Starting this thread I suppose I should congratulate Goodyear Tyres for the longstanding service of their products to the agricultural industry.
It's more of a sad note for me and a day I have been expecting for over 34 years when I bought my styled red 25 at an auction in Warwickshire, the owner at that time told me the tractor had come over from the USA on Lease Lend and been assigned to Derbyshire War Agricultural Committee and the tractor went to work on a farm where they had also a red Pacemaker, they found the 25 to be much larger and not so easy to use as the PA, so it only came out for heavy winter ploughing, when he found it in the 1970's it was blocked up in a barn, still on it's original front multi rib tyres with "made in the USA" marked on them, during its working life the tractor had one new pair of closed centre tread British tyres fitted on the rear.
I have always cherished these original front tyres although in the back of my mind I knew one day they would let me down as the side walls had become very cracked over the years, so a few years ago I did buy a pair of multi rib 7-50 X 18 tyres from a dealer in Wilmar Minnesota and put them into one of my containers, always good to have the parts you need in stock ready.
Last weekend I used the tractor at the Little Casterton Working Weekend, left it all loaded for our local Club working day yesterday, well Saturday morning went to put some fuel in the tanks and found the front left hand wheel was flat, took the wheel off and to my local tyre fitter, well when we got the tyre off the rim the inner tube was almost welded to the inside of the tyre, if you pulled it came away in shreds.
So it was time to go back home and fetch one of the new tyres and fitted it ready for work yesterday, now I think I am going to have to put the other one on, but will retain the original front tyres with the tractor.
I think its pretty good for a pair of tyres to last nearly 80 years.
Malcolm.