J.D. Pickers

[dirigoboy]

Reminiscent of that show on the History chanel; "American Pickers," which follows two fanatical guys and their van who travel all over the place in search of interesting and cool antiques, I want you to know they cannot hold a candle to one of the members of this website.
I say that because one of the members here, "Sean," just departed my yard about 45 minutes ago with an 8A Gearmatic winch which I sold him. I was floored when he told me this morning as I was winching the Gearmatic in to the bed of his truck that he had actually arrived some time last night, had run by my road to check and make sure this was the right place, then went back DOWN the road and pulled in to a gas station parking lot to nap for a couple hours-----in probably what.....25 degree temps?! You see, Sean drove through the night from Schnectady, N.Y. to arrive over here in Lebanon, Maine to pick up the winch! He has to work tonight.........

You could go all sorts of places with this story. I could tell you mine and what I have termed, the dismantling of a former goal in which, I had accumulated all sorts of equipment through working tons of overtime to pay cash for the gear and equipment I hoped to turn in to a side job of doing small woodlot improvement or reclamation with my JD 420, winch, logging arch, trailer, and old 1950 GMC 2-ton, which has now faded to a memory as I sell off these items piece by piece, though I'll keep the truck, crawler and arch.
Sean could tell you his own journey I"m sure of tearing apart his 40C and restoring it, and working tons of o.t., doing the same thing-----working, saving, looking, travelling for parts & "stuff" that we desire to realize that goal, while working those long hours to pay cash and own outright, what a credit card would make so much easier to obtain, while enslaving us to an institution. There's a life lesson here for that facet of America that wants it now, and doesn't care about the consequence or repayment.

So, hats off to you Sean for your dedication and that quirky undertow of joy that we all feel when we pull on that starter and hear that beautiful little two-cylinder pop to life, and watch the attachments begin to spin and work. One thing we could both agree on as we leaned against his truck for a few minutes of discussion in the frigid Maine air is that Lavoy has been a salt of the earth guy in helping so many here on the boards realize a means to an end as they continue to see these wonderful little machines continue to chug along in the 21st century.

Safe travels Sean. Don't forget to post photos of your pilgrimmage as you get this whole dream together.

[Eric.MacLeod]

working my overtime over here in wells trying to finish mine to. cant wait.. Eric.

[Tigerhaze]

I'm not trying to top that story, but have a "JD picker" story of my own. I believe it was in 2009, but I did a marathon weekend in early spring to pick up parts for my 2010. I don't drive over the road for a living, so after this trip I can appreciate what OTR drivers do day to day.

I left Kansas City for St. Louis on Friday evening after work. I then left early Saturday with a lady friend from St. Louis and drove to Orfordville, Wisconsin by early afternoon (a small town just over the border from Rockford, Illinois). After picking up a trailer full of misc. parts, we then drove late afternoon to Yorkville, IL (suburb of Chicago), about a two hour drive with the trailer to look at a 2010 parts crawler that I had purchased on Epay. We then spent the evening in Aurora, and left early the next day in severe weather and torrential rains back to St. Louis. In fact, there were tornado warnings for the general area we were driving through between Springfield, Il and St. Louis. That made towing that trailer a little unnerving, especially since the parts broke my trailer deck. By late afternoon we reached St. Louis and then I continued the trip in bad winter weather to Kansas City.

All together it was around 1200 miles- wouldn't have been so bad except for the trailer problem, weather, the lady friend needing to make frequent stops, and having to work on Monday morning I did some posts with pics at the time on this board:

http://www.jdcrawlers.com/messageboard/ ... =yorkville

It was interesting to meet the folks that I bought the parts from- they are not participants on this board but they would have fit right in.

[JWB Contracting]

In 2006, i bought a nice original lindeman crawler with dozer in East Wenatchee Washington. My dad and I left Wildwood, Alberta (1 hour west of Edmonton) very early in the moring and ended up a few hours past Spokane that night. In the morning we completed our trek and made it back to Wildwood at about 4 in the morning.

The roads were terrible with rain, snow and very icy conditions for the entire drive. We were in a 3/4 ton 4X4 pickup. 750 miles one way but well worth it. Lots of coffee and red bulls on the return trip. My dad drives way to slow so i was behind the steering wheel for the full trip.

Some nice officers stopped us outside of spokane as our trailer lights were not working, blown fuse. The let us fix it on the spot and no tickets were issued.

Another noteable trip. Headed up to High Praire AB to pick up a Deere 440 Skidder with a bad engine. We were in our tandem winch deck truck. Loaded the skidder and noticed a nice 420 crawler. The skidder took up the deck so we winched the 420 up the beaver tail and chained her down. Good thing the DOT's weren't out. We still have the 420, has an outside mount dozer and gearmatic winch.

Sometimes you have to move very quickly if you want to build a collection or get some of the harder to find models.