This was what was still bolted together of my paternal Grandfather’s Tractor after a tenant of his blew the piston, took the whole thing apart, “LOST” the hydraulic pump and left it sit outside for a number of years. It’s a long story. Bought new by him in (around) 1959. He used it for everything from the lawn to the garden to grounds clearing. Pretty tough little unit, all said….
One thing it was not built for, was SPEED. That brilliant tenant I mentioned had a habit of bypassing governors and cutting the grass in 3rd wide open. These Wisconson AENLs were capable of crazy torque but only made 9hp. This coupled with the stump pulling gear ratio out back and the relatively close ratios in the transmission just had this thing screaming for hours at a time with this guy. Eventually, the piston failed. For whatever reason, it gave out quietly and didn’t take a bunch of other metal with it. The engine itself was a quick rebuild, once I dug all the correct parts out of the LITERAL basket most of the tractor was in.
A little “Rat Roddy” but good enough to get it running. There was a lot of stuff missing, like the copper fuel line and the original oil bath air cleaner was in no shape to be used.
She fired off after a while. The magneto was off a tooth or so which had it running at high rpm. I’m sure it didn’t hurt for break-in but that magneto would get me into a whole realm of new stuff. I’d never even worked on one before and built this TWICE over the restoration of the tractor.
After that, the “body”work really took off. Technically not the right color as I just doused it in AC Orange tractor paint off the shelf but I really liked it. I maybe didn’t get as deep into this as I’d have liked but, it’s still looking just as nice as it did the day I finished it.
Another system in the basket o crap that the tractor came in was the original 6v charging system and lights which, after rebuilding the Generator, rewiring the whole thing and chasing down bad grounds for several hours, went right to work.
Two of the original implements, the single bottom plow and the disk harrow were missing leaving me with a belly mower (restored but never installed), a snow plow (useless as such but does push dirt pretty well), and a rear hitch assembly. These were re done with all new fasteners and bushings. I added a 2″ hitch receiver on the back cuz .. I had the material… and do use it to move my trailers around sometimes.
The final, mostly missing system was the hydraulic lift. I essentially had two cylinders, two hoses, SOME hardware but no pump and no clue what it was expected to do in 1959. After some research, I found out that it had been a single action lift and ran only one cylinder which could be switched between the snow blade and the tool bar … someone had added a cylinder for the belly mower at some point.
Finding the correct single action pump was not gonna happen so I picked up an early 60’s Century Fox, dual acting pump and lever set-up and rebuilt it.
I ran the hydraulics through an A/B box. “A” to run the front blade and “B” to run the tool bar.
I wound up grabbing two new rams for it which I wound up modifying for the application. Nothing drastic, just new attachment bores in the rams themselves and custom clevis attachments for the tool bar lever.
And, of course, an olde timey handle of brass, leather and waxed nylon.
The rear tires are still pretty happy but the fronts, one of which was original, the other was really not and both were blowing the tubes through the sidewall cracks. Considering how hard it was to steer the tractor in wetter conditions, I just went with a three ribbed knockoff tire. It handles better now but I still wouldn’t want to see mud on this thing.
And that’s about that. I still consider adding certain implements or pulling the engine again to hit a few things I didn’t in the first build but for the amount it’s actually used, those things can wait. For now, it starts right up, doesn’t miss a beat, hauls, pushes, holds air, holds oil, holds gas .. and looks pretty awesome doing so.
Custom Job 