2024 - Volume #48, Issue #1, Page #38
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Homemade Tractor Comes Full Circle
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To build it, Pomnitz says he sourced an Austin A55 motor and Austin A40 gearbox for power and the drive train. “I drove a 1950’s FJ Holden vehicle and had quite a few spare parts back then,” Pomnitz says, “so I used the differential and front hubs from my extra supply.” He sourced the 4-in. by 2-in. channel iron for the chassis from extra steel used in shed trusses.
Pomnitz says he used his engineering background to build other components. He made a shaft and extra bearing to fit a 3/4-in. pitch chain, then produced sprockets to accommodate a four-to-one reduction to the front of the Holden differential. Materials for the center pivot front axle came from his dad’s wrecked pto header. He shortened the axles of the vehicle so it would fit inside a 4-ft. by 7-ft. trailer, then he installed 5.25-in by 10-in. front tires and 8.25-in. by 15-in. rears.
Pomnitz says the tractor ran well, and to give it work, he built a 5-ft. wide cultivator. A few years later, a farmer he worked for gave him a complete hydraulic system from a Massey windrower, which he used to build a front-end loader.
“I wanted to form an FEL bucket, but nobody on the peninsula could roll a piece of 1/8-in. plate steel 4 ft. long,” Pomnitz says. “I made a roller myself from my dad’s old GL200 header axles.”
Pomnitz sold the tractor more than 35 years ago, but that’s not the end of the story. “I got to thinking about it last year and decided to look up the guy who bought it,” Pomnitz says. “He’d sold it about 20 years ago, so I looked that fellow up and found the tractor sitting outside in the weather.”
The tractor had a new clutch and a new differential, but the rest was all original. “The gearbox had probably seen better days, and the engine was locked up, so I decided to buy it and restore it,” Pomnitz says. After a brief rehabilitation, the tractor is now cleaning driveways and yards and cultivating, and he’s entered it in local small tractor-pulling events.
“It looks and runs better than it did when I built it 50 years ago,” Pomnitz says, “and I intend to keep it in good condition and not sell it again.”
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Robert Pomnitz (via Facebook).
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