In my research, I came upon an article on a wheat harvester on a Ford Model T touring car. Now that is something different! It was from the Page 71 of Automobile Dealer and Repairer, August 1920, and the article was accompanied by a photo.
George W. White, Hutchinson, Kansas, was putting this machine together. He put a unit under the back of the Model T that was available at the time to turn the Model T into a tractor. The attachment geared the car down but kept the engine rpms up so that it could pull a plow or run the harvester. Some of the worked-over parts look as if they were from an earlier harvester he’d tried to build. This one didn’t work out either.
The problems with turning a Model T into a self-propelled combine started with the engine. There had to be a governor to keep the engine in a range of 1,500 to 1,600rpm to get a max 20hp out of it (which is 40mph). They had to restrict the miles-per-hour to harvesting speeds by using sprockets and chains attached between the rear axle hubs to the bull wheels.
It also had to have a water pump and large-capacity radiator to keep the engine cool. It needed an override on the rear hubs so the inertia of the harvester would not move the Model T when the T’s forward motion is stopped or put into reverse. Then there was the problem of getting power to the various units of the harvester, with sprockets and chains (as V-belts had not yet come into use).
The craftsman’s challenges
As this contraption really intrigued me, I thought it would be neat to build a model or toy version of it, even if the finished product was somewhat crude. My first task was to find a toy Model T of the right model. Arcade made one, but they were in the expensive range and I would have to cut the back fenders off, so that was out. There was a reproduction model that would work, but the sellers were trying to pawn it off as “old,” plus charging for shipping.
Finally, I found one in my price range at a flea market. I used the cast-iron repro Model T toy car to build the wheat combine around. The biggest problem was finding building materials of nearly the correct size in the castoff piles, or hacksawing it out of derelict machinery on my farm. I even used a section of an old Caterpillar Sixty radiator tube to simulate the stripper auger on the front.
The bull wheels are reworked caster wheels off a piano. I did the lathe work with an electric drill and a 4-1/2-inch angle grinder, holding them in my lap and hands. Some parts I had to build two or three times to get them to work out, even after having made several cardboard patterns. And in the process of going through your can of assorted machine screws, looking for #4 and #6 short machine nuts and bolts, you usually find the ones with the wrong thread size.
Another part of it was making the tools to use in making whatever it is you want to build. I am also blind in one eye, which really takes out my depth perception. The holes I drill with an electric hand drill are thrown off by my bifocals and end up coming out angled. Being awkward at my age, you drop things and pick them up many times. You’re always trying to work around the last mistake you made. FC
Richard Stout lives in Washington, Iowa. He is assisted in his writing endeavors by his granddaughter, Ashley Stout.
