Its all Trew

Enlarge Image Image Gallery The International 22-36 tractor

My dad survived the Dust Bowl and Great Depression with three 22-36 International steel lug-wheeled tractors. His first innovative step after those challenging times was taken when Montgomery Ward & Co. catalogs began offering conversion kits for changing the lug-wheels to rubber tires with a knobby tread.

We ordered kits, which included rims, tires and inner tubes, plus a spark plug air compressor to air up the tires. We jacked and blocked up the tractors, removed the wheels, carried them to a Perryton blacksmith who cut off the lug-rims and welded on the new tire rims. Back home, we mounted the new tires and inner tubes, replaced the tractor wheels, removed a spark plug and installed the new air compressor. Then we started the tractor motors and inflated the new tires to the proper pressure.

The front tractor tires used regular truck tires. The rear tires were somewhat rounded like aircraft tires of today but contained many extended projections for traction. The new tires worked well except for tire slippage when doing a hard pull.

That winter, we removed the rear wheels again, laid them on the ground and filled the open spoke areas with concrete, adding some much-needed weight. It helped, but as plow sizes grew, even more weight was needed, so next, we mixed salt water in barrels and pumped that inside the rear-wheel inner tubes; more than two 55-gallon barrels of fluid were needed in each tire. The added salt kept the water from freezing in winter.

Later, we replaced the salt water with a chloride solution, which was just as effective but cheaper and didn't rust the tractor rims as much as the salt water did. We used these 'improvements' until tires with ribbed treads were invented.