AGRIMOTOR NOTES
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Road Work for the Tractor. The 1919 Omnitractor. Overcoming Overturning of Fords.
Many a potential buyer of a farm tractor when re, -Viewing its suitability and value for work. on the' land entirely overlooks its possible employment as a road machine. • Most British tractors can be used for this dual purpose, and on this account should make a stronger appeal to tfie average farmer. The Austin agricultural tractor, for instance, although being primarily intended for land cultivation, such as ploughing and harrowing, really possesses uses which extend far beyond these limited activitiee. Suelt duties are, after all, only seasonal, and in order to Make the -tractor an all-the-year-round machine and thus increase its value as a paying proposition-it can be employed for snail work as driving stationary machinery and road hauling.
. To adapt the Austin tractor for the latter class of service needs very little preparation and can be speedily effected.. All that is required is the removal of the flanges on the front wheels and the substitution-of india-rubber blocks for the spikes on the back wheels. These india-rubber blocks have been specially designed for • quick attachment. As is -obvious, they protect the tractor from injurious vibration and give a very firm grip of the road surface without causing any damage to it. This is an important factor, inasmuch as the-older types of read tractor, especially those of heavy build, have been • responsible in the past for road damage, and as a result have prejudiced the minds of those who pay for the upkeep of roads, amongst Which is often included a large number of farmers. The illustration which we publish herewith -shows the Austin tractor being used as a road machine. It is to be seen hauling sacks of grain weighing
tons—by no means a full load for the tractor's pulling power. The . wagon is an ordinary farm type attached to the tractor by a coupling which can easily be made by any blacksmith and permits of great freedom when turning. This type ef wagon usually carries 36 sacks of grain, which constitutes a load for a four-horse team, so that the Austin tractor is actually carrying a bigger load and performing the work of four horses.
Now that the industrial activities of the country may again be diverted into their norinal courses,
manufacturing concerns are busily effecting the transition from war activities to peace production. Among these is the Omnitractor Syndicate, Ltd., London, an enterprising concern Of which the output of farm tractors, impeded in the earlier paft of the war, is now being resumed. It ha a generlly become established that the farm tractor must be suitable for all-round application and the •Qmnitractor, weighing only-4 tons fully equipped, is quite Suitable ler work" Where a heavy machine would compress the soilor damage the seed-bed. Thus discing, -rolling and seeding are among its applications, in addition to its ,work as a
tractor or as a portable engine. • Special effort has been made to attain simplicity of design, and the frame and. wheels are made of ordinary standard sizes of 'steel, .so that in eaSe.of:accident they -may be repaired or replaced by a local blacksmith. 'Another example of this simplicity of design is -to be found in the fact that no gears. Other than straightito-othed: sPurwheela are em
ployed . the. transmission: • So that this may be; the engine is: set transversely on the dhagsis : it is of the twincylinder, vertical type, having a bore
a stroke of 9 ins., giving 35 at 750
The simplicity of the Omnitractor is equalled by its accessibility ; it is possible to open up the whole :of the engine in a few minutes, when pistons, valve gear, connecting rods and crankshaft are remove"' without disturbing any other parts of the machine. This is rendered possible by the provision of exeoptienally.
large inspection doors in the crankcase, . •
A general idea of the Omnitractor may-be gained from the accompanying illustration, in which the disposition of the component parts may be seen. Salient points of the equipment are Ackermann-type steering, two forward -and one reverse speeds, two brakes, dual ignition for the engine, and a liberal cooling system. It is intended that paraffin should be used as
fuzl, but the engine is run on petrol for five minutes when starting up in the morning.
• It should be explained that the Omnitra.ctor is not a machine existing in the drawing office only : it has been subjected to exhaustive -tests under the actual conditions of agricultural work, and has already performed good service. If the most is to be made of our land, as of our industrial capital, and production is to be increased so as to rebuild the nation's wealth, recourse will have to be had to any machinery that will enable man to increase his capacity for production. It is only in this direction that social salvation is to be sought, and the tractor especially has a part to play in the development of the land that ought to form one of this country's most valuable assets.
The danger to which the drivers of Fordson tractors are exposed through their possible overturning, as unlikely as it may be, is being recognized in America, where something like a dozen fatalities have been recorded and inventors, as with us, have been busy in an endeavour to provide a remedy. Hitherto, as already recorded in those columns, British inventors have been the more prolific in such devices, and two effective methods are available here, in one of which, when the lifting of the front wheels commences, the pull is transferred from the drawbar to the front axle and in the other a lever is brought into ground contact at the rear of the machine and the clutch automatically Withdrawn, and now America has given us a third system, in the shape of the Apco safety switch, of which we reproduce an illustration, from which both construetion and operation can be clearly seen. The principle here is, by the action of the pendulum weight—the device being attached to the rear axle—to cut off the current when lifting reaches adangerous point and so stop the engine, a system which, whilst no doubt effective and also smaller, lighter, and very probably cheaper than either of the home devices, necessitates the restarting of the engine.
I had an interesting conversation a few days ago with Mr. Shankland, the inventor of the Shankland patent safety tractor coupling, and he informed me that the Food Production Department had purchased quite a number of his efficient couprm4 and that its use had already saved a very large number of plotighshares ' from breakage. He. told. me, too, that he is now making a new development of the coupling for use with Fordson tractors, which has the effect of counteracting the -tendency of the tractor to rear and turn over backwards on its driver, the device consisting of an extension bar attached to the front axle, which results in throwing the pull on to the front axle and so tending to pull the front of the machine down. and keep it down.