Five Ranken “Rust to run” summer camp attendees spent the week fully renovating a 1937 John Deere Model A, acquired from the family of the late Bob Eckenfel, a local farmer.
According to Ranken educator Brien Dover, the students had a week to complete the restoration, and that it was finished a day ahead of schedule.
The camp began Monday with lessons on all the tools and techniques that would be used to disassemble and restore the tractor. On Tuesday, the campers were taught to change the engine and transmission oils and other fluids. On Wednesday, they were taught the proper way to paint the tractor. While the paint was drying, they spent time doing electrical training and visiting the Tractor Museum. On Thursday, the final preparations and assembly were done, and Thursday afternoon they got the tractor to run.
With the extra time Thursday afternoon and Friday morning, the campers learned about welding.
“It was an amazing experience,” Dover said. “The work ethic with these campers, it was great. It was amazing the way they worked together and helped each other.”
On Friday afternoon, the campers held an open house in which they showed their families the completed product.
“It was really neat working hands on and seeing this school as a potential college that I might attend,” camper Isaiah Busch said. “And it was neat to come see it and experience just being in the school and working on it and getting more involved with that style of work.”
The now fully restored tractor will be used for public events for the school and for the community such as parades in Perryville, open houses at the school, and tractor shows around town.
Dover said he was happy to teach the younger generation about agriculture, diesel mechanics, and vehicle restoration. He said he saw a lot of progress in the short time that the campers worked on the tractor.
“None of them knew how an old tractor like that starts at the start of the week,” Dover said. “So they gained a lot of knowledge on magnetos, how a magneto works with a generator. It doesn’t have a start switch. It’s actually started up by hand. They learned that nuts and bolts always have a torque spec, how to use correct fasteners, how to tell if they’re standard or metric bolts. So it was a really, really good course. They took away a lot. These kids came in not knowing hardly anything about trackers and they left with a great experience.”
Dover said with the success of the first camp, he plans on doing more in the future with other tractors and other machines.
