ItsNotJunk: 1942 Oliver 60 "Standard" Tractor

I've actually pared down my hoard of tractors by three, so you know what that means. Buy more. Not really. I mean, it is always fun to look but my desire to thin the herd wasn't so I could buy more. It just so happened that we decided to get an Oliver tractor recently because we take care of a "church grandson" once a week named Oliver. It just seemed appropriate. This is one of the few times I've had an objective while looking for a tractor. Most of the tractors I buy just appear on my radar and I get tempted.

Here's the path I took to acquire an Oliver. Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace were the two places I looked but Craigslist seems to have dropped off the face of the earth in terms of number of tractors for sale, so it was mainly FB that I looked. And I also talked to a couple of guys in my tractor club. One guy, Fred, has probably 10 or more Olivers but wasn't interested in selling. The other guy, Bob, happened to know of one. He had given an Oliver 60 Standard to his brother Jim, and Jim happens to go to the same church we do. One problem, the tractor was missing the grill and engine side panels, and they are difficult and/or expensive to come by, so that prospect wasn't too promising.

I'd like to briefly explain what a "Standard" tractor is. Most tractors used to plant and cultivate crops were called "row crop" tractors, and they usually had a tricycle front end, which was two tires close together in front, then an adjustable rear track width so farmers could plant/cultivate/harvest a variety of crop's row spacings. Tractors that were used for things like orchards didn't need adjustable wheel width so companies made fixed-track-width tractors that were low to the ground and stable on hilly terrain. These were called "Standard" tractors usually, and this is what the Oliver 60 is that Jim has.

Enter FB Marketplace. Some guy put up an ad that showed seven fully restored tractors, with a very generic title (Antique Tractors For Sale), and very minimal wording saying they were $4500 each, or offer. One of the tractors happened to be another Oliver 60 Standard (same as Jim's). I then happened to run across the same group of tractors on Craigslist with two separate listings, both just as cryptic as FB, with one asking $3500 or offer each and the other asking $4500 or offer each. To make matters more confusing, at some point the FB ad price was lowered from $4500 to $3900 (meaning in my mind that all tractors were $3900 or less). I finally caved and called the guy. I said I was confused by all the different pricing, so asked what he wanted for the Oliver. He said it was the nicest of the lot, so he wanted $4500. So he advertises a group of tractors for as low as $3500 each but then wants $4500 for this one. That put a damper on things pretty fast. I was willing to pay $3200 for the tractor but he said $4200 was his lowest. Maybe the tractor is worth that to someone, but not me, especially with no concrete evidence of what was done during the restoration beyond a nice paint job and new tires.

It was back to searching. But the 60 owned by Jim was still in the back of my mind and old Oliver tractors are few and far between, so I finally called Jim and asked if his was for sale. Yes, it could be, he said. He lived only 20 minutes away so it was time for a little trip across town to go look. When we arrived and saw the thing, it looked pretty pathetic. Not only the grill and side panels were gone, but the whole radiator shell and original radiator were also missing (and a too-wide Jeep or Toyota radiator was cobbled in).

Are you ready for a photo? Yes, this is the face only a mother (or I) could love. A diamond in the rough, you might say.

I told Jim I'd like to get the tractor but I haven't actually picked it up yet. That'll be in a couple of days.

From the rear, things look somewhat better than the front. Notice those rear tires? They're not a matched set but one is Goodyear and the other is Armstrong, so not some cheap foreign brand. They are probably 30 years old but I didn't notice any major cracking or dry rot. One minor issue though, one tire is backwards on the wheel so I'll have to flip one of the tires around on the wheel so the offset is the same on both sides. It's never a trivial matter to mess with rear tractor tires and wheels. This next photo below shows the left tire further from the fender than the right tire.

The front tires are retreads and are coming apart so I'll need to get some tri-rib tires soon. They're relatively cheap compared to rear tires.

Ok, now comes the shocker (in a good way). No, it's not the presence of the original brass serial number tag (below), although that was fairly high on the list of things to look for. Nope, it's the serial number itself, 410074. This was the 74th Oliver 60 Standard that was made. And there were only 3,605 Oliver 60 Standards ever made, from 1942 to 1948. 60 Standards are even more rare than my 1936 John Deere BO, of which they made 5,020.

Looking from the front or the rear of the tractor, all Oliver 60 Standards had "Oliver" cast on one axle housing but......

... only the earliest tractors (1942-1944) had "Standard" cast on the other housing. The later tractors had "Oliver" on both housings. I think it's pretty cool to have it say "Oliver Standard", and not just "Oliver Oliver". The row-crop tractors said "Oliver Row Crop".

Here's a photo of the dash. Nothing too exciting.

This next photo shows what a nicely restored Oliver 60 Standard looks like (tractor on the left). I took this photo at The Great Oregon Steam-up in Brooks, OR, this last summer before I knew I wanted an Oliver tractor...

The 60 Standard came with a 120.7 cu in overhead valve engine (~18 hp) and a 4-speed transmission. When this tractor was introduced, Ford's 9N/2N had a flathead engine and a 3-speed transmission. The one thing Ford had going for it was the 3-point hitch, which no other manufacturer could reproduce until the early 1950s when Harry Ferguson's patent ran out. Oliver's 4-speed transmission was essentially a 2-speed transmission with a low/high range like my JD BO except Oliver made all the magic happen with a single shift lever (see picture below), whereas JD used two levers. When the Oliver shift lever is in the center neutral position, moving the lever forward shifts the transmission into the Low range, and in this range you have Reverse/1st/2nd gears. Pulling the lever rearward in the center neutral position shifts the transmission into the High range, and you have 3rd/4th gears. In 1944 Oliver gave the model 60 a 5th gear.

20250901 Update: The tractor is now home. These next two photos show my Cushman hauling two loads of firewood from behind my house to the driveway, ready to load into the dump trailer and take to Jim. I'm guessing it's 1/3 of a cord.

Oooh, what will I fill this space with now?.....

And I'm back home again. The tractor is larger than I thought it would be, judging by the photos and videos I perused online before getting the tractor.

I hadn't noticed before but there are rear wheel weights in there. Cool.

Below is a shot of the front axle housing showing the "Standard" cast into it. The casting says "Oliver" on the backside, so this one casting can be used on the left or right side of the tractor.