning"!

Then he would tell the nice office lady: you better call some customers to come pay there bills - in cash - we need some!

So I believe on Sunday afternoon's the boss would drive all the country back roads in the county.  He knew every tractor or piece of equipment that hadn't moved in a few many years.  Prime candidates for purchase. 

 

So on these monthly Friday afternoons the Boss would drive to a corner of the County and make the rounds of the areas' Friday evening social gathering places aka local Beer Joints.  With pockets full of cash he would buy rounds of beer and socialize.  As the evening wore on I can just hear:

     Hey ol Joe, you haven't used that Ford 8N up on the fence row in a few (many many) years, how about fifty bucks cash for it.  

     Hey ol Al, you haven't used that Ford 9N and plow under the chicken house in awhile, how about a hundred bucks cash right now for it.  

Boss goes to next area beer joint and repeats  

Boss goes to next area beer joint and repeats

 

Saturday Morning

8am Boss to Shop Crew (to be continued this evening)

 

 

Edited by oliver2-44
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ebinmaine

Love these kind of threads. I'm in.

 

 

 

That shop sounds like some of the places I've worked over the years as well...

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tunahead72
11 hours ago, oliver2-44 said:

… Saturday Morning

8am Boss to Shop Crew (to be continued this evening)

 

Man, you can't leave us hangin' like that! :ychain::popcorn:

 

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oliver2-44

here ya go @ebinmaine @tunahead72

Saturday Morning

Most of the guys drifted in around 7:30 to BS around the coffee pot.  You normally weren't  supposes to clock in until 8 am.  But on these "monthly" Saturday mornings, the Shop Foreman would already be scurrying around.  Ya'll get clocked in, several customers tractors to be finished for pickup today and you know what else is up.  Yea, what else was always up!  

 

The Boss always got in quite early and made his calls trying to close sales before farmers and ranchers left the house. So at 8 am sharp...Boss to Shop Crew: Alright, I picked up some goooood tractors and equipment last night, lots of work to keep ya'll on the payroll a little longer.   Shop Foreman says Truck Driver called and said he's not gonna make it in this morning, can these pickups wait till Monday.  Boss No, No we've got to get them this morning.   Boss tells Me, get the big truck ready to go and take mechanic #3 with you, I'll get you the address and map for the 1st pickup.  Take it slow since you don't have your Commercial license (it was 1975 in a rural area!)  O' and take a wrecking bar and chain saw and remember to take gas with it this time.  (yea, I was 17 years old).  So as I got the "Big" truck and gooseneck ready, the teasing began.  Young-un gets to drive the BIG ONE today, Truck Driver's gonna  be ticked at you for putting him out of a job...chainsaw, boy how do you load a tractor with a chainsaw....what's it gonna be a chicken house or another China Berry tree.

Out comes the Boss with a map and everyone else shuts up and looks busy.  The first ones out on ol Al's place, near Egypt (even Texas has an Egypt) about 45 minutes from here.  It's got some small brush behind it you need to cut down so you can winch it on backwards.  Remember don't try to start any of em today, winch-em on.  O, and take some air bottles, I'm sure the tires are low....someone pipe out ..you mean we finally get one with tires on it and there's a shop full of laughter.     

 

Off Mechanic 3 and I go, I've only got to drive the "Big" truck under Truck Drivers supervision (nap time). Of course I'm extra careful since I don't have a license for the rig.  We pull up to the house and the farmer Al says: well your ol Boss finally got me to sell him that 9N after all these years of badgering.  He thinks he stole it from me, laughing.   The laughter bring puzzled looks from us and farmer explains.   Ya'll don't go telling your Boss, but all us farmers and ranchers have got an agreement that one or two of us will sell him something every month, so we can keep him coming and buying the beer around the county all year long..

 

So down the pasture we go and sure enough the 9N is parked nose to a big tree and a good amount of brush behind it.  Mechanic 3 stutter's I can't cut that brush, I'm allergic to Poison Ivy!   So as I cut brush and Poison Ivy, Mechanic 3 backs up the truck, (he doesn't drive on the highway since he doesn't have any kind of license).  Then he starts running the electric winch.   All goes along and were thankful for the electric winch because the flat tires don't hold any air.   As we begin to winch it up red wasp swarm out from under the hood and we scramble to the truck for a few minutes.  I laugh, remembering a few months back when a  raccoon came out of a tractor on Truck Driver and I, holding his ground and not letting us near the nest of baby raccoons under the tractor hood.  Back to winching and suddenly the winch stops.  A quick look and the cable on the spool is a big mess.  You forgot to hold tension on the cable as you unreeled it I holler.  So we unhook from the tractor, get the cable mess un-reeled off the winch, reel it back on straight and finally get the tractor winched onto the trailer.  We even got it chained down!  Back to the shop we go and make it without more problems.  As soon as we hit the yard the boss is hollering where have you been, and giving me directions to take a 3/4 ton truck and trailer with the hand winch (groan) to pick up an 8ft. disc harrow.  He tells Mechanic 3 to drag the 9N off the big truck trailer so I can make another run with it when I get back.  The shop closes at noon on Saturday, and back in the shop the other guys are teasing ...looks who's getting Truck Drivers overtime he's going to really be ticked off at you now.  What, I don't even get paid overtime, I'm the one getting a raw deal (since I only worked part time)   So, that's how it went for a typical "monthly" Saturday around the Ford Tractor Shop.

 

Next, stay tuned for: Resurrecting the 9N or Bosses Brew and an Electric Water Heater.   

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ebinmaine
5 hours ago, oliver2-44 said:

Next, stay tuned for: Resurrecting the 9N....

       OR ....

Bosses Brew and an Electric Water Heater

 

You mean we gotta get these one atta time???

:ychain:

 

Both would be good..... :lol:

 

 

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dells68

@oliver2-44, these stories sound so familiar!  Must have been a Ford dealership thing.  Even your descriptions of the people sound familiar!  Keep ‘em coming - they remind me of the days hanging out in the shop and riding in the big delivery truck with Dad.

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adsm08
8 hours ago, ebinmaine said:

 

You mean we gotta get these one atta time???

:ychain:

 

Both would be good..... :lol:

 

 

 

This is one of them serial novels they used to put in the magazines.

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Tractor boy

@oliver2-44 been awhile since the last one............

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ebinmaine
2 hours ago, Tractor boy said:

@oliver2-44 been awhile since the last one............

yeah man I'm sitting on the edge of my seat AND holding my breath AND chewing my nails.

 

:banana-wrench:

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LengerichKA88

I always enjoy story time, I’m in

 

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Stormin

The stories your telling, we do enjoy.

About the time you were a boy.

So come on lad, now don't you stop.

Tell more of what happened, at that tractor shop. :thumbs:

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Pullstart
On 7/18/2019 at 11:37 AM, ebinmaine said:

yeah man I'm sitting on the edge of my seat OR holding my breath OR chewing my nails.

 

:banana-wrench:

 

:text-yeahthat:

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Tractor boy

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tunahead72

It's still early morning on a Saturday in Texas.  Patience, my son. :popcorn:

 

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Stormin
7 hours ago, tunahead72 said:

  Patience, my son. :popcorn:

 

 

Patience is a virtue. Seldom possessed by man and never by a woman. :whistle:

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oliver2-44

Well, where were we.  Aaa yes, Bosses Brew and an Electric Water Heater.   

But before we get to that and the 9N, we need to backup a bit.  

   I had been working at the shop for a few weeks, and I asked Painter" what's with that contraption and the buckets of hoses and fittings on the oily slab behind the paint shop.  Of course his standard reply was becoming "young-en you will learn in due time, in due time"   I was learning a lot of things around the shop, some good, and some ..... 

   It was a wet fall and the farmers weren't able to get in their fields to plow and break things.  So it was getting a little slow around the shop.  There weren't any tractors waiting for me to steam clean when I got there that day.  No one needed any help, and no new equipment to help assemble.  I hadn't learned the "ropes" of how slow times worked around the shop yet.  It was a Thursday afternoon, and I was goofing off on a lawn tractor with the bosses young son.  The Shop Foreman caught us and sent the Bosses son inside.  Then he told me, since I didn't have anything better to do and since it's slow, you don't need to come in tomorrow or Saturday morning.   What!  I'm only working 2 or 3 hours after school and 4 hours on Saturday.  I had got 14 hrs the 1st couple of weeks.  They didn't have to pay me the $1.74 minimum wage I had got at my previous summer job helping install carpet and vinyl flooring.  Something about since I was part time and working through the School Ag Program blah blah blah.  So I only worked 8 hours that week.  At a $1.25 an hour I made a whooping $10 that week, wait, Uncle Sam got part of that, maybe I took home $9.   This wasn't going to keep gas in my old truck and pay for a ticket to the Saturday night dance at the KC Hall (knight of Columbus) or the VFW hall in the neighboring town.  Just then Painter hollered he needed me to help him.  When we got to his shop he said it looked like I needed "saving" from the Shop Foreman.  I said ya, he told me not to come in the next few days since it was slow.   

 

  Over the course of time that I worked there, Painter kind of "took me in" in a crude way and taught me some of the ropes of the working world.  So my 1st lessons began.  He said you see I've only got one tractor in line to paint.  Boss has it sold to a neighbor down his road and told me to make it look really good!  I've been sanding and putting Bondo on this here hood for about 2 days now.   When Ol Mr Shop Foreman tries to hurry me along, I just tell him "I'm following Bosses orders,...make it look really good".  Then he said, of course if I had 4 tractors sitting out there waiting to be painted it would still take me about 2 days to sand a hood... nice and slow.  Painter then told me: "They would love to get rid of me (him), but no one else around here likes to paint!  You see young-en you need to find you some jobs no one else likes to do.  You worked at the Floor Company right?  Yes Sir, I replied.  I bet you swept a lot of floors didn't you.  Yes Sir, I had to learn to sweep them very clean before they spread the glue down.  Then he pointed around his paint shop and over to the big shop and said...there's always somewhere that needs sweeping around here!.  Now remember, your not in a hurry to sweep the place, you know.  After all, you can tell Mr Shop Foreman your trying to not make a lot of dust that would get in the engines, transmissions, or what ever the other mechanics were working on.  You understand young-en, pace yourself.  Then he asked me?  You got a girl friend?  No Sir, I replied.  He reached in his pocket and handed me a $5 bill and said, you better go to the dance this weekend and meet one. 

 

OK, @Tractor boy @dells68 @ebinmaine @tunahead72 @pullstart @LengerichKA88

At least @Stormin understands.... I still have to Pace Myself!  

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LengerichKA88

I learned to pace myself in a very similar fashion in the Corps..... 😂

 

”Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.”

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dells68

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.  Funny how it’s hard to convince people who are in a big hurry of this!

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Pullstart

So, how was the dance?

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c-series don

Not to steal your thread, but this reminds me of a story. I’ve been doing finish grading work for 25+ years. When I was in my early twenties I was operating a road grader grading a dirt road when an elderly gentleman pulled up in a country squire station wagon. He just sat in his car watching me for probably a half hour. Finally he got out and came over to me and said “son I’ve been watching you speed back and forth making several unnecessary passes!” At first I was a little angry, who was this guy to come over and criticize my work? He proceeded to tell me that he was retired from the operating engineers union as a grader operator and had just one tip that he would like to share with me. He said (and I will never forget this I swear) “let accuracy be your goal and speed will be your reward” He told me that he could have done what I did in ten passes in four. He said if I just slow down and make every pass as accurate as possible that I would actually speed up my production. And damned if he wasn’t right! To this day I follow that advice. We kind of took a liking to each other and became friends, I even ended up doing some grading work at his home! Well don’t you know about a year ago I see a kid (early twenties!) running a skid steer trying to grade out an area for a pole building. He’s flying back and forth not really being productive and all of a sudden it hits me. Now I’m the old guy ( just not in a station wagon) I then feel compelled to go pass on this wisdom. Since I know the kid I do exactly that, in hopes that he too will follow this advice and someday pass it along. Thank you for reading my story! 

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LengerichKA88
12 hours ago, dells68 said:

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.  Funny how it’s hard to convince people who are in a big hurry of this!

While I learned that 10 years ago, it really didn’t sink in until a year or so ago. (To consciously take my time in all tasks anyway) Some things just have to come through trial and error, the rest with age. 

 

Edited by LengerichKA88
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ebinmaine
3 hours ago, LengerichKA88 said:

While I learned that 10 years ago, it really didn’t sink in until a year or so ago. (To consciously take my time in all tasks anyway) Some things just have to come through trial and error, the rest with age. 

 

You're ahead of me by a good strong 10 years in that knowledge.

Keep it in play...

 I was around 42 before I really figured out alot of things.

 

 

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ebinmaine

@oliver2-44

Thanks for sharing these stories!

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oliver2-44

@c-series don Thank You for adding your story and I welcome everyone else to share theirs.

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