My Tractors

1937 Case L

All images © 2004 by Robert E. Pence

I can't remember just when I decided I had to have a Case L to make my life complete, but about 1967 Rolland Maxwell, near Markle, Indiana, passed along to me a letter that he received from Mr. John Parchim, of Cedarburg, Wisconsin, stating that he wanted to sell a 1929 L in running order.

I corresponded with Mr. Parchim, and maybe talked with him on the phone – I can't really remember – and we made a deal for $150. In February 1968, my brother David and I made the drive to Cedarburg in David's 1951 Chevy flatbed truck. The heater didn't work, so we were fortunate that the weather was unseasonably mild for that time of year.

As promised, the tractor was in running order. It was also a sorry sight; it looked as if it had never been under a roof in its entire life. The fenders were completely rusted through, and all the sheet metal was in bad shape. The exhaust manifold was burnt through; this tractor had seen a lot of hard use. I drove it up the planks onto the truck. A subsequent check of the serial number showed it to be a 1937 model.

On the truck, coming home from Cedarburg, Wisconsin

Tearing the tractor down and degreasing it

After a thirty year intermission and a move, during which the tractor turned into a pile of rusty parts buried in junk in the barn, we resumed work on the restoration. I sandblasted the wheels and power-brushed the rest of the tractor to get rid of rust and old paint.

Sandblasting a rear wheel. Sandblasting large parts is an unpleasant task in any weather because of the protective clothing required. A modern helmet with forced filtered air would be a big improvement, but I didn't have that luxury.

I removed all 56 lugs, two rows of 14 from each rear wheel, and sandblasted them individually in a blast cabinet in the shop.

Painting and reassembling the tractor

First run

Painted, without trim, striping, lettering and road bands

Rear road bands raised the back end and made the tractor sit nose-down, so I made bands for the front wheels to make it sit level

I needed a red barn for an appropriate backdrop, so I borrowed Ruth's, across the road. You can see the replacement manifold in this photo. The original dual-fuel (start on gasoline & warm up, run on kerosene) manifold was beyond repair; it had multiple cracks, and attempting to weld one crack produced many more. I replaced it with a gasoline-only manifold from a later-model LA. Most of the L's I've seen have had this replacement, as the old manifolds have burned through on any tractor that has had hard use, and when I restored mine a new replica of the original manifold cost about $1,500, more than I was prepared to spend.

The finished project

1935 Case C

Before and after pictures of 1935 Case C

How it earns its keep. David Pence on the road maintainer.