The Fordson Tractor Pages Forum

Tough week here. We had an Ice storm that took out a lot of limbs, downed utility lines, and power poles early Monday morning. But the old Fordson Power Major has saved the day. Here she is coupled to a 35KW Generac Alternator. It lights everything in the house with little effort. The broken pole in the background is in my yard and we still do not have the power restored here.The tractor runs at 1,400 RPM with a raised PTO and burns about .85th of a gallon of fuel an hour doing this duty. Dandy Dave!

Great way to use your tractor.

I always thought that PTO generators were the way to go, if you already had a tractor. I've never had much use for one, though. The power goes off here all the time, but it never stays off for more than a couple of hours. Good power company crews I guess.

I see that you have all of your PTO guards in place. I'm not against guarding, although some people may have gotten that idea. That is exactly how they should be used. You need them when the PTO has to be running when you are off of the tractor.

I noticed some more Ford products in your picture (except that the orange dump truck looks like an IH). Your yard looks a lot like mine

I like it

I have put a lot of thought into standby generators for a bunch of years. Living out here in the country when we get a bad Ice storm, it brings tree limbs down on branches and downs power lines and breaks off power poles, it can be days before service is restored. It has happend here in the past about 4 times that I can think of that the power was out for three days or more. Seems to be more frequent the last few years as we had a similar ice storm in December of 09. The folks around here run out and buy a gas powered 1 cylinder generator, use it for the outage, and then put it away until the next major outage. When they pull it out the second time a few years later, the carburetor is gumed up and the fuel is old so it will not run. And these also will not run an entire house like a PTO generator, and burn much more gasoline than my Fordson Major burns in diesel. Also, you cannot run delicate electronic equipment on the small units as they surge too much. These pto generators are designed for farm and commercial use and can handle my entire house with ease and are safe for delicate electronic equipment. I can put it away, Pull it out in two or three years, plug it in, and it is ready to go. From my experiance of wrenching on stuff for years, IMO, It is the most reliable way to go. If you fellow see one at a farm auction selling for a resonable price, buy it. You will never be sorry. Dandy Dave!

I agree with Dave as I've had a Katolight 12 KW that I power with whatever diesel tractor is closest at the time and they are about as hassle free as you can get. Start it up, plug in and you are all set. Gasoline powered units can be bought cheap after the fuel has sat in them for a few years! That is a nice trailer mount you have for it; looks like a 3/4 ton pickup got recycled!

This is my backup power "toy". It´s a 590E ofcourse and a surplus military 27kW generator. It powers the whole house when needed. However we don´t have power failures very often here. I have tested a smaller one as well. This is under construction. The plan is to run them on waste vegetable oil.

590E powered generator. Now that's Cool. Dandy Dave!

I finnally got back on the main grid yesterday. The Generac Alternator and fordson major served me well for a week plus. Only used about 2 quarts of oil in about 70 = hours of running @ 1425 RPM. I think the Fordson Power Major deserves an oil change. Dandy Dave!

As often is probably the case you are out in the backwoods but given a problem you find a way around it. Mind you the average town house holder is not going to be able to keep a Tractor and Genny.

Pete's right! As John Denver said, Thank God I'm a country boy!

Kim wrote:Pete's right! As John Denver said, Thank God I'm a country boy!

Yep, You can take the Country boy off of the farm, But you can't take the farm out of the country boy . Dandy Dave!