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The John Deere
"M" series Tractor's
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Notes taken from "The Big Book of John Deere Tractors", by Don Macmillan
The John Deere Company was looking to incorperate it's lower end models into one group of tractors with interchangable parts and less labor intensive manufacturing. It was a process of undoing a lot of what had evolved over many years of venturing into different areas of the tractor market that lead them in different direction of tractor manufacturing which was now an overlapping of tractor's.
The "L" line, which includes the "Y" and the "62" models, ran from 1937 to 1946 and was in the 10 to 14hp range, the "BO", BR, BI and the BO-L, a totally different configuration altogether which ran from 1935 to 1938, in the 12 to 16hp range, all these ended before styling, and the "H", similar situation, with a production run from 1937 to 1947, in the 12 to 15hp range. All these had a run span about the same. It was their intention to produce a totally new design that would cover all these different tractors with only one tractor type and have different versions of that type to bring them back into the different markets.
A totally new factory was built in Dubuque Iowa where research was already under way on this idea. This first experimental was called the model 69. This whole launching into a new and particular area was on account of that guy named, Henry Ford, which had sewed up 70% of the tractor market in the USA, and it was even more in foreign countries. He was a thorn in the side of John Deere and something had to be done.
The first "M"'s came off the line in March of 1947 and sported an upright two clyinder, overhead valve motor, a 4-speed transmission and touch-a-matic hydraulics, allowing precise control. It was a single row cultivating machine and could pull a two bottom plow. The last one to come off the line was serial number 55799 in September 1952
The "MT" was of the same tractor, meaning it had the same motor, transmission and all the main features of the "M". However this was a tricycle model with narrow front end and larger rear wheels. It was a two row cultivating tractor and pulled a two bottom plow. It had dual touch-a-matic with split rockshafts that could raise each side of the cultivators seperately. It could be orderes with a single front wheel or wide front end.
The "MI" (industrial) was basically the same tractor as the "M" except it had a stronger front axle and painted yellow
The "MC" was the crawler version derived from the "BO" Linderman built in Yakama Washington. Production was stopped on the "BO-L" in 1949 and the transformation to the "MC" began then. Drive trains from the Dubuque plant were shipped to Yakama for assembly for west coast markets and track units were shipped from Yakama to Duduque for assenbly for the rest of the USA. The "MC" soon became very popular with many different markets. It was originally built, as the "BO-L", with the orchard market in the northwest in mind. It soon, however, found it's way into the logging, farming and housing industries. It was well suited to smaller dozing jobs and building logging roads. The first "MC's" had the same track frames as the "BO-L" tractors. It soon became apparent that improvements would have to made. Soon a four roller track frame was introduced and molded track shoes instead of the pressed steel pads. Different arrangements of blade configurations were made available to suit different needs.
Specs on the "M"
Drawbar hp---------- 18.15
Belt Pulley ----------- 20.45Weight--------------- 2695
