Walk behind tractor

[SM6OID]

Hi!

Just want to show you one of my vehicles, it's a "walk behind tractor" or "garden tractor".
It is a IRUS (made in Germany) with a 300 cm3 Hirth twostroke engine, producing 9 hp.
With the big 16x6 inch wheels on the picture it will hit approx 25 km/h, slightly scary...
My father gave it to me on my 15th birthday, today I'm 45.
On one of the pictures you can see one of my two sons Benjamin 2½ years old enjoying driving the beast...  

[W3GMS]

Fantastic tractor and I have never seen one like that.  It looks like it could be modified to put ground radials in very easily!! 

Your son looks like he is enjoying it as well.  Is he a candidate to became a Ham Radio Op?  I realize he is only 2 1/2 but you can never start them to early!!

73,
Joe, W3GMS

[KL7OF]

Nice tractor...There was one made in the USA called a Gravely (sp?) that looked similar..Large drive wheels and tow behind attachments..There was also a front mounted sickle bar mower attachment, and a front mounted blade... Almost the same color as your IRUS...The gravely was a 4 stroke single cylinder ..KA7WOC has one or two

[kb3ouk]

Gravelys were usually red, they had a small hood on them, too. The later ones had a sort of creme colored hood with a red frame.

[w3jn]

That is a super-cool tractor.  I especially love the meter-long gearshift!

Those 2-wheel "iron horse" style tractors are popular in 3rd world countries.  First time I saw one was in Nepal back in the late 80s, hauling a wagon of some sort with its "pop-pop-pop" exhaust through a market.

[The Slab Bacon]

With a motorcycle type carburetor and no governor, that should be real interesting to operate. For some odd reason the Europeans really loved that 2-stroke stuff.

Definately an interesting piece!!

[SM6OID]

Hi!

Some technical details;
It's an IRUS U900, made in 1959. A lot of different "tools" can be fitted. The engine is feed with food via a 26 mm Bing carb, and as can be seen, no governor! Actually, there was av gov, from the beginning. But for a reason unknown to me, it was deleted during mid 60's.
I can remember this machine from my very early day's, my first memory that can be accuratly identified is when I was three years old.

More to come, must rush now.

[WB2CAU]

Those 2-wheel "iron horse" style tractors are popular in 3rd world countries.  First time I saw one was in Nepal back in the late 80s, hauling a wagon of some sort with its "pop-pop-pop" exhaust through a market.

That style of tractor used to be popular here in the US in the 1940s and 50s also.  My dad bought one used around 1958.  It was a "Standard Twin" built in 1947 with rather large tractor cleat tires.  It had a lot of pulling power with its own massive weight assisting traction.  My dad used it to pull tree stumps, in addition to plowing the garden.

The downside was that you had to start it with a crank and my dad told me that if you didn't have the right "knack" to starting with a crank, you'd break your arm.  As a kid that scared me enough not to try starting it.

I didn't realize that this style of tractor was still popular in other parts of the world.

[SM6OID]

Hi!

Well, you could always try Youtube....  type: einachser rennen and you will see the most amazing, horrible and strange things...   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sSgzN9Y4ew&feature=related

[w1vtp]

Back when my grandfather was keeping a garden, someone came down with this beast to demonstrate it.  I don't know what went wrong but it threw the soil way too far and left a trench where (I think) should have been cultivated soil.

After a few salty words from grandfather, the demonstration was concluded and the beast was carted away never more to be seen.  That was my lasting recollection of the Gravely walkbehind.  Thank goodness the current rototillers are much better behaved

Grandfather had a real green thumb.  He had all kinds of berry bushes and a to die for asparagus bed.  It was from that garden I grew to love that veg.  I usually serve my mac & cheese dinner with fresh asparagus.  Thanks for the memories!

Al

PS:  Got that pic from this

http://www.gravelyrestoredtractors.com/Index.html

Interesting site

[kb3ouk]

Around here we pick our asparagus from the wild. That stuff is everywhere, in fields, briar patches, along the road. Gotta get it when it's still young and tender, I don't care for it when it gets old.

[W3GMS]

Back when my grandfather was keeping a garden, someone came down with this beast to demonstrate it.  I don't know what went wrong but it threw the soil way too far and left a trench where (I think) should have been cultivated soil.

After a few salty words from grandfather, the demonstration was concluded and the beast was carted away never more to be seen.  That was my lasting recollection of the Gravely walkbehind.  Thank goodness the current rototillers are much better behaved

Grandfather had a real green thumb.  He had all kinds of berry bushes and a to die for asparagus bed.  It was from that garden I grew to love that veg.  I usually serve my mac & cheese dinner with fresh asparagus.  Thanks for the memories!

Al

PS:  Got that pic from this

http://www.gravelyrestoredtractors.com/Index.html

Interesting site

Al,
When I was a kid, my neighbor had a Gravely like that equipped with a snow blower.  I remember the storm of 1958 when I was 6 years old him coming down and blowing my Dad's driveway out.  It was a very wet and deep snow.  That old Gravely went though it like butter!  It threw that wet heavy snow at least 50 feet without any trouble at all.

In the summer he would take the snow blower off and cut grass with that round attachment in the front.  I think I remember him having some gang mowers and pulling them at times. 

A beast of a machine for sure.     

[w1vtp]

I see the PTO on the front and the engage lever, what kind of attachments do you have for it?

Al

[w1vtp]

Hi!

Well, you could always try Youtube....  <snip>

That was a hoot! 

A man could hurt himself on one of those!!  I especially liked the double vision part.  Bet that's how the drivers saw things after a day's racing (or whatever you call that - perhaps suicide runs)

[The Slab Bacon]

Hi!

Well, you could always try Youtube....  type: einachser rennen and you will see the most amazing, horrible and strange things...   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sSgzN9Y4ew&feature=related

That looks like fun! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! If they raced stuff like that here, I could get real interested!!

[w3jn]

The Swedes (I believe this video is Swedish) even use tractors as musical instruments

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1ThSi1wbqU

[The Slab Bacon]

thinking about it last night,
                                     They put 'em on chain saws, it's a wonder no one put one of those Buick / Olds (now Land Rover) aluminum V-8s on one of those things. After all it does go with today's world of extreeme everything.

    

[W3RSW]

Back when my grandfather was keeping a garden, someone came down with this beast to demonstrate it.  I don't know what went wrong but it threw the soil way too far and left a trench where (I think) should have been cultivated soil.

Al,
That sounds like just the first furrow when using a standard two bottom plow. My old 8N Ford did just that.  The second pass filled the first row's ditch and so on through the field.  You just had to start your boundary one furrow over if you were picky or had a fence to deal with, etc.

I noticed in old gardens or fields that a long linear mound was always built up either on the edge of the field or in the middle if a rectangular plow pattern was going round and round.  Smart farmers would reverse plow along with crop rotation if they could remember, heh, heh.  I flunked that one. 

I used to have a lot of fun setting the plow depth to just skim the junk clay about 10 inches down in my garden at the time.  It was so neat to watch the auto depth feature work on the 8N's hydraulic lift.  -Must have been a great improvement to the tractors made pre-war.  I remember it was a highly touted feature.

Sorry I don't have the 8N anymore.
"there was never a new ford tractor sold without the 2 bottom plow," (no disks attached, just plain-jane.)

[SM6OID]

The Swedes (I believe this video is Swedish) even use tractors as musical instruments

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1ThSi1wbqU

Yes, that's how we do it...   

[KE5YTV]

In the 60's my family had a giant garden. I spent many hours plowing with a David Bradley 8 hp. walking tractor.
We had a riding sulky, sickle mower, plow, disc, harrow and dump trailer. It was old when we bought it but it gave us 10 years of faithful service. It was still going strong when we sold it. I don't have the garden anymore but I sure wish my family had kept "old David".

Former Farmer Mike 

[KM1H]

With all the Swedes, Germans, and Norweigans  in Minnesota and Wisconsin you will likely find similar contraptions.
Wisconsin was where I learned iceboat racing as well as stock car racing on frozen lakes.

Carl

[w1vtp]

Rick

Grampa would have probably liked the rototiller.  The guy doing the demo probably had the throttle goosed a little.  After all, Grampa wanted to till between the asparagus rows - probably not a good application for what he wanted

Al

[w3jn]

With all the Swedes, Germans, and Norweigans  in Minnesota and Wisconsin you will likely find similar contraptions.
Wisconsin was where I learned iceboat racing as well as stock car racing on frozen lakes.

Carl

I'm from Minnesota, and both my grandfather and uncle farmed; I spent most summers down on the farm and learned my love for mechanical things from them.  Grandpa had a Port Huron steam tractor that he used to put on a threshing show at the farm, or at a threshing bee.  My uncle has it now and continues the tradition. 

Anyhow, I never saw such a beast back there.  That's not to say there weren't any...

[W1TAV]

Here is a Picture of My Planet Tractor from the late 40's.. (that is my1925 Model T in the background) For what it is worth, I was one of the last "Factory Branch" Employees of Gravely Tractor back in the late 70's.. And I know for sure I assembled the very last 2 New in the crate 7.6 Walk Behinds (like the one in the W1VTP's picture) that Gravely sold. They were 1974 tractors that had been left at a dealer in VT that we took back in 1978..  Sadly, we were Gravely's Factory Branch #1 and the last one in their Factory Distribution system. They closed the branch down in 1980..  It was certainly a nice glimpse into the now gone mid-20th century factory distribution system in the US. - Steve

[The Slab Bacon]

There is something about the smell of soft coal and burned oil on a chilly fall morning that I just love! ! ! ! ! !

Johnny, I could actually smell the smoke from that tractor that you posted! ! !