slf-uk

Does this mean it's designed as a girl's tractor    

Hey Andrew, your Squire 10 is on video

Alan,
Is this still available?
Thanks andrew

I am learning so much from this post, thanks Alain and Andrew.
 
Iain

I am learning so much from this post, thanks Alain and Andrew.
 
Iain

Alain,
Great decals. It is just the later Techumseh OH series that also had a "compliance with radio interference ...." decal?
 
Iain

I found an exact copy of the decals used on the Tecumseh OHV HH150 engine, they will make my 1556 restoration top notch. The big balloon 15hp decal goes on the top of the engine shroud and the long one goes on the side, with the small one on the air cleaner cover. The only problem is the seller forgot to include the big Solid State Ignition decal, I've written him and am sure he will make amends.

Iain, here a picture of a Allis Chalmers with the same design as the Simplicity with a snow blower on the front PTO.

Simplicity employed the best engineers and used state of the art engineering going back to right after Word War 1. William J. Niederkorn founded the company in 1922, and started building riding garden tractors in 1939. Their planetary gear transmission was one of the best, their trans-axle one of the toughest, and the design top of the 
line. They offered a high/low transmission, dual lift levers, front, mid mount, and rear PTO capable implements and later introduced a shuttle shift transmission that was a vast improvement over vari-drive transmissions. A shuttle shift was a four speed hydro, pick 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th gear and the shift lever gave you that gear in forward OR reverse. In the mid 60s like many other brands they also started offering a hydro, but its design was not borrowed from any other design Simplicity made their own and made the best. A drive shaft went from the engine to a bevel gear box with pulleys on either side, one ran the mid mount mower deck and rear tiller PTO drive and the other pulley powered the hydro. This balanced design gave the right amount of power to tractor and implement. With this design the mower decks attached to the tractor on the bottom of the front axle and the rear of the mower drug on wheels, the belt came from below the seat forward to the mower pulley, that way the mower followed the axle and terrain. This was the mower that striped your yard. The Simplicity tractor built in the 1990s was not that different under the tin than the one built in the early 60s, albeit an larger engine. To give you an idea of their competence Allis Chalmers bought them and had them produce their outdoor power equipment going back to 1965. Montgomery Wards also used them to build their tractors including the rare and beautiful Montgomery Wards Twin 20. My 1975 Simplicity built Allis Chalmers 716H was 4100.00 new with just a deck, that was the same price as a nice Ford or Chevrolet car. Simplicity still makes Massey Ferguson and Snapper lawn equipment and is owned by BASCO, you know them better by the name Briggs and Stratton. They also make Ferris ZTRs and own Giant Vac. I will say, in my opinion, Bolens built the toughest tractor made, however Simplicity's design was and is one of the best ever made. All that said, I also believe the Ariens GT was the most versatile GT ever built. All these companies reside within 50 miles of one another in the state of Wisconsin and like John M. Kohler, Harry Bolens, Henry Ariens had a dream of building his product, his company and America. Under the stewardship of the elder Ariens grandson, Michael Ariens, the company acquired the assets of the lawn and garden division of Sperry New Holland, the New Holland tractor division was sold to Ford and Sperry went into a diversified business of aviation avionics and oil production equipment. Ariens had only produced a rear engine rider in the past and while a "johnny-come-lately" in the front engine tractor field, they built many walk behind tillers and introduced the first residential walk behind snow blower, so tractors were not their first or main game anyway. There is rumor of a Simplicity built Ariens and also a Manitowoc built Ariens front engine tractor, but very little is known about either. The Sperry Rand tractor was offered in 12, 14, and 16 hp S models, the last model year (1974) having a tilt wheel. These tractors were painted green and gold, but with the Ariens acquisition in July of 1974 Ariens coated them with their now familiar Ariens orange. Like Simplicity the tractor was virtually unchanged except for larger engines and power steering from 1969 until 1999. Features of the Sperry design included front, mid mount, and rear shaft drives for snow blower, rotary mower, and tiller/brush cutter, as well as hydraulic lifts front, mid, and rear, with a available 3 point lift on the rear and integral lift brackets on the front. The operator could select the desired hydraulic lift by a knob on the left side and employ one 1100 pound cylinder that could raise, lower, and float, as well as having down pressure.  At first a Vickers Hydro was used, later the transmission was upgraded to a Sundstrand with a Dana trans-axle similar to the Dodge Dart. Kubota liked the design so much they virtually copied the tractor for its early intrusion into the American lawn and garden market, decks and most tractor parts were interchangeable. Andrew your Montgomery Ward tractor was originally gold as was most of their early power equipment, and yes there was a pulley for the front PTO and the snow blower attached to the tractor in reverse of the mower deck and utilized an upside down mule drive to power the snow blower, flail mower, or brush cutter, compressor, sprayer, or any of a host of other attachments. Back to the Simplicity, In 1967 after years of investigation, Allis Chalmers and several other American firms were found guilty of price fixing and operating under a monopoly. In 1960, the U.S. government uncovered an attempt to form a cartel in the heavy electric equipment industry. It charged 13 companies, including the largest in the industry (Westinghouse, General Electric, and Allis-Chalmers), with price fixing and bid rigging Most feigned innocence, but Allis-Chalmers pleaded guilty. Although one motive for the forming of cartels is so that amply profitable firms can try to become obscenely profitable, it did not apply in this instance, the attempt at a heavy-electrical cartel was a desperate (and foolish) attempt to turn red ink to black ink among fierce competition. To punish Allis the government required them to sell off many of their assets and acquisitions, one of them being Simplicity Between 1967 and 1974 Allis built their own line of riding mowers, tillers and tractors in Lexington South Carolina, in 1974 the lawsuit and punishment was withdrawn and the partnership with Simplicity was renewed, However many of those Allis built tractors of the last few years had no Simplicity counterpart and were much of their own design, especially the 300 and 400 series from 1972 to 1974. After renewing the partnership with Simplicity Allis closed the plant in Lexington and moved its operation back to Port Washington Wisconsin and in the end destroyed all spares for the tractors built in those years. The 1975 year saw Simplicity model 7000 series garden tractors like the 7010, 7012, and 7016 the Allis counterpart models were badged the 700 series like the 710, 712, and 716 and were offered in four transmissions and five different engine combinations. For the most part, after 1972 Simplicity used Briggs and Stratton engines and Allis Chalmers used Kohler engines. Sorry for the "novel", I tend to get carried away about OPE history, BTW, I did abbreviate this considerably from its original length , lol.
It was close, but the later B series Allis tractors had differences from the Simplicity models, some so small they confounded many dealers and owners. 
yep, that is right

Great one Andrew.
 
I like the rear hitch arrangement. What is the bar sticking through the grill, hand crank?
 
Iain

Alain,
A plate of biscuits sounds like a very good idea. I can see how when they get home and see an open ditch and the dirt in a pile on your property, they could easily jump to the wrong conclusions.
 
Iain

Great one Andrew.
 
I like the rear hitch arrangement. What is the bar sticking through the grill, hand crank?
 
Iain

Yes, it does have the PS option fitted.
 
Here's a short walk around vid of it that I took as it sat at the dealer's place before they delivered it to me.
 
It had been sitting there for about 4-5 years, and all it took to get it running was a new battery, and a bit of cleaning of the points.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5FLOzvJNnU

Raining again today, yesterdays weather forecast was for sunny and warm, today's forecast is for rain for the next three days, maybe more. There is really no such thing as a forecast anymore, there hasn't been in some time. I record the weather forecast every 3rd or 4th day and it is pathetic how bad it is. I send the recordings into the Television station and they say it isn't a exact science, but on their promo for their weather team they claim to have the most modern scientific equipment in the world, with the best meteorologists, but the recordings say otherwise. I've dug a 75 foot ditch two foot wide and two feet deep about 10 feet from the house and around three sides, now all water that flows toward the low back gets diverted around the house and to lower elevation. I figure that will move at least 100 hundred cubic feet of water every minute, no danger now. I've worn my spade and shovel down to the nub, but also lost 5 pounds, lol

Front PTO to run attachments

You are all on the right lines. It's a Montgomery Wards Squire 10 based on the Simplicity. 101 Landlord. It starts, runs and stops and it also came with a mowing deck that will need some attention. I like the fact that it's complete and it's all original. The steering wheel shape is just so cool.

I was really struggling with that picture until you guys posted the obvious answer. It's a very convincing picture and it is very easy to be fooled into thinking the Bolens is being towed.
 
Iain

I was really struggling with that picture until you guys posted the obvious answer. It's a very convincing picture and it is very easy to be fooled into thinking the Bolens is being towed.
 
Iain

OB, the amazing thing was that is exactly what happened and I didn't even have the engine running either!

You aren't fooling anyone with that pic.
 
It's very obvious that what appears to be a tow strap is a piece of steel bar stock painted tan, and the Bolens is really pushing the Wheel Horse   :yankchain:

Here it is! the famous Wheel Horse TOWING the Bolens photo    I get the impression Andrew didn't like this photo being taken   Now i'll go hide 

Auto Culto was as many of you know a brand of walk behind machine built by Allen & Simmonds in Reading, Berkshire. The lift that Ewan and Tom have was more than likely used to allow Auto Culto produced attachments for the Cub Cadet and other 4 wheel tractors. I imagine that with the influx and increase of ride-on machines Auto Culto saw an opportunity to still be relevant in the attachment business which had a lot less overhead and headaches.I understand there being a lot of Wheel Horse related equipment over in the UK as there is a factory in Belgium being, and I can see Cub Cadet as International Harvester had English and French lineage, but I'm surprised not seeing more John Deere equipment. I'm not surprised in seeing Bolens equipment as you folks seem to know a well built machine when you see and use one. It seems Mr. Howard was so enamored with them, he added his name to the machines so Like David Brown we could suppose there was a Howard Bolens, lol. The Rear Tool Bar, Moldboard Plough, and Potato Lifter in Ewan's literature is definitely Allen & Simmonds Auto Culto equipment. The original lift may have also came with a cross bar for attachments that didn't have outside pins, but without a chain over, or to, the top "stinger" or one point lift, I'm not sure how you would lift the Plough or Potato Lifter, which would be necessary. On the Auto Culto MK2 and Deluxe's this was accomplished by a bar attached to the implement

Cub Cadet didn't make the lift that I put pictures on of, the part that they called the 3-pt hitch is the casting that features in the brochure below, this came with my tractor. The pictures that Alain posted is what the Cub Cadet and Brinly 3-pt hitch was like.



There is some cool implements isn't there.
Ewan

One of my 1250s has developed a starting problem and I was needing it closer to the garage so I can work on it.
 
I fired up the 1886 forklift and it made short work of the job.
 
Bear in mind that the mast is only rated for 750#, and that the shipping weight of a 1250 is listed as being 975#.  Now add the weight of the fluids and the dual wheels and one could safely say that the 1250 is a tad over 1000# as it sits.
 
The 1886 forklift didn't even grunt.  Just picked it up and away I went  :D