4-WD Chore Tractor Cost Less Than $2,500 To Build

4-WD Chore Tractor Cost Less Than $2,500 To Build TRACTORS Made-It-Myself 24-4-42 People often stop, look, and stare when George Linstad, Peshtigo, Wisconsin rolls out his 4-WD tractor. He admits that the machine he and his brother David built from salvaged parts may not look as good as other tractors, but it definitely works. "I use it mostly for chores ù cleaning up around barns, landscaping, dirt moving. It can handle just about anything a factory-built tractor does, except for pto work," says Linstad. "We wanted it mostly for loader, blade and bucket work, so we didn't need a PTO. Linstad found two junked WD Allis Chalmers tractors at a salvage yard with the rear ends still intact. He used these for the drive wheels, turning the front one around and hinging them together. He coupled the drive shafts with a U-joint, so the tractor articulates in the middle. He built a frame in two sections, front and back, made of 6-in. channel iron. Then he mounted a Chevrolet 283 V-8 engine over the front axle. "I made my own motor mounts and welded them to the frame," he says. "I could have used any engine on it, but this is what I had available at the time. It certainly has plenty of power for just about anything you'd want to do." Then he found a 4-speed transmission from a 1960's vintage Chevy pickup. He coupled this to the engine and then coupled it to a transfer case using a short drive shaft his father took off an old Payloader. The transfer case drives the axles. Two hydraulic cylinders - one on either side - bend the frame at the articulation joint to steer it. He found a front-end loader with a detachable bucket in a salvage yard and rebuilt it to fit. He says it took some major re-engineering, but it works great. He also adapted a 3-point hitch mounted boom to fit up front where the bucket mounts on the loader. "The boom is about 6 ft. long. With the end loader arms, it can reach up quite a ways. I use the cylinder that dumps the bucket to move the boom separately from the end loader. It's great for setting rafters," he says. He mounted two hydraulic pumps on the engine ù one for the steering cylinders and the other to handle the cylinders on the front-end loader. For hydraulic reservoirs, he used a couple of 3-ft. long sections of 6-in. square tubing that he welded shut at both ends. He installed one on either side of the radiator and tapped and plumbed them into their respective pumps. Each reservoir holds about 4 gal. of fluid. Rather than a steering wheel, he uses a lever mounted on the hydraulic control valve to control the steering cylinders. Finally, he completed the tractor with an operators' station ù a red bucket seat from the driver's side of an old Chrysler K car. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, George Linstad, W2698 Jopek Road, Peshtigo, Wis. 54157 (ph 715-582-4154).

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