CONTEST - NAME THAT TRACTOR!

Need a better idea of where that propane line goes.

Looks like it goes under the deck and back up into the carb.

Need a better idea of where that propane line goes.

Looks like it goes under the deck and back up into the carb.

I see it now. Also there doesn't appear to be a cap on the gas tank and there is what appears to be a regulator mounted on the governor housing. This may have been assembled out of several tractors.

Nice paint job!

It is a 1953 Super M with the distillate option. ...................

Jim, Didn't the super M have live hydraulics? It could of course have been removed, I don't see hydraulics of any kind. Weren't hydraulics an option in earlier tractors? Also a super M using distillate? The fuel disappeared shortly after WW2 due to a change in the refining process. Vern

OK...doesn't cane have to burned The tank is used to start fire in the sugar cane.

Hey Buddy Banks Gary Boutwell Y'all wake up and help me out here

OK...doesn't cane have to burned The tank is used to start fire in the sugar cane.

Hey Buddy Banks Gary Boutwell Y'all wake up and help me out here

I was born and raised with sugarcane all around me here in South LA and I have never seen anything like that!

I was born and raised with sugarcane all around me here in South LA and I have never seen anything like that!

And it doesn't have to be burned either. You can strip the leaves with a double bladed knife before the harvest if you have the man power to do it.

I see it now. Also there doesn't appear to be a cap on the gas tank and there is what appears to be a regulator mounted on the governor housing. This may have been assembled out of several tractors.

Nice paint job!

It is a 1953 Super M with the distillate option. ...................

Jim, Didn't the super M have live hydraulics? It could of course have been removed, I don't see hydraulics of any kind. Weren't hydraulics an option in earlier tractors? Also a super M using distillate? The fuel disappeared shortly after WW2 due to a change in the refining process. Vern

Could be parts of several tractors. If so, exact model and year can be hard to determine. However:

That serial in an M would be '41, in a Super M '53. The style of the plate matches '53, not '41. An M serial would have the prefix "FBK".

The tractor has battery igniton, battery under the seat, Monroe seat and disk brakes. These all were used on a '53 Super but not a '41 M.

Later Super Ms had live hydraulics as an option. I don't see a pump, but the unit under the fuel tank is part of a live hydraulic system.

Distillate or kerosene options were not common by '53, but still available. Distillate availability phased out after WWII, but didn't disappear all at once. Older refineries would have produced some until the refinery was shut down. My guess is this tractor was originally in the Gulf region. Distillate probably could be found along the Gulf long after it was gone from most other areras. In that area, they might have been running tractors on drip gas. Drip gas was pretty variable in content but probably had about the octane rating of kerosene.

However, the grille looks more like an M than a Super M.

I was born and raised with sugarcane all around me here in South LA and I have never seen anything like that!

And it doesn't have to be burned either. You can strip the leaves with a double bladed knife before the harvest if you have the man power to do it.

They would usually burn the field after the harvest to clean up the trash in the field, but they do not do that anymore. Most of the cane is harvested with a combine rather than the traditional harvester. The combine chops the cane into small pieces as a tractor with a wagon follows along side. The wagons have hydraulic lifts and they dump the cane into the truck which takes it to the mill to be processed.

Here is how we harvest cane. Video was taken near my home. I have had the opportunity to ride in the combines as my family is in the sugar cane business. I encourage everyone to watch as this is a very good video of the process.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR2GAjHvuD4

Here is the "old" way of harvesting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=figYWrsE ... el&list=UL

The whole stalk of cane is cut. Then you have to get a loader to get the cane out of the field into a wagon. If the mill is close, the tractor can drive there. If not, once the wagon is loaded, another loader takes it out and puts it into a truck. VERY time consuming compared to the new combine system!

Loading cane the "old" way:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P--c1JU2 ... ure=relmfu

Hey, this was fun, and having grown up in Florida and seeing (and smelling!) the burning sugar cane fields, this brought back memories! Thanks.

However, according to the folks at the shop where this was parked, this was built with the platform for workers to stand on while going down the rows of a tomato field, driving in the stakes! So if it didn't have hydraulics (and I didn't look at that very closely) it probably didn't need it since it was simply a moving platform.

OK, who has a new one?!