That was why the crankshaft wasn’t destroyed, why the bearings weren’t completely corroded. Someone had prepared this engine for long-term storage, but why? And why seal it so carefully, then leave the rest of the tractor to rot. Dale filed the question away and kept working. There were more pressing concerns like boring the cylinders without a proper machine shop. He solved that problem the way he solved all his problems with ingenuity and stubbornness. He built a boring bar from scrap steel and an old electric motor.
He fabricated his own pistons from oversized blanks he mail ordered from a supplier in Ohio. He spent three months grinding and fitting and adjusting until everything was perfect. By the spring of 1970, he had a rebuilt engine. It took him another 6 months to rebuild the transmission, another year to restore the hydraulics and electrical system. By 1972, 3 years after he’d bought it, the tractor was finally ready for its first test. Dale remembers that morning like it was yesterday.
He’d checked everything twice. Oil, coolant, fuel, battery. He’d primed the carburetor, set the choke, adjusted the timing. He climbed into the seat, the original seat, cracked and weathered, but still solid, and reached for the starter. His hand was shaking. Three years of work, 3 years of being laughed at, 3 years of his neighbors saying it couldn’t be done. He pushed the starter button. The engine turned over once, twice, coughed, sputtered, and then it roared to life. Dale sat there, tears streaming down his face as the old farm all m rumbled beneath him for the first time in 20 years.
The sound was rough at first, but it smoothed out as the oil circulated and the parts found their rhythm. He drove it out of the barn into the spring sunshine and sat there in the yard, letting the engine run, listening to the sound of his own stubbornness made manifest. He didn’t know it yet, but Vernon Krebs was driving by on the county road. The dealer saw the farm all running, saw Dale sitting on it with tears on his face, and didn’t stop.
Didn’t say a word, just drove on a little faster than necessary. Let me tell you about the next 13 years because that’s where the real story happens. From 1972 to 1985, Dale Perkins farmed his 80 acres with that 1948 Farm AllM. He didn’t buy a new tractor. He didn’t take out loans. He just worked and saved and kept that old farm all running. It wasn’t easy. The tractor was 37 years old by 1985. Ancient by farming standards.
Parts were getting hard to find. Dale had to fabricate more and more components himself, machining replacements in his workshop, adapting pieces from other equipment, but he made it work. Every season he planted and harvested and turned a small profit. Every year he put money aside instead of spending it on new equipment. While his neighbors were buying bigger tractors and taking on bigger debts, Dale was living small and saving what he could. By 1985, he had nearly $40,000 in the bank.
He also had something else, a growing reputation as the best mechanic in Dawson County. Farmers who’d laughed at his $75 purchase in 1969 were now bringing their equipment to him for repairs. He could fix things that the dealership said were beyond saving. He could rebuild engines that other mechanics had written off. The farm all had taught him well. But the farm crisis was teaching everyone else different lessons. Let me tell you about 1985 because that’s when the wheel began to turn.
You probably know about the farm crisis of the 1980s. Interest rates spiked. Commodity prices crashed. Land values plummeted. Farmers who had borrowed money to expand found themselves owing more than their farms were worth. Dawson County was hit hard. By the spring of 1985, foreclosure notices were appearing on mailboxes all over the county. Equipment auctions, the kind where Dale had bought his farm, all were happening every week, but now they were selling off the machinery of broken dreams.
Vernon Krebs was hurting too. His dealership had sold a lot of tractors on credit during the boom years, and now those loans were going bad. Farmers who couldn’t pay the bank certainly couldn’t pay the dealer. Vernon was hemorrhaging money, trying to repossess equipment that was worth half what was owed on it. One evening in May, Vernon drove out to the Perkins farm. Dale was in his workshop replacing a hydraulic seal on a neighbor’s bor. Dale Vernon stood in the doorway, hat in hand.
He looked smaller than Dale remembered, older, tired. Mr. Krebs, I I need to ask you something. Vernon swallowed hard. I’ve got three tractors sitting on my lot that need engine work. The mechanics at the dealership can’t figure out what’s wrong with them. The factory guys want to charge me more than the tractors are worth. Dale set down his wrench and and everyone says you’re the best engine man in the county. Vernon couldn’t quite meet his eyes. They say you can fix things nobody else can fix.
