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25 years of continuous publication! |
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The N-News is a trusted clearing house for information and technical guidance for N-owners throughout North America, Europe, and Australia. Twenty-five years is a long time to keep going and we've never missed a deadline.
Publisher emeritus (and my uncle) Gerard Rinaldi combined his vested interest in a newly-acquired 8N (in need of a caring restoration) with his interest in the new personal computer and before long the first issue of the N-News reached subscribers.
First fifty, then a couple of hundred, and then nearly a thousand readers were receiving the magazine. Soon people bought and sold parts and a few asked to run display ads. The subscription base continued to grow. Ed Calvert and Don Horner helped out too, and soon the N-News was up and running!
For the past decade a next generation took the reins, and the magazine has continued to evolve. We've moved the N-News onto the Internet and today, the features that readers care about, like Tech-Tips and the N-Conversation, are online.
The key to our success is you, the subscriber. You have shared your experiences working with vintage Ford tractors, from the discovery to the trials of restoration. You’ve made this magazine what it is today by sharing your memories, discoveries, failures and accidents. Now, let’s work together for another twenty-five!
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N-Conversation
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Tom Evanssent emailed about Dave Erb’s article:
 Have you ever hooked up the cables wrong when jumping a battery? Hopefully the battery did not blow up in the process. Mr. Erb's advice to color the negative terminal red encourages such a scenario. Conventionally, red is positive and black is negative. Jumper cables are similarly coded. When jumpering any vehicle, it does not matter if they are positive or negative ground, always connect positive to positive and negative to negative. If jumpering 12 volt to 6 volt, the best way is to go direct to the starter, provided the 6 volt battery has enough juice to power the ignition. Otherwise, connect the negative jumper cable to the starter, and ground the positive cable away from the battery AFTER you push the starter button. This will limit the voltage to the battery.
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Dave Erb wrote with his own comments...
In the Autumn issue, the Polarity article, I said that front-mount distributor coil polarity could not be reversed due to its design. I have since learned that two parts vendors sell front-mount coils for N Ford tractors made for 12-volt negative ground systems. It is also possible but not recommended to run an external wire out of the front-mount distributor body and thence to a cantype coil, where the polarity could be set to match the battery polarity. Remember, when in doubt about coil polarity: "PPP” Positive to Points = Plus to Ground. |
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Page 1 of 2  Tim’s father, Cornell, combining beans circa 1970. By L. Timothy Knutson
My first memory of our tractors was from 1951, when I was about four years old. I was in the kitchen of our north Iowa farm home, watching out the window as a truck delivered a new tractor to our yard. It was the second 8N for our farm and the last tractor my dad would buy. Mom recalled that there had been a tractor on the farm when they were married in 1942. From her description, it must have been a 9N. It was probably traded for the first 8N.
As was true for many farmers of that era, these tractors replaced a team of horses. Growing up on the farm, most of my friends were from farm families, too. It seemed that they all had the big tractors: John Deeres, Farmalls, Massey Fergusons, Minneapolis Molines, and Olivers. I desperately wanted Dad to buy a bigger tractor, but he insisted the 8Ns were just right for our eighty acres.
But time spent working on the farm at an early age seemed like forever, and a tractor that could only pull a two-bottom plow or a one-row corn picker seemed much too small. I wanted to be done and off fishing, swimming, or hunting. Every summer at the county fair, I would head to the machinery display and look at the newest tractors. I was convinced that we needed a bigger model, but those 8Ns served us well.
In fact, I don’t think our two 8Ns ever saw the inside of another mechanic’s shop while Dad was alive. He was a pretty competent shade tree mechanic. A broken axle was no big deal. Steering a little loose – not a problem. Valves getting a little crusty – take a head off. Minor mechanical work was done on-the-fly. Winters were reserved for major projects with our heated garage taken over by Dad and a stripped 8N – with parts everywhere. He would regularly enlist either my brother or me to help, which we usually enjoyed.
 Beans loaded into the wagon, circa 1970. An 80-acre farm was not really big enough to support a whole family, even in the 1950s and 60s. All four kids eventually left the farm for city jobs. When Dad died in the fall of 1991, Mom elected to remain on the farm. Dad had been retired for several years by then and was leasing the farmland to one of our cousins. We talked about what we would do with the tractors and various implements and briefly considered selling the whole works.
I can’t remember if I purchased or was given one of the Motorbooks publications on the 8Ns but I remember beginning to understand the value and place of these small tractors in farming history. I bought another and read more. In many of them reference was made to a Palmer Fossum near Northfield, MN. Although we lived in Texas at the time of Dad’s death, I had an opportunity to move closer to home in 1992. We moved to St. Paul, where it was an easy two-hour drive down I35 to reach our farm. And I35 went right past Northfield.
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