Friday, June 1, 2018

1936 Farmall F-30

International Harvester marketed the Farmall tractors as a new system of Farming, and so it was. The McCormick - Deering product catalog for 1935 went so far as to claim that nothing since the McCormick Reaper had done so much to revolutionize agriculture.  Ten years in the design stage, the Farmall line was intended to be a single power source to perform every task required for row crop farming. Not just a tractor for plowing and belt work, it could cultivate as well as a team of horses and it didn’t have to rest or be fed. Ole Dobbin could finally be put out to pasture, or sent to the dog food factory for a tidy profit. Fortunately for Dobbin, most farmers considered him at least a business partner and chose the pasture over the cannery. 




It really was a comprehensive farming system, with attachments to perform every operation required by the average farm, and the F-12, F-20 and F-30 provided three levels of power to match the size of the farm. The first Farmall was a two plow tractor which by 1935 had evolved into the F-20 model. The F-12 was basically the one plow version while the F-30 was rated for three plows and marketed to farm operations of about 300 acres. It could pull four row planters and cultivators, power two row corn pickers or potato diggers or run a 28 inch thresher on the belt. International Harvester claimed it would plow from 8 ½ to 13 ½ acres in a day. 




The F-30 was in production from 1931 to 1939 with 28,902 units built. Serial numbers run from 501 to 30026. Regular equipment included: belt pulley and PTO, 42” X 12” steel wheels with 5” spade lugs, combination kerosene / gasoline manifold, oil and air filter and IHC made magneto. Optional extras: pneumatic tires, rear wheel fenders, electric lighting and a cushion seat. A wide front axle and wheel kit option was also available to convert it to a four wheel tractor. All farmall engines had replaceable cylinders that eliminated the need for reboring. This feature made it possible to rebuild the engine without removing it from the tractor. 




The F-30 was powered by a four cylinder water cooled vertical I head engine produced by International Harvester in house. Bore and stroke measured 4 ¼” by 5”  for a displacement of 283.7 cubic inches. A twenty - one gallon kerosene tank supplied the Zenith  K5 carburetor and a one gallon gasoline tank facilitated starting. Turning over under load at 1150 rpm the engine produced a maximum drawbar horsepower of 24.85 and 32.8 hp on the belt as recorded in Test Number 198 at the University of Nebraska in October 1931. Forward speeds were: 2, 2 ¾, 3 ¼, and 3 ¾ mph with  2 ½  mph in reverse. 




Total length of the tractor was 147 inches with a wheelbase of 94 inches. Width was recorded as 89 ¼ “ and 97 ½ “.  Shipping weight was listed as 5300 pounds. By braking hard on one of the rear wheels a turning radius of 8 ⅔ feet could be obtained, which was pretty handy at the end of a row. The drawbar could be adjusted 12 inches vertically and 43 inches horizontally. 




The 1936 F 30 shown here is owned by Wayne and Pam Estes and was participating in the 2017 WNC Fall Harvest Days Antique Engine and Tractor Show at the Agricultural Center located just outside Asheville, NC. The striking dark gray, almost black color of the paint begs the question: was this ever a factory color? That’s one I can’t answer. What I did gather from looking through the Paint Committee Decisions documents was that you could have any color you liked, as long as it was Harvester Red. They did offer one grudging exception stating that if some highway maintenance department insisted on being a pain, it might be ok to ship some yellow tractors. You can view these documents along with hundreds more in the McCormick - International Harvester  Collection of the Wisconsin Historical Society at www.wisconsinhistory.org . 




Additional resources:
Encyclopedia of American Farm Tractors by C.H. Wendel
www.tractordata.com 

1 comment:

  1. The grey color we used until November 1936 when the color was changed to red. The theory being that grey was hard to see in shady areas so probably not very good advertising to passersby. Our tractor was built December 1935. During the restoration process grey paint was found. The tractor has been repainted to red by the time my Dad bought it. Also our kerosene tank is 12 gallons instead of the 21 in your article.

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