By Steve Huffman
Salisbury Post
When he was a boy, Greg Shue used to go from his home in Salisbury to his grandparents’ farm in Mooresville.
There, he’d climb aboard his grandfather’s tractor ó a rear-engine Allis-Chalmers G model.
At the time, Shue’s legs were too short to reach the clutch, so his grandfather would put the contraption in gear and send the boy on his way across a distant field.
When Shue tired of his ride, he’d turn the tractor and return it to his grandfather who’d manage to stop it.
Shue still laughs today when he recalls the story, coupled with tales of the hayrides his grandfather organized for everyone in the family.
“Plenty of good memories,” Shue said.
Shue’s grandfather, Glenn Gregory, died in 1993. His grandmother, Pauline Gregory, died in 2003.
Shue, 39, the former chief of the Miller Ferry Fire Department, said he always told his grandfather that the one thing he wanted from his estate was that Allis-Chalmers tractor.
Not long after the passing of his grandmother, the dream became reality.
Shue owned the tractor ó a 1948 model that his grandfather had bought new ó for a couple of years before he decided that a restoration was in order.
The tractor was still in working order, but seeing as how it was a piece of machinery almost 60 years old, it obviously needed a bit of attention.
Shue is field service mechanic for Caterpillar Tractors of Charlotte, so he was in the right line of work for restoring the Allis-Chalmers.
The work he involved himself with was extensive. And time-consuming.
Shue dismantled the tractor before rebuilding its engine, differential and transmission. He put new tires and tubes on the machine and sandblasted the body before painting it.
(The hue is Persia Orange No. 1, for those who are sticklers for details).
Shue estimates he’s got eight or nine months of time ó almost all done in the evenings or on weekends ó and about $3,000 invested in the project.
He doesn’t regret a minute of it.
“I really enjoyed doing it,” Shue said. “Some people look at work like that as something to dread, but it didn’t bother me at all. It was a labor of love.”
Parts, admittedly, were at times difficult to come by.
Shue became an expert at patrolling the popular Internet Web site eBay for parts. He also had to have custom-made the rear tires for the tractor ó those big boys costing him a fairly hefty $255 apiece.
Shue said the G model Allis-Chalmers was a popular tractor. It was also something of a trend-setter, one of the first tractors built with a rear-mounted engine.
Shue said Allis-Chalmers ó with plants primarily in Wisconsin and Minnesota ó produced 28,000 of the machines between 1948 and 1955.
Most went to farms in the Midwest.
“There are just a handful remaining in this area,” Shue said.
He said because the tractor’s engine is rear-mounted, it afforded the farmer a better view of the field he was working.
“They were made for cultivating,” Shue said of that particular model tractor. “There was nothing to obstruct the farmer’s view.”
If anything, the tractor that Shue restored probably looks better today than it did when it was sold new at Southern Implements in Spencer.
The paint shines like nobody’s business and its motor fires to life as soon as it’s bumped. There’s no way Shue is going to get out and work a field with his prized possession.
“It’s just for show,” Shue said of his ride, which he said he restored in memory of his grandparents.
Shue’s children, Garrett, 13, and Alysa, 9, helped with the restoration. His wife, Cher, tolerated her husband’s commitment to the project.
“You could tell he enjoyed the work,” she said. “He’d hurry home and immediately go to work on it.”
Shue’s tractor draws plenty of attention and accolades when he shows it. He completed it with a fresh new umbrella top and even restored a pair of seeder/planters that are mounted toward the front of the machine.
Shue’s Allis-Chalmers has won four events at shows where it has been entered. At a tractor show at Big Lick Park north of Oakboro, it was named Best of Show in the Allis-Chalmers category.
Shue strives to enter the tractor in any event sponsored by the Iron Peddlers Antique Tractor Club, of which he is a member.
On a couple of occasions since the tractor was restored, Shue has hauled it back to the Mooresville farm his parents once owned. There, he loads his children, nieces and nephews on a trailer and takes them for a ride through the surrounding fields.
He can’t help but feel, Shue said, that somewhere his grandfather is watching it all and smiling.
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Contact Steve Huffman at 704-797-4222 or shuffman@salisburypost.com.