\u201cMy dad, Neil, switched the day-to-day tractors to John Deere when International and David Brown combined as Case International, Dad couldn\u2019t bring himself to drive a David Brown,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
From the early \u201870s, Neil collected and meticulously restored vintage John Deeres.<\/p>\n
When he passed away, he had one of the largest John Deere collections in New Zealand, and a big machinery sale was held.<\/p>\n
Six tractors were purchased back by family members.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy favourite was a 1955 John Deere 70,\u201d Houghton said.<\/p>\n
He remembers ploughing on the farm with his dad driving the JD G with a two-furrow plough and him driving a JD 70 (pre-restoration) with a three-furrow Reid and Gray plough.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt lunchtime, we had to go back and fill the G up with petrol, but the 70 would easily go all day on one tank of diesel,\u201d Houghton said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was John Deere\u2019s first row-crop diesel tractor.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of six imported new by Gough, Gough and Hamer, and another 7-8 followed later, mostly second-hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe JD 70 is quite rare in New Zealand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Houghton described the two-cylinder, 50hp JD 70, with six forward and two reverse gears, power steering and a hand-operated clutch, as an \u201cinteresting tractor\u201d.<\/p>\n
Reece\u2019s father Neil Houghton working with the John Deere 70 in the 1990s prior to restoration. Photo: Catherine Fry<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has huge pistons, a 6 1\/8 inch bore and 6 3\/8 inch stroke, with live power takeoff, live hydraulic power with hydraulic-stop cylinder, and Roll-O-Matic front end suspension.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 70 is started by a John Deere four-cylinder V-type cranking engine, which exhausts through the air intake of the diesel engine and shares the same cooling system, making the tractor easy to start in cold temperatures.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s well known for its fuel economy and efficiency,\u201d Houghton said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPre-launch trials of the 70 at the University of Nebraska showed a result that was deemed too good to be true, but when it was retested the next day, it was even better after being broken in the previous day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Houghton is on the committee of the Waikato Vintage Tractor and Machinery Club.<\/p>\n
He takes the 70 to club events and uses it for splitting firewood, grass seeding and ploughing around the farm.<\/p>\n
He admits to being a bit averse to getting it dirty, as it\u2019s in such beautiful condition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cMy dad, Neil, switched the day-to-day tractors to John Deere when International and David Brown combined as Case…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[124392,6203,2840,1863,3390,6326,138,124391,2841,7224,92234,3685,12026,9064,31178,6637,16655,78,8454,296,5126,121522,6187,663,3234,111,43,139,69,4517,6289,762,3175,544,6182,1361,7563,29687,1524,121521,379],"class_list":["post-203058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-124392","tag-6203","tag-across","tag-back","tag-best","tag-biggest","tag-business","tag-cherishes","tag-country","tag-dairy","tag-deere","tag-events","tag-farmer","tag-fathers","tag-favourites","tag-gave","tag-glimpse","tag-in","tag-including","tag-into","tag-john","tag-livelihoods","tag-lives","tag-looks","tag-months","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-past","tag-readers","tag-review","tag-rural","tag-some","tag-stories","tag-that","tag-those","tag-tractor","tag-waikato","tag-yarns","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}