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Originally Posted by madsciencenow
That’s some serious effort! Kudos to you for having the energy and skills to pull this off!! I remember my grandpa having something like this but with two wheels in the back (now that I think about it I think he was killed on that mower).
On another happier note, I finally connected your screen name with the picture. I used to work for a farmer who owned a number of Oliver tractors. As a teenager I couldn’t tell the difference between these and the JDs beyond color but the farmer I worked for loved them and lamented that they went out of business (at least this is what I remember happening).
Good luck finishing the mower!
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Thanks for the encouragement. Not many would be crazy enough to put the hours into the project that I have. It will never be pretty but I'm fairly confident that it will be serviceable. At least the initial entry fee was low, somewhere in the $65 range. I would have probably already had another junk mower project in the queue by now but the local spring auctions have been postponed.
Sorry to hear about your grandfather. Did he turn the mower over? One of the nice things about the F525 is its low center of gravity. The bigger 4 wheeled F series mowers were quite a bit taller - some had roll hoops and seat belts. I get pretty nervous on sidehills after tipping one of my Olivers over a few years back.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/John-Deere-...UAAOSwwD1dkqwy
Not many have picked up on the screen name, I never guessed it would be such an obscure reference. Oliver Corporation was purchased by White Motors (makers of Freightliner trucks) around 1960, and was rebranded as White Farm Equipment in 1969. The Oliver name and colors were dropped after 1976 in favor of silver painted White tractors, a huge mistake by the company. The White corporate management didn't have a good handle on farming and basically mismanaged WFE into oblivion. It was sold to Agco circa 1990 with the basic Oliver designs still in use. Agco continued to build White branded tractors until 2001 but there was no Oliver content in them after the Charles City Iowa (originally Hart-Parr, then Oliver) plant closed in 1993. The White name continues as Agco's planter brand.
Like most Oliver guys I have a number of them, and they all need work. If the farmer you worked for is still in business, I wouldn't mind making another contact for parts trading.