Ford model-T tractor converson

jdcrawler

Tractorologist
Member
First off .. I want to thank all of you that fallow my postings on my various projects. I enjoy your comments and ideas.
Taking the photos and figuring out what to write up is enjoyable to me and it helps fill in my time by giving me more to do and to think about than just building the things.

This one has some history to it. It is a special project that up until a couple of weeks ago, I had given up any idea of actually building it.

Back some time in the early 80's, I picked up this old model-T tractor conversion. It was really - really - really, rough. The tractor had sat so long that the wheels were buried in the ground and once we got it dug out, I found that the lower third of the steel wheels were mostly rusted away.
The rear wheels had a big gear on them that was driven by a smaller gear on the rear axle so part of those big gears were rusted away also.

There was no engine or transmission so that left the the input shaft on the rear axle open to the weather. Water had gotten in and frozen and cracked the underside of the axle housing in a couple of places.
The frame rails were both rusted thru in a couple of places where it had been welded on so even that wasn't any good.

I had the tractor set out as yard art in front of the house for awhile. After awhile, with the intention of still building an old tractor conversion, I stripped the radiator, firewall and steering column off it and scraped the rest of it.
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Still back in the 80's, I picked up a model-A engine...
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and a little while later, I got hold of a Chevy 4-speed truck transmission with a power takeoff that mounts on the side of it.
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On one of our weekend drives, late 80's or early 90's, we stopped at a second hand shop and they had this flat belt drive assembly hanging up on their back wall. The guy had no idea what it was off from. I offered him half of what the price he had listed on it and he took it ( if I remember right, I think I paid $25 for it ).
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This is and after market accessory that went with some of the model-T tractor conversion kits that were available back in the 20's, 30's & 40's.
It attaches to the front of the model-T to power the belt driven machinery that was used on the farm.
Here is one on a restored model-T tractor conversion.
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Here are the extra parts that came with the model-A engine. The firewall, steering column and the radiator of the old model-T tractor.
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During the 90's, I picked up a bell housing for the engine. Some other parts for the engine, including a new water pump.
A ( Fordson ) toolbox and a model-T truck dash panel. Two old spotlights from the early 20's.
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However, I never managed to find a model-T rear axle and rear wheels for converting a car to a tractor, not one that I could afford anyway.
As time went by, they became even harder to find and, of course, even more expensive when I did run across one.
By the time we moved down to Madison, Indiana in 2015, I had decided that I was never going to be able to build that model-T tractor conversion.

That brings me up to a couple of weeks ago. My son gave me a new set of 16 inch tractor cleat tires to use on the roller and I was looking around trying to find 16 inch wheels for them. There is a tractor junk yard not too far from me and I drove up there to see if he had any wheels.

I had told him about what I was working on and he did have a pair of wheels that I bought. I was telling him about some of the other projects that I've worked on and when I showed him the before and after photos of that Centaur tractor, he asked me if I would be interested in another tractor like that ? We walked over to a line of old rusty tractors, mostly Farmalls and JDs and a few Alis Chalmers. He showed me this old home built tractor that had a big Wisconsin engine and a model-T rear axle in it.
He said that he has had no luck trying to sell it but he doesn't want to scrap it and asked me if I though I could restore it ?

Immediately I started thinking about that model-a engine and all the other parts that are stored up in the loft of my garage. He made me a very reasonable offer and I brought it home with me.

Surprisingly, considering how long this must have been sitting out in the weather, the Wisconsin engine still turned over. So I removed the engine and put it up in the garage and set the rest of the tractor out in front of the house as yard art for awhile.

This tractor came off a farm in South Caroline. The guy's wife is also from South Caroline and she knows the people who own the farm that they got this tractor from.
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Here is the old Wisconsin engine. It's 18-1/2 inch tall to the top of the head.
I'm at my 10 photo limit here so I'll show more photos of the tractor on my next post.
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Underneath the tractor, there are two frame rails from another model-T with six cultivator tines attached to them. There are two on each side under the center of the tractor ( it is missing some of the cultivator shovels ).

The front axle is home made ( I think ), and designed with a high arch so that the tractor can straddle a crop row with the cultivator shovels digging into the dirt on either side of it.
However, there is a steel bar running straight across between the two frame rails for the cultivators that kind of defeats the purpose of having the high arch front axle.
Looking thru to the back of the tractor, you can also see a trailer hitch hanging down under it.

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At the back, there is another high arch bracket connecting the two cultivator frame rails together with a cultivator tine lined up behind each rear tire.

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The Wisconsin engine was bolted to the two pieces of steel channels running crosswise on the frame. The engine was connected to the transmission with a V-belt.

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The belt tensioner pulley is a model-T fan mount.

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It is operated by a rod going back to the clutch pedal.
The transmission has the shifting arms on the side with two rods connected to them.

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Those rods connect to these two levers on the side of the steering column for shifting the transmission.

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The transmission is off an old car with an open driveshaft. The model-T rear axle had a closed driveshaft and it has been converted to an open driveshaft to connect to the transmission.

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I also think the rear hubs are actually the front hubs off the same car that the transmission came from. The hubs have six lugbolts so they may be GM ( I believe Oldsmobile first had and open driveshaft in 1940 ) ?
The model-T rear axle has been narrowed and the rear hubs are driven by a chain.

Taking into consideration how long ago this was built, I am impressed by the construction. They even made chain guards for the rear.

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So .. moving on, I took the model-A engine and parts down to the car wash to clean them off.

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The engine is mounted on my ( home made ) engine stand and ready to be taken apart and re-built.

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The tines that line up behind each rear wheel, would those stay on the tractor or I’m guessing they would be removed when not needed. The mounting along with the arch is unique the way it’s part of the tractor and not like an attachment.
 
Interesting DIY tractor like you say JD some good work and thought went into I like the read gear reduction set up, are you going to stay with that or find or repair the steel wheels you have
 
Interesting DIY tractor like you say JD some good work and thought went into I like the read gear reduction set up, are you going to stay with that or find or repair the steel wheels you have

I'm keeping that rear chain drive setup but the wire wheels are rusted really bad. I have a set of 8.00x16 tractor lug tires on steel wheels that will be going on the back instead.
 
Would you call your project a "Doodle Bug" Ray? I know that was a common name for a lot of car converted to tractors. I could haul home this one someone started to build a long time ago but never finished. Looks to be based off of a '28 or '29 Chevrolet. Too big of a project for me though. This one would have been a ranch tractor, not a farming tractor.

DAC

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This engine had a shaft with a sprocket on it bolted to the back of the crankshaft and was used as a stationary engine to power something. Because of that, it has a mechanical driven governor that is driven off the timing gear in the front.
I don't know how it works or how to adjust it yet, but it is a handy thing to have on a tractor that will have a flat belt pulley to drive farm machinery.

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I found this information on the internet.

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Got the head and manifolds off and it is obvious that this has been a home for little creatures for awhile.

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Surprisingly, the cylinders look really good. There are marks on the cylinder walls where the rings had been sitting in that one position for a long time but I can't see or feel any ridges or scratches in the cylinders.

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Pulling the oil pan, the underside looks good. I can't feel any slop in the rods.

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A little time spent with a putty knife, an air hose and the shop vacuum and it looks much better.

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As you can see, a couple of the valves are stuck open.

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The pistons came out without any problem at all and I quickly figured out why the cylinders are in such good condition. ...
The pistons are .070 over size so this has been board out and new pistons put in at some time in its life.

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Obviously, when they put in the new pistons, they did not do the valves. All of them have slop in the valve guides and one of them is corroded away so much that it broke off when I started fussing with it.

So .. the good part is that I will only need to hone the cylinders and put in new rings. The bad part is that I'm going to have to replace all of the valves and the valve guides.

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While I'm waiting for parts, I've set the engine up on it's end so I can start to figure out what I need to do to make the Chevy transmission fit on to it.

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Picking the transmission up by the tail end.

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The Ford bellhousing is bolted onto the engine and the transmission is set down on top of it.
The input shaft housing on the transmission is a little larger diameter than the hole in the bellhousing so the mounting surface of the transmission is held up about 3/16 inch from the surface of the bellhousing.

As you can see, the bellhousing is a lot longer than the transmission input shaft.
I place a piece of 3/16 inch thick steel across the surface where the clutch disk will set. Then I measure up to see how much I'll have to cut off the end of the bellhousing.

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Making a new pilot bushing to fit the Chevy input shaft to the ford crankshaft.

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This is fit down into the end of the crankshaft.

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The Chevy clutch disk is set in place, using the Chevy input shaft to line it up on center. Then the model-A pressure plate is bolted down to hold it in place.

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This locates the clutch disk on center and ready to locate the transmission once I get the bellhousing cut down.

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The transmission mounting flange is cut off the back of the bellhousing with a saws-all.

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It is then clamped up on the mill to start cutting the surface so it is level all around.

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I can almost reach to the center to clean up the whole surface in two setups.

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The bellhousing is set back onto the engine and a straight edge is used to judge the depth of the cut so far.
My son is making the adapter plate out of 1/2 inch thick steel that the Chevy transmission will bolt to.
The bellhousing will be cut down to about where the white line is marked on it but I'm waiting until I get the adapter plate before I cut any more off the bellhousing.

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So I have to ask JD why not just use a Ford Model "A" or "AA" transmission

Good question. ..

#1, I don't have a model-A or AA transmission. I suppose I could have picked one up reasonable back when I started collecting parts for this tractor but I already had the old Chevy Transmission.

#2, I can't afford to buy one now.

#3, The Chevy truck transmission is a 4-speed with the low " granny " gear, which could be handy on a tractor.

#4, It also has the big drum brake on the back of it which could very well be used as the brakes for the tractor.
That would be useful if I ended up using a model-T rear axle because the brake for the model-T was in their transmission. They had small brake shoes on the rear axle but they were designed to be only used as a parking brake, not as the regular driving brakes.
They made accessory brake bands to fit on the outside of the model-T brake drums but those kits have always been expensive.

#5, The truck transmission has a power take-off and I had always intended to us it to power the flat belt drive accessory off the back of the tractor instead of having it mounted on the front where the drive gears inside would be running all the time that the engine is running.
 
Remember how the engine, transmission and power take-off were all rusty and partly covered with old caked on grease ?

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I've started cleaning some of the parts up.
The gear on the power-takeoff didn't slide in and out of position very well. I sprayed everything down with Brake Away penetrating oil and let it sit for a few days. Everything works smoothly now.

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I have set up a table to put the cleaned and primed parts on. The manifold is painted with high temp header paint.

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Working with old stuff like this, I am often surprised at how some part that looks really nasty on the outside, turns out o be really good on the inside. That turned out to be the case with this old transmission.

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That answers my question perfectly and you are right the Chevy trans has many advantageous plus I see its sycrod also and the brake is a big +

The 2ed - 3ed and 4th gears are synchronized. The largest gear ( granny gear ) is not synchronized. You can see the the front edge of the teeth are rounded off a little.

The drum brake on the back of the transmission is interesting. It has two brake shoes on it with bonded linings. One shoe is on the outside and the other is on the inside and it grips the drum between them when the brake is applied.
 
The 2ed - 3ed and 4th gears are synchronized. The largest gear ( granny gear ) is not synchronized. You can see the the front edge of the teeth are rounded off a little.

The drum brake on the back of the transmission is interesting. It has two brake shoes on it with bonded linings. One shoe is on the outside and the other is on the inside and it grips the drum between them when the brake is applied.
Yep I kind of figured 1st/granny would not be synchronized, that is an interesting brake set up
 
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