JD Manure Spreader: Wheels

All that kept these wheels on was two retaining pins held in place by a collar on each axle.  I had to drill the head of one pin off because it was upside down jamming against a collar recess that functions as a tightening increment.  If I’ve not mentioned it before, the two wheels have to come off at the start in order to have access to cleaning the area around the axle.  It’s a primitive slip-off slip-on procedure; no lug nuts.  I’m puzzled about how the wheels are lubricated on the axle.  Do you just slap on some grease between changes?  I did see that each wheel has an indentation on the inside.  Maybe it’s where the grease is applied.

Notice on the starboard side and the huge sprocket with its main drive chain in the disengaged position.  Also, on the sprocket’s grayish plate where its surface joins the inside of the wheel, there is a “dog ear” that catches the hub when the chain is engaged.  The wheel just spins and makes a clicking noise when the dog ear is disengaged.  A simple machine like this old John Spreader has many feet of chain that drive the auger and flippers.  There’s more underneath and I was tempted to paint all of them black for contrast.  Because of the rust I just brushed all the chain with motor oil.  It’s quicker.  I have to mention again I didn’t have a power washer nor did I have an air gun.  On the ground is my creeper which is an old Sea Bee “DRMO” 782 field gear foam mattress.  Don’t leave home without it.

Luckily the wheels were in excellent condition and all I had to do is find a welding shop to sandblast the old paint off.  That cost $25 per wheel and included the primer.  I was disappointed that I couldn’t find treads to match the original tires.  The new ones were BKs 750-20, an implement tire.  They cost me $220 each with a $5.00 disposal charge per tire, but the cost is worth it if for no other reason that John Deere yellow spoked wheels give the spreader contrast and character.  They told me at the tire shop since the machine is ground driven the wheels go on in reverse for more traction.

Image of a Dark Horse: Joni Ernst

In my January 14, 2013 post I called Operation Madame President: 2016, I predicted that the Republican Party would nominate a woman for President of the United States.  Even for the skeptic, the reasons I gave are plausible, the most of which was the Republican leadership’s desire to be more inclusive.   In other words they want to broaden their appeal for more votes.  I can see why.  So far it’s the same-old same-old with them: rich man, fat man, white men, and recently - another prince.  I’ve noticed barrages of trial balloons over the political landscape.  They quickly pop and disappear and the only thing left is that same pantheon of Republican candidates.  The only thing missing is any mention of a female candidate and that’s odd given previous Republican rhetoric.

What’s interested me in the last few weeks is the appearance of someone who has the look – the image - of being America’s first woman President.  I’m not talking about strategic considerations like being from an electoral rich state or having a billion dollar war chest.  Am I the only one who thinks Joni Ernst (who is running for Senator from Iowa) fits the presidential image?  She’s young at 44 and attractive enough to beat out Hillary Clinton any day.  Of course, that’s superficial, but I remember 1960 and how women used to swoon over John Kennedy.  The opposite may be true.

If she survives her Iowa bid, Ernst would bring to the table in 2016 unexpected military credentials coveted by the Right and sought after by the kingmakers of the Left who for decades have been cultivating and positioning their own candidates.  Ernst has them.   She was not only a Lieutenant Colonel in the Ohio Army National Guard, but served in Iraq.  In addition, her military service as an officer means she probably has been screened to the Top Secret level (depending on need-to-know).  It’s bad news for leftists in the Media who would enjoy exposing a Republican version of “Monkey Business.”  For now Joni Ernst has the image and more.  If she’s not destined to be a Dark Horse, it would surprise me.  In any event, I’d venture to say human nature favors attractive people and Hillary ain’t it.  

JD Manure Spreader: Prepping

Finding an old John Deere expert for advice didn’t work.  There was none nor could I find evidence that any ever existed, at least locally.  One group was too far away and didn’t specialize in John Deere.  The Internet didn’t help either.  Like farmers everywhere, they end up doing everything on their own - so I began.  Cleaning the spreader was obvious like prepping a house for painting.  At least I knew I could do that.  I also knew from my experience with cars and trucks that the lack of rust and the excellent condition of the wood would make the project winnable. I took the shroud off the port side and stared.  Grease and dirt gummed up the sprockets and gears.  I thinned the gum with used paint thinner.  As I flicked off the crude, I noticed there were grease zerks everywhere.  All the sprockets and gears had them.  Oddly, they weren’t plugged after more than 60 years.  I also found many Dirt Dobber nests.  The gear assembly at the bottom is apparently a gear box whose function is to regulate the speed of the bed chain that drags the load back to the flippers.  The box is connected to a port side handle with several notches at the tongue.

You guessed it.  The spreader didn’t come with a parts manual nor could I find one.  Observation has a lot to do with restoration and I try in this post to put in simple terms how mechanisms work.  The starboard side has what I call the ground driven power train.  As the spreader is pulled, the axle moves the giant sprocket which (when it’s engaged by the starboard handle in the front) powers the serpentine chain.  Power is transferred to a connecting sprocket that drives the auger, both sets of flipper (tine) racks, and the bed chain.  By now the wooden bed has been painted in old motor oil.  After I finished painting the spreader, I painted all the chains with motor oil.  That’s the only tip I received.

Priming was a tedious job and sanding was worse.  I used a leftover can of Zinsser Bulls Eye 1-2-3 which began to thicken up.  After it was gone I switched to automotive spray primer because it was easier to apply and there’s no cleanup.  The only drawback for me was that it made me a little queasy when I sprayed underneath the spreader. My advice on John Deere Green Enamel is to buy it at the local farm and country store.  A quart of JD Yellow cost me $19.79.  That wasn’t repeated.  A quart of JD Green was $7 cheaper at the farm and country store.  Paint and primer cost me $89.35.  I bought a set of artist brushes to do the “John Deere” name on both sides of the spreader.  Hand painting was easier than trying to track down official stencils.  As for the 4-legged Deere logo, I’m still working on trying to find it, but that’s another story.

JD Manure Spreader: Purchase

The John Deere manure spreader I saw for sale on the black top was straight out of old farming America.  Its bed measuring 4 ft. wide x 8 ft. long x 2 ft. high resembled that of a horse drawn utility wagon and covered wagon of pioneer days.  The "L" on its aluminum plate (no serial number) means two wheel.  I’d been looking for one to restore and use because nitrogen pellet fertilizer is expensive and this simple spreader is one I could pull with my utility JD tractor.  2014 also saw the pasturing of sufficient cattle numbers to justify the effort.  Adding to the attraction was the fact that it had belonged to my Uncle Henry and his family who had stored it in a chicken coop.  Its condition, except for the tires, was amazing.  The bed is treated wood and minimally rusted iron and steel which was once all John Deere Green.

Last week’s installment of Machinery Pete on rural RFDTV’s cable channel said there’s a revival in interest in used manure spreaders with some going from $14,000 to tops of $20,000 at auction.  I think it must be an apples and oranges situation because I paid only $900 for this one which I think is a mid-1950s John Deere. From there the expenses of restoration began with a $75 tow.  A couple a people were surprised because I had it towed, but it’s better to be safe than sorry even though the tubes were actually in good shape.  Making do and inflating old damaged tires is dangerous.  My cousin got killed at the OK Tire Shop when a tire blew up in his face.

The first thing I did when I got it back to the farm was to have the tow truck put it on level ground outside the shop.  I would need good light and open air since I would be doing a lot of priming and painting.  For the most part the weather held even though there were several days of rain and others that were just too hot for me.  Notice I put the axles on cement blocks and chocked them from moving.  (I’d found an old screw jack in the garage.)  I also drove a T-Post at the tongue and secured it with one of my old USMC belts.  Restoration means going underneath to do the cleaning and figuring out how the thing works.  It also means safety.  One slip and you’re crushed.  Other than that I began the cleanup painstakingly by hand with an ice pick, wire brush, whisk broom, rags, and sand paper.  If you think I knew what I was doing. You’re wrong. What in the world do I do now and how does this thing work?

MOPP Level 4

From our first day we all knew we’d be put in the gas chamber.  At Camp Telega, which is part of the larger USMC Camp Pendleton, our DIs burned CS tablets on a table to saturate the Quonset hut like a smoke house on a farm.  With a blanket covering the door and an occasional shaft of light filtering in, the gathering looked like one of those old 1930s Chinese opium den scenes from the movies.  Over the years the Marine Corps ditched the tablets and went to gas cylinders in modern brick or concrete chambers like the ones at Camp Lejeune where my picture was taken.  Apparently, many of us had figured out that if we waited for the tablets to burn off, the potency of CS gas would too.  So they modernized and gave everyone an equal dose.

Like their active duty counterparts, reservists can’t escape the nasty and uncomfortable training.  I guess it has to be because gas is serious stuff.  It’ll make a believer out of you – nowhere to run or hide.  You can’t breathe and begin to slobber.  All you can do is rely on your raining and use the gas mask and clothing as it was intended.  When the picture was taken the temperature was in the lower 90s and I was sweating profusely.  The woolen shirt was full of sand and the smell of CS gas from the last guy who had recently worn it.  Underneath the shirt is a layer of charcoal to absorb the gas like the face mask does.  When the filters eventually go, that’s it.

When I transferred to the Seabees after Desert Storm in 1992, Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical warfare training intensified.  In our combat training cycle, we dealt with MOPP levels which are stages of donning clothing and equipment: gas masks with hoods, rubber gloves, rubber boots, and woolen trousers with charcoal.  MOPP Level 1 is where you put on the basics.   Subsequent levels stop at MOPP 4 – the full complement.  By 1997 at Camp Hunter Ligget in California Pepper Gas was mixed in with CS Gas.  The valley was alive with Navy and Marine Corps umpires setting off gas bombs that it looked like fog and the big shots called so many MOPP Level alarms that many of us uttered a few “expletives deleted” and kept ourselves at Level 4.

Being retired, it’s hard for me to know what our Armed Forces go through now. Surely NBC training includes Biological and nuclear, especially after 911 and the anthrax scare.  George W. Bush (by fraud) warned us of the “mushroom cloud” in Iraq.  I suppose there will be a whole new cottage industry now that Ebola has come to America.  Survivalists will update their caches and people will flock to the gun shows to buy old gas masks and equipment.  Clorox and charcoal will fly off the shelves.  With the relentless spiral of threats, the American public seems to be poised for its own MOPP level training.

Stop the Coming Civil War

Yesterday, Tuesday, October 7th, was the maiden voyage of Michael Savage’s newest book, Stop the Coming Civil War.  Last night on Savage Nation callers gave updates on what they encountered at the bookstores.  Some said the book was given low priority at Barnes and Noble by not having it out front on the New Releases table.  Others said the placement was fine and sales appeared good.  Savage’s credentials that span many decades suggest this one will be a sellout.  He’s has a PhD in epidemiology and is not afraid to criticize open border policies that bring diseases into the U.S. from Central America or Africa.  I’m looking forward to tonight’s The Michael Savage Show.

Savage has always been the misfit like so many of us who aren’t politically correct.  He distrusts the Democrats and Republicans like I do and laments America’s moral and cultural slide which appears to have warped into an avalanche.  I try to catch his show every night now that Jay Leno has been booted off the air at 10:30 P.M. and has been replaced by the silly antics of a younger tech-savvy and uninformed generation that does not read books and cannot anticipate the future because they don’t know the past.  I’m struck by how much I agree with Savage.  He’s angry about our open borders, black racism, the Ebola spread into America, and most of all, with President Obama.  He consoles us by saying we are not alone. 

Michael Savage is more optimistic than I am.  After all, the title of the book is Stop the Coming Civil War and not The Coming Civil War.  Maybe it’s a political calculation, but there are millions of Americans who gave up on the political process many years ago.  In my own book, Journal of the Silent Majority I explain why.  They are the ones who the Media (singular) thinks are interested in the upcoming November elections.  Who cares?  It’s the same bunch of gangsters with the same Sugar Daddy – the same Media that creates the politicians, nourishes the Left, and tabulates the vote.  Until I read his book, I’ll give Savage the benefit of a doubt.  Right now from my humble perspective of a lifetime, I think he’s underestimated how mad real Americans are.  Things in America have to get worse before they get better.  Histories like Thomas Carlyle's French Revolution recorded how the French were asleep and finally with one shout, they were awake.