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Honestly, I still had to practically stand on the clutch with mine! I'd teach someone to drive it and say, "now push down on the clutch". They they would heave

Honestly, I still had to practically stand on the clutch with mine! I'd teach someone to drive it and say, "now push down on the clutch". They they would heave and struggle, then eventually succeed and look victorious. I'd say, "well done, it is now half way down! But that's all you need for now!" EDIT: To fully explain: It has a two-stage clutch. You half-press it and it disconnects the wheels from the engine. If you fully depress it all the way to the floor, it additionally disconnects the power-take-off shaft (PTO) from the engine. The PTO shaft is a spindle on the back of the tractor which drives things like your flail mower, wood chipper, etc. EDIT 2: Edit 1 was for the general audience, not the parent commenter ;-)

npongratz 5mo ago
> The PTO shaft is a spindle on the back of the tractor which drives things like your flail mower, wood chipper, etc. ... and kills/maims anyone with lose clothing trying to step over it!
- EvanAnderson 5mo ago
  Oh, god yes. I mowed using a Farmall H on a family farm when I was about 12 y/o. I don't remember ever having deadly serious conversations with family members up to that point in my life. All four grandparents, aunts and uncles-- it seemed like everybody-- sat me down, looked me dead in the eye, and told me sternly and bluntly "you turn off the PTO and see the shaft isn't turning before you get off the tractor. Every. Time." All of them knew somebody who lost an arm or leg or got killed when they got pulled into a PTO. That was probably the first time I'd ever been given the opportunity to operate a machine that would fucking kill me if I shirked on respecting it. I will never forget the tone of that communication.
  - Ancapistani 5mo ago
    Without going too far into the weeds here, IMO this experience is representative of gun rights, zoning, and all sorts of other differences between urban and rural. Rural kids are put into situations where they are expected to rely fully on themselves, with life-or-death consequences, from a young age. When your pre-teen is driving a machine on their own that could easily kill them or those around them, giving them a .22 rifle is just... normal. It's not at all the same situation as a kid the same age who lives in an apartment and who may have never been in a place where no one would be close enough to hear them if they screamed for help. I can't wrap my head around the idea that a large number of people who live in cities seem to want to extend childhood through age 25. My daughters are 12 and 17, and between them have over fifty animals directly depending on them for survival. It's just... foreign.
    - mikestorrent 5mo ago
      I don't "want" to extend childhood; but where I live makes it a little difficult to let my kids roam the way I did. Go too far one way and you're heading into busy highway traffic hell, go too far the other way and you're heading into hobo territory. Wish I could move; I could sell this overpriced place and almost retire.... not under my control
      - rrr_oh_man 5mo ago
        > not under my control Why, if I may ask?
        mothballed 5mo ago
        Wife or custody orders, usually
        mikestorrent 5mo ago
        Family, yes. Nothing bad or negative, I like where I live a lot. It's just busy, and not super safe for wandering children, at least until they're a bit older.
    - fsckboy 5mo ago
      >Rural kids are put into situations where they are expected to rely fully on themselves, with life-or-death consequences, from a young age. come to the city, farm boy, and we'll give you a corner you can sling the brown from and we see how you do. we find something fo yo daughters to do too* *i have absolutely no street smarts, country or city, but I do watch Law & Order and know how to pound a nail and know what to grease the maitre d' to get into the hottest restaurants in town. and beyond that i got friends, some of these guys know people who know people, just sayin
      - worthless-trash 5mo ago
        Ah yes, encouraging people into shitty situations, the hallmarks of city life.
  - exchemist 5mo ago
    I have never driven a tractor, but clearly remember our headmaster giving us this exact lecture when I was about 8. This in a town of 20,000 people where I expect not even 2% of the kids would even visit a farm outside of an organised trip, but clearly an important enough message to be worth broadcasting.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 5mo ago
    First farm death I ever knew of was related to me by a friend who used to live on the farm next to the dead person. He had PTO engaged but engine running while he was fixing a (I think) thresher. Clutch must have engaged and his dead, flailing remains were found by his wife when she came to call him in for dinner.
- learn_more 5mo ago
  Deceptively dangerous! An exposed, spinning shaft seems benign but once it wraps you or your clothing around the shaft it pulls you in and destroys you in a flash.
VorpalWay 5mo ago
Why was the clutch so heavy? Did it serve some purpose or was it just due to the limitations of the technology at the time? I have certainly driven cars with lighter and heavier clutches (I live in EU, automatics weren't popular until recently and are still far from ubiquitous) but I couldn't tell you why every model just doesn't get a light clutch for comfort. A diesel Subaru I drove had a particularly heavy clutch as I recall, so at stop lights I would pop into neutral instead of holding the clutch down for an extended period.
- chabska 5mo ago
  To deliver very high torque, the clutch plates needs to be pressed very hard together to generate enough friction. This also means that it take a lot of force to pull them apart, if you use a simple lever, as older machines do. Modern machines may use complex mechanical linkages to make the clutch easy to pull apart but still maintain a firm contact, but that also means higher cost and fragility. Or they use pneumatics or hydraulics to assist, sorta like power steering.
  - sandworm101 5mo ago
    That, and design tolerances. A fancy clutch can be light and strong (think ferarri) but farm machines need to work in the dirt/rust and so need larger tolerances. So heavier springs and bigger .... Bigger everything. A slipping clutch in a Ferrari is annoying. A slipping clutch on a tractor means a missed harvest.
    - slow_typist 5mo ago
      Plus mechanical release mechanisms of heavier machinery were often designed in a way that the clutch snaps at a certain point (also in order to reduce wear in the clutch).
      - sandworm101 5mo ago
        Also because farm machines usually need max torque fast to break loose from static friction. You want a clutch to bite hard when pulling things through mud.

npongratz 5mo ago

> The PTO shaft is a spindle on the back of the tractor which drives things like your flail mower, wood chipper, etc. ... and kills/maims anyone with lose clothing trying to step over it!

EvanAnderson 5mo ago
Oh, god yes. I mowed using a Farmall H on a family farm when I was about 12 y/o. I don't remember ever having deadly serious conversations with family members up to that point in my life. All four grandparents, aunts and uncles-- it seemed like everybody-- sat me down, looked me dead in the eye, and told me sternly and bluntly "you turn off the PTO and see the shaft isn't turning before you get off the tractor. Every. Time." All of them knew somebody who lost an arm or leg or got killed when they got pulled into a PTO. That was probably the first time I'd ever been given the opportunity to operate a machine that would fucking kill me if I shirked on respecting it. I will never forget the tone of that communication.
- Ancapistani 5mo ago
  Without going too far into the weeds here, IMO this experience is representative of gun rights, zoning, and all sorts of other differences between urban and rural. Rural kids are put into situations where they are expected to rely fully on themselves, with life-or-death consequences, from a young age. When your pre-teen is driving a machine on their own that could easily kill them or those around them, giving them a .22 rifle is just... normal. It's not at all the same situation as a kid the same age who lives in an apartment and who may have never been in a place where no one would be close enough to hear them if they screamed for help. I can't wrap my head around the idea that a large number of people who live in cities seem to want to extend childhood through age 25. My daughters are 12 and 17, and between them have over fifty animals directly depending on them for survival. It's just... foreign.
  - mikestorrent 5mo ago
    I don't "want" to extend childhood; but where I live makes it a little difficult to let my kids roam the way I did. Go too far one way and you're heading into busy highway traffic hell, go too far the other way and you're heading into hobo territory. Wish I could move; I could sell this overpriced place and almost retire.... not under my control
    - rrr_oh_man 5mo ago
      > not under my control Why, if I may ask?
      - mothballed 5mo ago
        Wife or custody orders, usually
        mikestorrent 5mo ago
        Family, yes. Nothing bad or negative, I like where I live a lot. It's just busy, and not super safe for wandering children, at least until they're a bit older.
  - fsckboy 5mo ago
    >Rural kids are put into situations where they are expected to rely fully on themselves, with life-or-death consequences, from a young age. come to the city, farm boy, and we'll give you a corner you can sling the brown from and we see how you do. we find something fo yo daughters to do too* *i have absolutely no street smarts, country or city, but I do watch Law & Order and know how to pound a nail and know what to grease the maitre d' to get into the hottest restaurants in town. and beyond that i got friends, some of these guys know people who know people, just sayin
    - worthless-trash 5mo ago
      Ah yes, encouraging people into shitty situations, the hallmarks of city life.
- exchemist 5mo ago
  I have never driven a tractor, but clearly remember our headmaster giving us this exact lecture when I was about 8. This in a town of 20,000 people where I expect not even 2% of the kids would even visit a farm outside of an organised trip, but clearly an important enough message to be worth broadcasting.
- HeyLaughingBoy 5mo ago
  First farm death I ever knew of was related to me by a friend who used to live on the farm next to the dead person. He had PTO engaged but engine running while he was fixing a (I think) thresher. Clutch must have engaged and his dead, flailing remains were found by his wife when she came to call him in for dinner.
learn_more 5mo ago
Deceptively dangerous! An exposed, spinning shaft seems benign but once it wraps you or your clothing around the shaft it pulls you in and destroys you in a flash.

VorpalWay 5mo ago

Why was the clutch so heavy? Did it serve some purpose or was it just due to the limitations of the technology at the time? I have certainly driven cars with lighter and heavier clutches (I live in EU, automatics weren't popular until recently and are still far from ubiquitous) but I couldn't tell you why every model just doesn't get a light clutch for comfort. A diesel Subaru I drove had a particularly heavy clutch as I recall, so at stop lights I would pop into neutral instead of holding the clutch down for an extended period.

chabska 5mo ago
To deliver very high torque, the clutch plates needs to be pressed very hard together to generate enough friction. This also means that it take a lot of force to pull them apart, if you use a simple lever, as older machines do. Modern machines may use complex mechanical linkages to make the clutch easy to pull apart but still maintain a firm contact, but that also means higher cost and fragility. Or they use pneumatics or hydraulics to assist, sorta like power steering.
- sandworm101 5mo ago
  That, and design tolerances. A fancy clutch can be light and strong (think ferarri) but farm machines need to work in the dirt/rust and so need larger tolerances. So heavier springs and bigger .... Bigger everything. A slipping clutch in a Ferrari is annoying. A slipping clutch on a tractor means a missed harvest.
  - slow_typist 5mo ago
    Plus mechanical release mechanisms of heavier machinery were often designed in a way that the clutch snaps at a certain point (also in order to reduce wear in the clutch).
    - sandworm101 5mo ago
      Also because farm machines usually need max torque fast to break loose from static friction. You want a clutch to bite hard when pulling things through mud.