[adamcharnock]

Honestly, I still had to practically stand on the clutch with mine!

I'd teach someone to drive it and say, "now push down on the clutch". They they would heave and struggle, then eventually succeed and look victorious. I'd say, "well done, it is now half way down! But that's all you need for now!"

EDIT: To fully explain: It has a two-stage clutch. You half-press it and it disconnects the wheels from the engine. If you fully depress it all the way to the floor, it additionally disconnects the power-take-off shaft (PTO) from the engine. The PTO shaft is a spindle on the back of the tractor which drives things like your flail mower, wood chipper, etc.

EDIT 2: Edit 1 was for the general audience, not the parent commenter ;-)

[VorpalWay]

Why was the clutch so heavy? Did it serve some purpose or was it just due to the limitations of the technology at the time?

I have certainly driven cars with lighter and heavier clutches (I live in EU, automatics weren't popular until recently and are still far from ubiquitous) but I couldn't tell you why every model just doesn't get a light clutch for comfort. A diesel Subaru I drove had a particularly heavy clutch as I recall, so at stop lights I would pop into neutral instead of holding the clutch down for an extended period.

[chabska]

To deliver very high torque, the clutch plates needs to be pressed very hard together to generate enough friction. This also means that it take a lot of force to pull them apart, if you use a simple lever, as older machines do.

Modern machines may use complex mechanical linkages to make the clutch easy to pull apart but still maintain a firm contact, but that also means higher cost and fragility. Or they use pneumatics or hydraulics to assist, sorta like power steering.

[sandworm101]

That, and design tolerances. A fancy clutch can be light and strong (think ferarri) but farm machines need to work in the dirt/rust and so need larger tolerances. So heavier springs and bigger .... Bigger everything. A slipping clutch in a Ferrari is annoying. A slipping clutch on a tractor means a missed harvest.

[slow_typist]

Plus mechanical release mechanisms of heavier machinery were often designed in a way that the clutch snaps at a certain point (also in order to reduce wear in the clutch).

[sandworm101]

Also because farm machines usually need max torque fast to break loose from static friction. You want a clutch to bite hard when pulling things through mud.

[slow_typist]

I once changed a broken release bearing of a truck. It was a relatively simple repair but the very heavy gearbox has to be taken out to do this - which is problematic especially if done on a yard without proper equipment.

Since then I always pop into neutral when standing at a traffic light. It is interesting how many people in manual driving cultures think there would be no wear and tear if they press the pedal down completely.

Of course there is, as there has to be a force translating connection between rotating parts and parts of the release mechanism which cannot rotate. Only when the pedal is left alone, the release bearing disconnects from the rotating clutch.

[samiv]

As a motorcyclist stopped at the traffic light I always keep the gear on and clutch pulled in. Why? Because I have to be ready to take off when the moron driver on the phone behind me fails to stop.

[zeeveener]

This is how I was taught by my insurance-recognized course and for the same reason you provided.

I believe wet clutches are semi-designed with this use-case in mind

[bityard]

I do the same thing, and I rationalize it with the fact that the clutch in my motorcycle is is constantly bathed in oil so it can take the "abuse."

[slow_typist]

The release bearing might not be

[_heimdall]

I don't ride anymore, but I always did the same at least until a few cars were at a dead stop behind me.

[slow_typist]

Fair

[npongratz]

> The PTO shaft is a spindle on the back of the tractor which drives things like your flail mower, wood chipper, etc.

... and kills/maims anyone with lose clothing trying to step over it!

[EvanAnderson]

Oh, god yes.

I mowed using a Farmall H on a family farm when I was about 12 y/o. I don't remember ever having deadly serious conversations with family members up to that point in my life. All four grandparents, aunts and uncles-- it seemed like everybody-- sat me down, looked me dead in the eye, and told me sternly and bluntly "you turn off the PTO and see the shaft isn't turning before you get off the tractor. Every. Time."

All of them knew somebody who lost an arm or leg or got killed when they got pulled into a PTO.

That was probably the first time I'd ever been given the opportunity to operate a machine that would fucking kill me if I shirked on respecting it. I will never forget the tone of that communication.

[Ancapistani]

Without going too far into the weeds here, IMO this experience is representative of gun rights, zoning, and all sorts of other differences between urban and rural.

Rural kids are put into situations where they are expected to rely fully on themselves, with life-or-death consequences, from a young age. When your pre-teen is driving a machine on their own that could easily kill them or those around them, giving them a .22 rifle is just... normal. It's not at all the same situation as a kid the same age who lives in an apartment and who may have never been in a place where no one would be close enough to hear them if they screamed for help.

I can't wrap my head around the idea that a large number of people who live in cities seem to want to extend childhood through age 25. My daughters are 12 and 17, and between them have over fifty animals directly depending on them for survival. It's just... foreign.

[wahern]

I think you're generalizing too much. Rural communities take gun safety seriously. Farming communities take farming equipment seriously. Kids grow up internalizing the seriousness of these things, which is communicated expressly and tacitly their whole lives by countless people around them, including their friends. Plus they encounter walking examples of what can go wrong, like a missing finger, burn scars (not careful around bonfires or burn pits), or bullet holes (I knew at least 2 or 3 kids growing up with scars from shot). But put those same kids or adults who are careful with those machines in a similarly dangerous but novel situation, and they'll do dumb shit like anyone else. I'm tempted to argue they're more likely to do something dumb because they have a false confidence from their experience with other dangerous situations, whereas suburban and city kids may be more likely to be too scared to play around with any dangerous machine or situation.

I lived on a farm for a year as a young kid (farmer rented a couple of trailers on his land). I remember one day I was hanging around the hog pen watching the giant hogs mill about, probably contemplating trying to pet one. Mr Austin came by and sternly told me to not to reach through the fencing, then knelt down and showed me his ear, which was missing a big chunk.

[MSFT_Edging]

On the flip side, plenty of Rural and Suburban people are terrified by the city, which kids growing up in the city shrug off.

Rural folks might learn to respect a PTO or the varmint rifle by age 10, but city kids learn how to navigate the bus routes and subway. They learn how to walk on crowded streets, how to live among a lot of different people, including dangerous people(and how to avoid the conflict).

It's all quite interesting. Different kinds of toughness, different kinds of mental fortitude.

[ckrapu]

I think that there's a major difference in the resulting mindsets that the two types of experiences form, though.

The first learn that nature is always present and doing its best to kill you / wreck your harvest, and that it is only through man's intelligence and social bonds that we thrive. I would argue a corollary of this is that one cannot tolerate malicious or grossly neglectful people around.

The second group learns that other people are a liability and that bad actors are just a fact of life to be tolerated and worked around.

Both approaches are clearly optimal for their respective environment. The former seems like a stronger foundation for building a civilization on, though.

[uberman]

I grew up in a city, my wife on a ranch that was several sections large. We have lived in large dense cities and we currently live on a "smaller" ranch. I have taken densely packed subways to work on one hand and walked home on my own property more than a mile after running out of gas. Here is my observation. Neither camp typically has a clue about why the other might be motivated by a different opinion.

Take your .22 rifle. Many truly rural families would feel that this tool was essential. Same for having knife on you. We have lived where there are rattlesnake and coyotes as an almost every day thing. Not so much rattlesnakes but certainly coyotes. In fact bear and cougar were not out of the question. The idea that I would allow my kids to wander on the property without a .22 in their 4 wheeler seemed risky. They were expected to know how to shoot just as they were expected to know how to ride a horse, and drive a tractor unsupervised. We taught them to be safe and could not have run our ranch without our girls taking on some big dangerous responsibilities.

We have also lived in big cities where the idea that many of the liberties we enjoyed in the country were insane in the city. The idea that any random teen should be allowed to drive a 80hp tractor around or carry a gun or a fixed blade knife was insanity. Just as allowing my kids to run down the sidewalk or play unsupervised in the park after dark was insanity. On our fist day after moving my eldest daughter ran down the sidewalk and was hit (but not injured) by a car coming out of a driveway.

She just had no clue about how cars in a dense city moved. There just are different life rules that apply in different situations. Guns can be critically important in one environment and absolutely insane in a second. Same goes for driving a tractor that could kill you or a family member or going to a park after dark.

Unless people understand that a different environment might require a different set of norms or even laws we can't have a productive urban/rural conversation. Of course I can drive my ATV along your fence line. You probably can't even see it from your home or hear it. Though you can bet my dad asked your dad for permission 40 years ago. Try running your unregistered, unlicensed ATV through your suburban neighbor's yard and you will find out why there are important laws preventing you from doing what was perfectly fine in the back country.

[mikestorrent]

I don't "want" to extend childhood; but where I live makes it a little difficult to let my kids roam the way I did. Go too far one way and you're heading into busy highway traffic hell, go too far the other way and you're heading into hobo territory.

Wish I could move; I could sell this overpriced place and almost retire.... not under my control

[rrr_oh_man]

> not under my control

Why, if I may ask?

[mothballed]

Wife or custody orders, usually

[torton]

People can have different lived experiences and it's OK; they are differently valuable and beneficial. I'm a certified unc, easily double the age of your oldest, and I have 0 animals depending on me for survival. It means, among other things, that I can simply decide to leave town for a week and don't need to arrange for replacement humans to take care of other living beings -- and this is a valuable freedom to have.

[pjc50]

The phrasing of "gun rights" in the context that's really about gun responsibilities is a big part of the problem. And I say this from an unusual position; I'm a Brit who was taught to shoot at school (cadets). The urban gun control question is not so much about responsibility as about malice. There's not a huge number of people with murderous intent, but there are enough. And the resistance of rural America to the questions of either "do you actually need a gun?", "are you a responsible person?", and "no, you can't bring that into the city" result in thousands of deaths every year in the city. If they were willing to allow separate rules for different areas, this wouldn't be nearly as heated.

> a large number of people who live in cities seem to want to extend childhood through age 25

This is not great, and a more complicated problem of percieved danger.

[AngryData]

Ive never heard a rural person talk about wanting to bring guns into cities, they generally avoid cities in general. I do hear lots of talk about urban focused gun regulations wanting to be passed nation wide without any exemptions for rural folks or even the slightest nuance or knowledge about guns and existing gun laws.

America's biggest obstacle to meaningful gun control is the groups and people pushing gun control the hardest have no idea what they are legislating. That's how we got nonsense bans on stuff like slings and bayonets, or trying to specifically ban AR-15s while functionally identical guns would remain legal.

And the second obstacle, which isn't far behind, is nobody trusts the US government enough to want to disarm themselves. We already got a police state and the largest military in the world and absolutely zero reasons in living memory to trust the government to look after its people instead of abusing them.

And frankly, I think any gun control measure in America is completely worthless and will only do more harm than good if the majority of gun owners don't trust the government enough to protect them all the time and aren't willingly turning in their guns. US citizens have enough guns to arm the entirety of themselves 100x times over so even if you could seize 95% of guns with magic, that's still enough blackmarket guns for 100+ years of insurgency with zero additional production. Personally I think we would do better to focus more on improving the lives of average citizens so they don't want to blast people randomly.

[mothballed]

Maybe 'city' folk should offer something in exchange then. I would trade megamillion 'city' sovereignty on 'gun control' in exchange for stopping application of the NFA and GCA in the 'country'.

Right now all 'city' offers is a shittier deal and pray they do not alter it worse. Obviously that's not politically viable way to get agreement and part of the reason why gun control advocates think "nothing changes."

[Muromec]

Cant you all just pass some laws that apply to your place only? Why does it have to be a trade.

[fsckboy]

>Rural kids are put into situations where they are expected to rely fully on themselves, with life-or-death consequences, from a young age.

come to the city, farm boy, and we'll give you a corner you can sling the brown from and we see how you do. we find something fo yo daughters to do too*

*i have absolutely no street smarts, country or city, but I do watch Law & Order and know how to pound a nail and know what to grease the maitre d' to get into the hottest restaurants in town. and beyond that i got friends, some of these guys know people who know people, just sayin

[worthless-trash]

Ah yes, encouraging people into shitty situations, the hallmarks of city life.

[lukan]

His tone I did not like either, but his point was that city life is not without mortal dangers either, which I think is fair.

[fsckboy]

Poe's Law whoosh

[exchemist]

I have never driven a tractor, but clearly remember our headmaster giving us this exact lecture when I was about 8. This in a town of 20,000 people where I expect not even 2% of the kids would even visit a farm outside of an organised trip, but clearly an important enough message to be worth broadcasting.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

First farm death I ever knew of was related to me by a friend who used to live on the farm next to the dead person. He had PTO engaged but engine running while he was fixing a (I think) thresher. Clutch must have engaged and his dead, flailing remains were found by his wife when she came to call him in for dinner.

[learn_more]

Deceptively dangerous!

An exposed, spinning shaft seems benign but once it wraps you or your clothing around the shaft it pulls you in and destroys you in a flash.