Collin Moore poses with his self-restored 1948 Allis-Chalmers combine that he recovered from a tree line at his house on Hook-Waltz Road.
Charlotte Caldwell | The Lima News
MONROE TOWNSHIP — With a little determination, a passion for old farm equipment and despite all doubts, a 14-year-old has spent the last few months restoring a 1948 Allis-Chalmers combine that he found in some trees on his property on Hook-Waltz Road, just northwest of Cairo.
Collin Moore, an 8th grader at Columbus Grove, started restoring the Model 60 All Crop Harvester in December 2023, and 1,400 hours of labor later and he was able to harvest five to six acres of soybeans with it this season. The machine has a 20-bushel grain tank, compared to a 500-bushel tank on newer combines. He also got to take it to the Pioneer Days parade in Kalida, which he had to drive there at a top speed of 13 mph.
“His first goal was to get it working and in the Pioneer parade. His second goal was to harvest with it,” said Collin’s dad, Blake Moore, who is the owner of MOEquipment, a business that sells construction equipment.
Collin and Blake think the combine has been on the property the whole time and has been left unused in the trees for over 45 years.
“Everyone walked past it and saw scrap metal, if that. He saw something different,” Blake said. “I never knew he would take it all the way to the end like this and it’s just blown us away. Everyone that comes over is like ‘my dad, my grandpa had one of these, I remember those’ and no one sees them anywhere anymore.”
Because the combine has become important to him, Collin said the cost of the restoration was “way more than it’s worth.”
“I didn’t know anything about that thing when I got it out. I just knew it was orange,” Collin said, adding he figured out how to restore it as he went along.
He bought a parts machine from Indiana that he found on Facebook Marketplace — as parts are not easy to come by for the model anymore — and worked on replacing rotted sheet metal, tires and belts. He put a clear coat on the orange paint instead of repainting it to preserve the history. Because of this, a math problem can be seen scratched into the paint by a former owner. He also had to do some woodwork. To add to the history, the old red and orange slow-moving vehicle sign can still be found on the back.
Besides replacing parts, Collin added additions to the machine to make it easier to run, like designing a lever so he’s able to unload grain on the go.
“I’ll be honest, I wasn’t a believer,” Blake said.
Since they don’t own soybeans, they had to farm nearby properties. Blake recalled telling Collin “’We can’t be losing soybeans out the back, this is someone else’s money. This is someone else’s income.’ And he said ‘no dad, these were good machines. They did a good job.’” But when they put the combine to work, they found no soybeans left on the ground behind them.
“If they’re not on the ground they have to be either in the tank or somewhere in the machine, and they were in the tank and they were cleaner than new combines. So it absolutely blew me away. I had tears in my eyes, I just couldn’t believe it. That determination is hard to find and that’s some serious determination,” Blake said.
Collin also purchased a book online detailing “operating instructions, special attachments and repair parts” for the combine. The book lists 106 types of crops the combine can handle.
What started it all, though, is the old Massey-Harris tractor Collin uses to pull the combine. His family purchased it from a neighbor when he was 3 years old and he’s been interested in old farm equipment ever since.
The tractor has its own unique qualities. Collin and Blake pointed out the heated seat from the 1950s on the tractor that uses hoses to pump coolant to the seat from the engine. They said it would have cost $7 as an addition back then, and now ones on the internet sell for about $1,000.
Collin’s current projects are replacing a steering box on someone’s 1944 tractor and working on a tractor he bought at an auction. He enjoys the work and said he would be interested in pursuing a career in welding and fabrication.
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Reach Charlotte Caldwell at 567-242-0451.
