Deerely-beloved: Vintage two-cylinder farm tractors are his passion

MEREDITH — "I like to make things work. When I see and old tractor, I want to try and make it run,'' says Marshall Hubbard, a semi-retired truck mechanic who owns a small fleet of vintage tractors which he has patiently restored.

Hubbard, who grew up on a farm in Wiscasset, Maine, where he and his brother drove a Massey-Harris and Farmall 3 while baling hay, started his collection of farm tractors more than 20 years ago and has spent countless hours (and dollars) restoring them to mint operating condition.

He currently has eight tractors at his home, six John Deeres, five of which are at least 60 years old, as well as a 50-year-old International 340 and a Ford 3000 that he bought from Belknap County and uses for snow removal.

Hubbard, who came to the Lakes Region some 30 years ago to take care of a fleet of trucks for Jordan Meats in Laconia and later worked as fleet manager for the local Coca-Cola distributorship, says he’s always been fascinated by farm tractors.

"I guess you can take the boy off the farm buy you can’t take the farmer out of the grown up boy,’’ says Hubbard, who keeps in touch with other farm tractor enthusiasts through the Northeast Two-Cylinder Club, a 150-member organization devoted to keeping the John Deere farm tractor legacy alive.

His current project is a 1949 John Deere Model A, a 30-horsepower tractor which he bought partially disassembled and has been rebuilding for the last year.

"That’s the last one I’ll buy that isn’t all together. It’s too hard to find the missing parts,’’ says Hubbard, who says that the wheel flanges were so badly bound up by rust that it took him two and a half days on each side to work them loose. He’s also rebuilt the motor and the rear end and is now on the downhill side of the restoration project.

His most recently-completed restoration was a 1943 Model B which is unique in that it is started by hand by spinning a flywheel rather than having either a crank or battery start.

"The guy I bought it from in Mont Vernon said that it wouldn’t start. I got it running at his place but it was rapping so I shut it down. The wrist pin that connects to the piston was bent and I had to replace that," he says.

Hubbard also pulled the rear end apart because the axle seals were leaking and put in many hours of work before completing the restoration.

One of his longest projects was the complete rebuilding of a powerful John Deere Model R, a 1950 tractor which has about 50 horsepower and was the first diesel powered tractor produced by Deere.

He took the badly-rusted 7,500 pound tractor completely apart and rebuilt the engine as well as the pony motor, which is gas-powered and is used to start the diesel engine, which has a large fly wheel weighing close to 200 pounds.

"It's a real powerful tractor. It's hard to believe that a two-cylinder engine can produce that much power,'' says Hubbard, who spent four years restoring the tractor to the point where it now looks as if it had come right off the production line.

Hubbard also has a 1947 John Deere Model M, a 15 horsepower model which had one of the first vertically mounted engines, giving it a slim, tapered look from the driver's seat, as well as 1946 Model A John Deere, a 30 horsepower workhorse which takes to events all over the Northeast.

He said that he tried for 11 years to convince a farmer in Stueben, Maine, to sell him the Model A and that it took five years after he bought it to completely restore it.

"Every summer I'd stop by and ask him if he wanted to sell it. He kept telling me he was going to fix it up. Finally, after 11 years, he said he wasn't going to fix it up and he finally sold it to me. I guess it pays to be patient,'' says Hubbard.

And patience is what sees Hubbard through the restoration process, from start to finish of the multi-year projects.

Take the truck that he has used for years to haul his tractors to different events. It's a 1973 Custom 20 Chevrolet, one that took 600 hours to restore to mint condition. He still uses it for the smaller tractors, but not for the R, which requires a larger truck with more pulling power.

Hubbard's first John Deere restoration, a 23 horsepower Model B, is now used by his daughter and son-in-law, who have a large maple syrup operation on the southwestern part of the state.

He says that the Northeast Two-Cylinder Club takes part each year in a Plow Day at Picnic Rock Farm (formerly known as Longridge Farm), on Rte. 3 in Meredith as well as one in Haverhill and holds a Mowing Day in Sunapee in August.

In August of 2012 the club will host an Expo in New Boston which is expected to attract as many as 150 vintage tractors and feature such machines as the Waterloo Boy, a huge 1922 tractor.

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Marshall Hubbard of Meredith is working to restore a 1949 John Deere Model A farm tractor. He is a member of the Northeast Two Cylinder Club which holds many events featuring vintage farm tractors. (Roger Amsden/ for The Laconia Daily Sun)