Half-Size Deere 4040 Tractor

Half-Size Deere 4040 Tractor TRACTORS Made-It-Myself 13-1-18 John Paulsen, Anthon, Iowa, has been interested in small size farm machinery ever since, as a 10-year-old, he started building mini hay bucks and stackers to "harvest" grass clippings from the front lawn. A couple years later he built a motorized swather that would cut grain, but that project ended soon after it began because he was feeding too much of the grain he cut to the chickens. Several years later, in his teens, he built his first motorized tractor, a scale model Farmall "M" powered by a Briggs & Strat¡ton engine. A local machine shop helped out with the lathe work and welding. Over the next few years he also built a mini Caterpillar tractor, a down-sized Deere 70 tractor, and a scale model combine. In 1978, Paulsen started collecting parts to build a half-scale Deere 4040 tractor. Five years later he had completed the tractor which has been a show stopper ever since at steam threshers' reunions all over the Mid-west. "About half the parts on the tractor are genuine half-scale parts which I built from scratch. The rest of the tractor was adapted from other parts as needed. I've had offers to buy the tractor but I don't want to sell," says Paulsen. The tractor is powered by a Pinto 4-cyl. engine and is fitted with a Ford Fairlane transmission that he rebuilt and grafted onto the Pinto engine's output shaft. He used the original Pinto clutch. The transmission drives a rear differential which Paulsen built by modifying a Simcoe car differential. "The hardest part of building the tractor was finding a small enough transmission and putting together the differential," he says, noting that he used the gears and bearings from the Simcoe differential and mounted them inside an oil-filled sealed housing he made out of a length of pipe and filled with oil. The tractor has 3 speeds forward and 1 in reverse. Low gear speed is about 4 mph. If he were to do it again, Paulsen says he would gear the tractor down a bit slower. The tinwork, seat, lights, control levers, and frame all match a full-sized 4040. Garden tractor decals give it an authentic touch. Paulsen spent about $2,200 and five years of spare time to build the tractor.

To read the rest of this story, download this issue below or click here to register with your account number.