Long-forgotten tractor gets a new life

John Oncken  —  7/12/2007 11:50 am

It began life in the Advance Rumely tractor factory in LaPorte, Ind., in the early 1930s and eventually found its way to southern Wisconsin.

It most certainly passed through an Allis Chalmers farm equipment dealership, possibly Hanley Implement in Sun Prairie.

A farmer bought and no doubt proudly showed the high tech tractor to his family and neighbors. Over the years the farmer or maybe several farmers plowed many acres with this fine tractor even though it was the last of a long line of outstanding farm equipment produced by a proud company.

In December 2006, it was sold to a metal salvage company in DeForest and soon after to Del Endres of Roxbury. And in Endres' farm repair shop the rusted and long unused and abused tractor is in the process of being reborn as an operating piece of history, as good or maybe better than when it left the factory nearly 80 years ago.

Endres, now retired, was a farmer and longtime construction worker for the Renschler Co. in Madison. Since 1995 he has had a serious hobby of restoring historic farm tractors. His farm shed now holds a gleaming John Deere Model D that spent many years in a gravel pit after having been crushed near flat, a 1928 Advance Rumely that he found in North Dakota, and an operating scale model Advance Rumely.

While Endres is a skilled metal worker, rust remover, parts builder, painter and wrench man, he is a historian at heart. That's why he's curious about the past life of the Allis Chalmers- Rumely tractor.

He knows that the tractor was number 23 in a run of 802 Model A's and that it wasn't made by Allis Chalmers even though that name appears on the tractor.

Advance Rumely, a company that had been making farm machinery since the mid-1850s, was in financial trouble in the late 1920s. Milwaukee-based Allis Chalmers was well into making farm equipment but lacked a dealer sales network. The two companies began negotiations for a merger and in June 1931, agreement was reached and Allis Chalmers-Advance-Rumely came into being.

It was soon evident that it was more than a merger. Allis Chalmers scrapped the Advance-Rumely line of equipment and retained the dealer network. Allis never actually made any of the tractors that bore the Allis-Rumely name. Rather, they added the new name to the tractors already made by the Indiana company. Endres says that even a few of the tractors had the Allis orange'' color painted over the traditional "Brewster green'' of Rumely.

Endres' tractor was an "orphan;" one of the last of those made by the long-gone Advance-Rumely company.

Endres has remade the big rear steel wheels that were modified to add rubber tires.

"The wheels were badly corroded,'' Endres says. "The tires were filled with calcium chloride (to add weight) and over the years this leaked out as the tires rotted and ruined the steel spokes."

The old six-cylinder engine was still in one piece but the pistons were frozen and everything was rusted.

"I had to free up the engine parts without breaking anything,'' Endres says. "It's impossible to find another engine. Now it should run."

The fenders were rusted and beyond repair so Endres is making new ones from sheet steel.

The gas tank needed to be replaced. A new one is being made at Millers Tin Shop at St. Marys, near Cashton, by an Amish craftsman.

Surprisingly, the radiator, although dented, was still sound.

"These radiators were made of copper prior to World War II," Endres says. "The shortage of copper during the war prompted the industry to move to galvanized steel, then aluminum."

When everything is rebuilt and mechanically working, hopefully by late fall, Endres will paint it the dark, gray-green color used on the Rumelys of the early 20th century.

"The paint can be matched by an auto paint shop," he says. "It will shine like new.''

Endres no doubt will exhibit the 1931 Allis Rumely at antique farm shows next year.

Although the name Rumely is known today only to farm equipment historians, it was a major tractor brand as technology replaced horses in the 1920s.

"The company had workshops for farmers in a building on machinery row in Madison," Endres says.

He also has photos of the 150th Rumely reunion he attended in 2003 and of the 150 Rumelys shown at the Edgerton Thresheree a few years ago.

Endres is very curious about the history of the 1931 Allis Chalmers-Rumely in his repair shop. He thinks it is logical that the owner or owners were farming in the Madison-Sun Prairie-DeForest area.

He thinks the tractor might have come from Hanley Implement because it was an Allis Chalmers dealer in 1931. And, since the tractor was sold as scrap steel to the Diehl & Neumaier Co. in DeForest, he figures it probably spent its life close by. Because of the tractor's rusted and corroded condition, the old workhorse was probably parked outdoors behind a shed, along a fence line or in the woods.

Richard Diehl, owner of the scrap salvage company, says there is no record of who brought the tractor in last winter.

"Rather than crushing it, we set it aside," Diehl says. "We know that some of the old farm equipment has value to collectors."

Currently there's a Farmall F20 tractor sitting in corner of Diehl's scrap lot. It has rubber tires but is rusty and missing some parts. A potato digger, a couple of two-bottom plows, a hay rake, part of a disc, a steel drag (in great condition) and a beat-up horse-drawn hay mower are also on the lot.

Diehl doesn't claim to be in the old machinery business, although he does have a collection of his own, and he saves some items he thinks might have more than scrap value.

He pointed out an electric generator that he thinks is in running condition.

"This was used at Truax Field in Madison, then as a backup power source at the UW-Madison Memorial Union," he says. "They tell me the Union fired it up once in a while but never really used it for any length of time.''

Del Endres would like to know the history of the Allis Chalmers-Rumely tractor (number 6A523) he's now restoring. If anyone remembers this relic of the past, call Endres at 608-643-6662.

Meanwhile he will continue to make the "mystery tractor" newer than new, ticking like a watch and running like it did in 1931. It's all about the love of farming history, and. in some ways, reliving it.

John Oncken is owner of Oncken Communications, a Madison-based agricultural information and consulting company. He can be reached at 222-0624, fax 222-7775 or e-mail jfodairy@chorus.net.

John Oncken  —  7/12/2007 11:50 am