"Little Tractor That Could" Built From Scratch

"Little Tractor That Could" Built From Scratch TRACTORS Made-It-Myself 22-4-34 Here's the "Little Tractor That Could" that my Dad, Donald, and I built from scratch two years ago. We've since won a lot of blue rib-bons for it in area parades. We use it to pull a home-built 7-ft. blade and two-section drag and with a 4-ft. dozer blade on front for plowing gardens, leveling driveways, pushing snow, etc. It's got all kinds of power, a lot more than either of the 12 hp garden tractors we used before. It's powered by a 67 hp engine out of a 1977 junked Subaru car. It's coupled to a 4-speed transmission out of a junked Chevy 1-ton truck. It has a Posi-Track rear end out of a junked International Scout we narrowed down to 3 1/2 ft. The straight front axle out of a 1940's pickup is fitted with the front tires off the rear end of an old Case lawn mower and the rear axle is fitted with duals that came off of irrigation sprinklers. The 6-ft. long frame (the tractor measures 5-ft. wide from outside to outside duals) was built from the ground up out of heavy-duty 2-in. angle iron, helping to give it an overall weight of 1,800 lbs. It also has a reworked clutch out of a junked Deere snowmobile that kicks in to give you a top speed of around 45 mph in fourth gear, which is like overdrive. Driving speed depends on how much of the clutch you close up. For example, top speed in first gear with the clutch fully closed is 5 to 7 mph. Total cost of the project was about $1,800. (David E. Sleight, 0343 S.W. Montgomery Rd., S. Boardman, Mich. 49680; ph 616 369-2327)

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