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McCormick-Deering
22-36
by
Glen Oetken
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McCormick-Deering tractors were International Harvester's answer to the
Fordson. While McCormick-Deering line could not compete with Fordson's
price it was marketed as a superior machine. McCormick's were rugged
tractors built to last a lifetime and they have. In this article we will
focus on the 22-36 McCormick-Deering. The 22-36 replaced the 15-30.
The well known 10-20 was a smaller tractor. (like if the 22-36 was an MX
270 the 10-20 would be an MX 200) The 22-36 was a later version of the
15-30. The 15-30 came a few years earlier and looks identical to the 22-36
only it did not have a water pump on the engine. When they added the water pump, they were
able to cool off a bigger engine, so IH upped the hp. The tractor was originally designed to run on a mixture of water and
kerosene (sometimes called distillate). (as were all tractors of that day)
You may notice a small tank on the back of the fuel tank near the
operators station. This is the gas tank. The gas was used only for
starting, and then the engine was switched over to kerosene, and maybe a
little water.
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| Dads tractor was a 1930 model. His uncle owned it, and parked it in a
barn near dads house in the 60s. The tractor had been a plow horse all of
its life. In fact, if you feel on the bottom of the front side of the
front axle, it there are ridges about 1/8" apart, that feel sort of
like ruffled potato chips. These ridges are from wheat straw constantly
rubbing on the cast iron axle! There are a lot of tractor this age that
are like that. |
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Dad
stated to get the tractor pulling bug in the early 70's and got the
tractor out and stated to play around with it. The only problem is that my
uncle sold it to a local junk man for scrap. My dad had fallen in love and
went to the junker to get it back. It ended up taking a scrap D-4 Cat and
two other scrap 22-36 tractors to keep
it.
(my dad sort of regrets giving
up the D-4, he has wanted one ever since) After that, dad did some work on the engine to make it competitive.
Back in the 70s, many people were pulling their farm tractors at the
county fair pulls. He knew that 22 drawbar HP was not going to cut it
against 806 IH and 4020 JDs, so he "freshened the engine up a little
bit" |
| Dad could probably fill up a room with all of the trophies from
this tractor. He has pulled it for over 27 years, and the pulling bug has
never left his body. After 27 years with the same tractor, you
pretty much know what to do and where to add weight to make the
thing pull about perfect. This January pulled 3 times and took 1-1st
and 2-3rds at the National Antique Tractor Puller Association pull in
Wichita KS. There were over 553 separate tractor pulls that day. Not to
bad for a 22-36.
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-The Model and “Donor”
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My father already had a 16th scale 22-36 from scale models. This
tractor was a steel wheel version (as was the real one originally) but was
pretty lacking in detail. The model had the original engine covers
(which were almost all removed in the real world) and therefore there was
no detailed engine on the model. The model also had the rear fenders
still on. The real tractor had to have them removed so the 18.4x38
rear tires would fit. The model and his tractor just did not look
close enough for us.
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-Parts-
Most
of the other parts that I needed I was able to purchase from Dakota Toys.
The rear 18.4x38 tires, the front 7.50x20 tri-rib tires, the W-9 wheel
weights, the 806 suitcase weights, the air cleaner and the chrome stack
all came from Dakota.
I wanted the model to look as close to the real thing as possible, so I
had to find an engine. My father had purchased an Ertl Precision
Classics Wide-Front F-20 Farmall on steel. After telling him that I wanted
to make a model of his tractor, we agreed that the wide-front precision
would make a good parts donor tractor. The main reason that I wanted
the Farmall is that the engine looks so close to the engine in the 22-36
that it would almost be indistinguishable. (In reality the engine is
a little smaller overall)
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-Front Axle and Steering-
One thing that I wanted this tractor to have was front wheels that
turned with the steering wheel. The original scale model 22-36 has a
dummy steering wheel and the front wheels do not turn. I made the front axle by narrowing the front axle from the donor
tractor, but had to narrow the axle by about .5”. I used the
spindles as well, but had to modify them (I lowered the axle shaft
.375”) to make the axle sit at the correct height with the wheels.
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| I also decided that if I was going to make the wheels turn, I wanted the
wheels to turn like a real tractor, not the “turn the steering wheel
one-half turn to turn the wheels” like all 1/16th models are. I
wanted the front wheels to turn slowly and take several rotations of the
steering wheel to turn. Making my own steering gearbox was the only
solution. The real tractor has a “worm gear” steering box to turn the
front wheels. I made my own steering box using a cut off wood screw
for the worm gear and hand cutting the other gear. I assemble the
gears in a hand-built case made of various pieces of brass stock and some
plastic. I did take an internal picture to show the workings. |
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-Rear Hitch-
The other thing that took some time, was the drawbar. My
father’s tractor has a drawbar that can be raised or lowered via a
turnbuckle for tractor pulling. The height of the drawbar is one
rule at tractor pulls. To quickly change this, he can shorten or
lengthen the turnbuckle. There are NO small working turnbuckles to
be found anywhere. So this meant that I had to make my own. I
found the right and left hand thread shaft at a hobby shop for use as the
steering tire rod for model RC cars. I then JB welded small pieces
together to make the turnable part. The drawbar was made by
narrowing the drawbar from the donor tractor.
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-Tires and Rims-
My father’s tractor has 38-inch outside dual rims for rear rims, so
I used to 2-piece 38-inch steel rims and hubs from Dakotah. These rims
have 8 tiny bolts and nuts that hold them together (this was not easy for
my big fingers to assemble!), and look very realistic. However, I
could not find any front rims that looked like the real tractor. The
reason was, his tractor was converted from steel wheels to rubber wheels
somewhere in the past. The only wheel that Dakotah offered for that
sized tire was a solid center wheel. I needed a flat-spoked 20
front rim.
The solution was found by doing it just like the real thing. I
used the steel front wheels from the “donor” precision classic
tractor, and using my dremel tool, cut the outer rim off leaving the hub
and spokes only. I then cut the center out of the wheel from Dakotah
toys made for the 7.50x20 tires and used JB weld to combine the spoke/hub
to the rim. After a little adjustment the wheels ran true and did
not wobble. |
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I spent quite a bit of time on this tractor and could probably fill
10 pages on all of the stuff that I did. If anyone is interested,
please e-mail me at goetken@yahoo.com
for more info.
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Full Detail Comparison
It took 1.25 years to get it done, but I quit on it for about 9 months
after my daughter was born. I would say that there is about 250 hrs in it.
The hardest part was getting the front axle built and the steering gear
box to work and mounted. The front axle had to be sectioned and narrowed,
and the spindles reworked so the front axle was the correct height from
the ground. All of the steering linkage, the drag link, and tie rod had to
be hand made. The steering gear box was also another challenge. I had to
make the box, hand cut the gear (with the teeth the correct distance apart
to mesh in the worm gear (wood screw). There was a lot of challenge, but
the reward (seeing the look on Dad's face) was worth it all.
Glen
Oetken |
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Left Front Side |
Left Rear Side |
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Steering Gear |
Operator Station |
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Engine Left Side |
Hitch |
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