Family works to save old tractors from scrap heap - Interest being passed down to next generation

LARRY HELMAN of the
Sid­ney area sits on a Massey Fer­gu­son TO2O trac­tor that he restored, while his grand­son, Owen Hel­man, emu­lates Grandpa by sit­ting on the same model, in miniature.

BY LOLA E. BILLIEL

SIDNEY — Today’s farm trac­tors are high-powered pieces of sophis­ti­cated machin­ery geared for the farmer in the 21st cen­tury. As with trac­tors of yes­ter­year, they have an impor­tant place in agri­cul­ture through­out the world, and espe­cially in the United States. From the 1890s to now, farm equip­ment has evolved to do more and meet the increased demands of larger farms. Yet there is still a place for the old-time equip­ment on many farms, and espe­cially in the barns and hearts of peo­ple who want to restore and pre­serve vin­tage trac­tors for future generations.

Among them is Larry Hel­man of rural Sid­ney, in Shelby County, who has a life­long pas­sion for Massey Fer­gu­son trac­tors, mainly due to the influ­ence of his father, Dave Hel­man. The elder Hel­man was a Massey Fer­gu­son dealer from 1964 to 1981. He presents each of his great-grandchildren with a child’s model pedal trac­tor. Larry, hav­ing three grand­chil­dren, then locates a full-size trac­tor that matches the child’s model and restores it to even­tu­ally be given to the grandchild.

The first such toy trac­tor was given to Larry’s grand­son, Owen Hel­man, by Larry’s father. It was a pedal trac­tor TO20, which launched Larry on a hunt for the full-size ver­sion of the same model. He found one at a farm auc­tion in Cov­ing­ton. “It was in very rough con­di­tion; it ran, but not well,” Larry recalls. But he pur­chased it and began the long restora­tion process. He totally dis­as­sem­bled it, replac­ing all the bolts, installing a new clutch, over­haul­ing the engine and installing a new radi­a­tor. All the sheet metal and the fuel tank was sand­blasted and new steer­ing bush­ings, steer­ing shafts and brakes installed, among other things. The trac­tor has its four orig­i­nal tires, two front wheels and all orig­i­nal sheet metal. Larry did replace the two rear wheels and installed all new elec­tri­cal wiring and a new bat­tery. “I paid $900 for the trac­tor at auc­tion and have put about $4,000 in it, but it would prob­a­bly sell for $4,500,” he noted. He paid $700 for the TO20 paint alone. Larry worked on the project from the fall of 2011 to the spring of 2012. Close to a mil­lion of the model were man­u­fac­tured. The one restored by Larry car­ries ser­ial num­ber 331188.

Another grand­son, Miles, was pre­sented with an 1100 Massey Fer­gu­son pedal trac­tor and Larry pur­chased a full-size 1100 in Tawawa, and is presently restor­ing it. While dri­ving by one day he noticed it sit­ting in weeds by a barn, stopped and offered $1,000 for it. Once this trac­tor is restored it could likely sell for between $7,000 and $9,000, Larry noted. Owen and Miles are the sons of Eric and Danielle Hel­man of Sidney.

A third grand­son, Emory, son of Sarah and Jason Tuente, received a Massey Har­ris 30 from his great-grandfather and Larry will be restor­ing the full-size model, with the help of the boy’s father. The trac­tor was pur­chased in Wapakoneta and was sit­ting in the barn of a divorced cou­ple. He gave $450 and says “it runs, but is rough”.

Not only does Larry restore var­i­ous mod­els of trac­tors, but has a pas­sion for Massey Fer­gu­son his­tory as well. “Henry Ford and Harry Fer­gu­son built the hydraulic sys­tem for trac­tors,” Larry noted. “When Ford died, his com­pany stole the hydraulic sys­tem from Fer­gu­son and Fer­gu­son sued Ford’s com­pany and won the law­suit for over a mil­lion dol­lars. Massey Fer­gu­son then gave Harry Fer­gu­son a fac­tory to build trac­tors in. Around 1957 Massey Fer­gu­son took over the man­u­fac­tur­ing process.” Hel­man explained the model let­ters as fol­lows: “T” for trac­tor, “O” for Ontario, Canada, and “TE” for trac­tor and Eng­lish built.

Work­ing at Maple­wood Imple­ment for the past 40 years, Larry has been around Massey Fer­gu­son most of his life. He says he knows lots of peo­ple across the coun­try with parts and that is def­i­nitely a plus when you’re into restor­ing. He has restored other trac­tors and farm imple­ments, as well as a 1970 Mus­tang, which he sold to a Michi­gan res­i­dent. He has pur­chased trac­tors from Texas and Nebraska, as well states sur­round­ing Ohio. Besides Massey Fer­gu­sons, he also has other mod­els set aside for future restora­tion. He said when he retires he will have 14 trac­tors to restore. He also hopes to attend more trac­tor shows at that time.

Hel­man and his wife, Ber­nice, have showed their trac­tors at the Lake Loramie Antique Thresh­ing Swap Meet, have been invited to dis­play at the Farm Sci­ence Review in Lon­don and showed at the National Show in Find­lay, where more than 300 Massey Fer­gu­sons were on dis­play. He also takes his trac­tors to the Shelby County Fair each year for their antique trac­tor show. Larry belongs to the Shelby County Antique Power Asso­ci­a­tion and the Massey Har­ris Fer­gu­son Club of Ohio.

While he admires the sophis­ti­cated mod­els cur­rently being pro­duced, mak­ing them bet­ter able to serve mod­ern farm needs, he acknowl­edges an endur­ing affec­tion and respect for the old work­horse mod­els of days gone by. His goal is to help pre­serve them and edu­cate peo­ple about their history.

Lola Bil­liel writes for the

Sid­ney Daily News.

Posted by Rachel Lloyd on Feb 5 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.