When Mr. Kirby asked the dealers if they can remember a John Deere tractor without overhead valves, a lot of them were probably saying to themselves, “Ah, yeah, the ‘GP’’.” Nevertheless, his overall theme this month is sound and interesting.
Let us talk for a minute about economy of our John Deere tractors—a tractor that some of our competitors have the nerve to call “antique” or “obsolete.” They just make me madder than hell every time they do that because I would like to take them into camp every time they make that remark. You know, we had this 20 series or the whole line tested out at the University of Nebraska when we brought them out. We are not afraid to have our tractors tested out here in Nebraska, gentlemen, and you might look at some of the others that come on the market and see how skillfully they bring them out on the market for several months during the winter when they know that they can’t be tested so that they can tell the customer anything they want to before the testing is done.
If you think this isn’t true and isn’t done by your competitor, you pay close attention to what they are telling people this winter. Then see what they do at the Nebraska Tractor Tests. I am particularly interested in seeing what Mr. Case, with all his high-falutin’ air lift advertising and everything else, is going to do out at the University of Nebraska because unless he is some sort of a magician and can do more with a torque converter than any other technically advised group in the country today, he is going to have to eat a lot of stuff he is trying to dupe the public with. We’ll get to him later, too.
I want to tell you something about the results of our tests out in Nebraska. I am not going to quote all the figures for you. You are probably well enough acquainted with them today, but I want to outline a logical matter for you to look at, what we did out there, so you can get the full significance of it.
ln the first place, you know when a manufacturer takes a tractor out there to test, once that test is started, he has no control over the tractor other than making his optional setting of the carburetor, for instance, from test B to test C, from 100 percent horsepower down to operating maximum setting, which is the best relationship chosen by the manufacturer between horsepower output and fuel economy. Other than that, the University of Nebraska conducts the tests.
Well, we tested the 520 gasoline tractor and you know what that 520 just happened to do on Test H, which is the only record of both drawbar and pull and economy—nowhere else do they show economy on the drawbar other than Test H. The 520 just happened to do better than any row crop gasoline tractor that had ever been tested out there. It developed more power hours per gallon of fuel than anybody else—11.10. We at Waterloo thought this was wonderful. We had rather suspected it, but we were very happy over this. We were lucky, so we had the 620 tested and you know what the 620 did? It did better than the 520, which was a recognized world champion.
Now the 520 is second only to what—to a John Deere 620 as far as fuel economy is concerned. Well, we thought this was wonderful luck, but when you see the thing shaping up, is it luck? We have two different horsepower tractors now, both champions. You’ve got to remember the difference in horsepower because engineers will mutually agree that the phenomena of the combustion process is so arranged that it is easier to make the larger engines more economical than it is the smaller ones. That just happens to be a physical relationship. You get these great big diesel engines at the speed they run them and all, power plant engines and one thing or another, they have a tremendous economy factor to them. Here we are in two different classes, one of them a champion and the other one isn’t. One is runner up to it.
Then on another day, another week, we started testing out LP jobs. We tested the 620 LP tractor and what did it do? Here is another fuel type now. It did better than any other LP tractor ever did at the University of Nebraska. Then we tested the 520 and what did it do, another size now? It is different from the 620 in size. It did better than the 620. All of this just isn’t luck, gentlemen. It’s not luck that we were there at any particular day, getting the most benefit from any atmospheric conditions. We did the best we could and the best was better than anybody else ever did, so it’s no accident. There has got to be something basic in design of John Deere tractors that is responsible for this type of performance.
Well, that’s where we will take off right now and talk about the things that have brought this type of record-breaking performance to us as John Deere people. One of the things that is basic in good engine design is an overhead valve system to promote what the engineers call “good biometric efficiency,” that is, the ability of an engine to take in a charge at the proper time and in the best possible concentration that they can and expel it from the exhaust stroke with the most degree of efficiency when it comes time. Overhead valves do this probably to a better degree than any other type of valve arrangement. Again, I say, if you don’t believe it, just get yourself some Chrysler car advertising literature or Buick or anybody else. Chrysler came through lately with their semi hemispheric combustion chamber. Nearly all automotive trade is following the pattern.
“Obsolete.” Remember I told you that these people who call our design “obsolete” make me mad? Can you fellows remember a John Deere tractor without overhead valves? The old Froelich in 1892 had overhead on it. How obsolete are we? We are just a little over modern, I think. Duplex carburetion, is that obsolete design? Let me show you what your competitors use. They use this type of a device. A single barrel carburetor on all other farm tractors—name me one exception.
Again, take a look at your automotive trades with all the money be hind them. Probably 20 times or more money behind the automotive field than there is in the farm implement business. Think of the tremendous research value of the General Motors Corporation and some of these other big automotive people. What are they doing? Are they retaining single barrel carburetion?
Take a look at these people in the lndianapolis brick yards running a race every Memorial Day with an old engine that is about 35 years old in the basic design, but is an engine that has been kept modern. What does it use in the way of carburetion? Here is what they are doing in the automotive trade in your big wonder eights. They are putting a gadget on like this, which costs about $45 and it only operates a low speed, opening two of the barrels and then as you come up to greater speed, the other two open. What does that mean? It means that it isn’t possible that each one of these receiving the cylinders independently so that you get equal fuel distribution. Oh, no. All you are doing is increasing the capacity through a common manifold. I’ll tell you how they do it down at the brick yards. They have an individual manifold for each cylinder in this old Offenhauser engine that nobody is beating yet today and all the wonder eights put out by the biggest corporations in the world can’t beat the Offenhauser efficiency.
That’s the same thing as duplex carburetion. We’ve had it for some while—since 1952. Your automotive trade hasn’t gotten there yet, but they are trying, fellows. It is things like this that make the engine that you are selling outstanding. Take, for instance, in the manifold. You come down through this single barrel carburetor, a valve opens and your gas swishes over this way, now another valve over on this side starts to open, so where is your gas going? It’s going around this way, isn’t it? You’ve got to change directions of that gas and air going in there. It’s matter, it has mass and subject of a loss of inertia. It’s the lag and changing of directions that cause the cylinders to be starved out in efficiency. Compare that with the individual barrels found in your duplex carburetion engines where you can almost, on a cutaway, look from the venturi straight down and see the end of the valve.
