Driving Home A Tractor

have done both lots of times! my last combine I drove home from about 50 miles away. have driven tractors over 100 miles lots of times. just think of it as driving from one end of a field to the other lots of times like all of them do when using them in the fields, just less turn arounds.

!!!WOW!!!

Drove a D-17 Series IV 28 miles from the place of purchase to the farm. You are correct. You don't forget one minute of the trip, it's a life long memory....

I drive the tractor and batwing from the farm to the fields 22 miles mow 12 miles of roadside and drive it back to the farm another 20 miles all in the same day.

I drove a H Mc Cormick 70 miles in the winter with just a Heathauser on it.When it got warmed up it had 20 pounds of oil pressure so had to overhaul it.The dealer was good gave me the overhaul kit.This was the early 70s young then I was early 20s.

Last spring I drove my 1066 about 35 miles one way to pick up a planter. The trip South was rather fun. After getting hooked up to the planter the lift assist wheels didn't swivel correctly. That made the trip home interesting. That and crossing the 'mile long bridge'. Had to have the sheriffs dept. come out and shut it down to go across.

Bought the Farmall M and WC that my dad and I both grew up on as a hired hand for the same guy.  Dad hauled the WC home on my trailer and I drove the M home about 40 miles.  Never will forget my joy and elation that day.  Did not seem very long.

at work I used to drive tractors long distances between prison farms.

mostly went from Lima to Mansfield with a 6215R Deere pulling knight spreader and Deere 230 disk. about 130 ish miles going the back way.

went from Lime to London pulling a 15ft great plains drill once. only about 50 miles on that trip, but had to go through a couple good size towns

Drove a few tractors 40-60 miles home from auctions. In the early 1980s I worked for another farmer when I got out of high school, he bought a massey 44 at an auction one winter day. He came home got me and 2 neighbors, and went to get the tractor. It wasn't all that far away maybe 5-10 miles but it was a cold and windy day. one of us took off with the tractor and the other 3 followed in the car. Every time we got to a stop sign it was chinese fire drill, one person got out of the car to drive the tractor and the tractor driver got to get in the car to warm up. The other memorable drive a friend bought an M2 right down by the border of southwest Wisconsin, almost a 3 hour drive by truck at the time. So 3 of us, in one pickup, drove down early one day to get the combine on the road. My friend takes off with the combine. There was another auction on the way home so the two of us went to the auction for a little while and probably drove thru a few machinery lots on the way. We grabbed a few burgers somewhere on the way and we had kind of figured that the combine had or hadn't gotten past us anyway I remember we ran up or down the road some miles before we located him. Other then a close call for the combine on a busy two lane the trip went ok. This was before cell phones so we had no way of locating each other.

Edited by DanWi - 15 Apr 2018 at 11:50am

Gerald J. wrote: For a couple years after I bought my farm I kept my tractor (MF-135) at home and drove 8 miles to and from the farm. Gerald J.

Heck some of us have fields further than that away.

Back in the mid 70’s my uncle worked at the IH dealer. A customer ordered a cotton picker. It was getting late in the harvesting season and the picker was still in Memphis, TN at the rail yard waiting for train to bring it further south. The customer needed the picker in a bad way so the dealer ship decided to send my uncle and another employee with a truck/trailer to haul it here - a little over 300 miles. When they arrived in Memphis they found the picker was too large for the truck/trailer. They ended up driving it here from Memphis. The customer complained about the wear on the tires. LOL.

I bought my 190xt about 1.5 years ago and I knew that the injection pump was bad because it was leaking badly. The tractor appeared to run fine so I drove it 35 miles and hoped I would make it. I left a stream of fuel on the pavement all the way home. It pumped far more out when I was at idle and/or stopped too. I had an extra 10 gallons of fuel in case I ran out.

That's not the crazy part to the story though. My son was only 13 and didn't have a drivers license, but I was confident he could drive a truck following me at 17 mph and not get into any trouble. So, I didn't take an adult to help me drive the 2.5 hours home. He had been driving tractors and the pickup for a couple of years around the farm and on the road. We've all done it, right? So, I get on this single lane highway about 4 miles into my trip and as I came up on a hill I saw this little gray Honda wanting to pass me. I thought surely he will wait, but noooo. He takes off around my son in the pickup and I catch him out of the corner of my eye. Of course, since I was sitting up tall I knew there was another little red car coming up the hill. So, by the time he seems him, it is too late. We go 3 wide over the crest of that hill! I got over as far as I could, and so did the red car and everyone survived. That red car was going at least 55mph and he was probably shocked to see that Honda.

My son and I did not tell my wife about it for many months. Of course, it wouldn't have been my fault had something gone wrong, but I would have had a hard time convincing an officer that I was driving both the truck and the tractor!

When my wife's family moved "north" to my area, they were about 80 miles away and drove 3 tractors and a combine up over a couple weeks time.

During WWII on the fourth of July - I do not remember the year - customer came to our dealership and picked up two combines.  Brought his own tractors.  Remember we were under a strict rationing for gasoline used for cars but not so bad for farming.
Since it was the fourth of July we found USA Flags and placed them on the combines.  I remember them driving away from our Dealership in Stevenson, MD
They were doin there best "fitin the war".  We all knew we had to win it.  It was a time like no other.
Made me very proud.
Good Luck!
Bill Long