Picking up our Allis Chalmers model U. This is an early U with the Continental flat-head engine. I know, the air cleaner on the operator's platform is for an F20 Farmall. Recorded on my LG Wing, edited with Clipchamp.
Welcome to our little channel, These little Allis tractors are a bit special to me. In the distant past, my parents had a pair of these back in the 40s when they started out together farming. An Allis ,U and a UC, both with the Continental motor. After newer tractors came along the old timers languished in the cow lot along with a pair of Fordsons, til sometime in the early 60s. My older brother and I used them as our personal play area when ever possible. Until that awful day that they disappeared! Seems dad had sold them to a scrapper ,who never paid for them! Served him right, how dare he sell our toys! To this day I rarely ever sell my toys for that reason! Very likely the reason for the start of my collecting hobby. Back to today. Checked out this online auction of a former parts yard, used to buy from him back 30 yrs or so. Knew he had lots of Allis parts. Well most was going for less than scrap price so my son and I went through the listing and picked out items we didn't want to see lost to china. This place had the largest collection of Allis U and UC I've ever come cross, and there just wasn't much interest aside from the local scrap yard! So we contacted the seller as to the possibility as extended pick up time, he was ok with the plan, so we bid in 4 and 1/2 tractors. All my meager budget would allow. Have to remember that the sale site was 250 miles from home and we only have the one trailer to haul with and we both have to do the traveling on weekends. We ended up with 3 UC s , 2 with the newer style motor, one with the Continental. The U above and a rear half of a 36 U. I didn't get the motor for it as it was sold before we ended up with this part, but the motor did bring some serious cash, so it didn't get junked. I must say, that later U is very much improved over the early version. Between the ones bought, , and the accessories left behind from dad's old ones, we seem to have all extras offered by Allis except electric start. I've always been better at collecting than restoring, but prefer to just get things to run and enjoy that. Right now we are getting ready to start harvest, and I've had some concerning health issues pop up. So hopefully things will get back to a more normal situation soon. My son and Grand sons will be taking a bit more ac tive role in the farming anyways, and I welcome the company!
The history of the beginning of these little AC tractors is quite interesting. These started out as contract tractors for the United Farm Equipment retail stores, back in the late 20s. They were a chain of stores similar to farm supply stores today. They had been selling the Fordson tractor till Henry Ford moved production out of the country. Needing a machine to sell, they approached Allis Chalmers MFG about building a tractor similar to the Fordson for their store chain. Allis at the time wasn't really big into the farm line yet and needed sales for the Ag division, so they came up with a clone of the little Fordson, though greatly improved, under the badge United. Thats why there are so many similarities between the two tractors. Production was just getting rolling when the customer went belly up! Well Allis had too much invested so they just added the machine to their own line of tractors and relabeled it the model U. That and they also hired a guy named Harry Merrit to take over management of the AG division to either make it profitable or liquidate it! And the rest as they say is history!
