Oliver Tractor Repowered With Chrysler V-8 Gas Engine

Oliver Tractor Repowered With Chrysler V-8 Gas Engine ENGINES Engines 21-3-8 Old Oliver tractors can be repowered in-expensively with Chrysler V-8 gas engines, says Ken Phillips, East Otto, N.Y., who replaced the Waukesha engine on his Oliver 1755 tractor with a 318 cu. in. Chrysler V-8 gas engine. Phillips bought the tractor from a friend for $1,000. The tractor had a bad engine and was sitting out in a field. He pulled the tractor home along with a pickup load of parts including the hood and the engine, which had been removed. He bought a Chrysler engine from another friend for $125 and had machinist Joe Detrick make adaptors to connect the engine to the tractor's flywheel. He fabricated a steel housing that serves as an engine mount and also connects the engine and transmission bell housing. Two pillow block bearings support the weight of the flywheel. A Falk Torus coupling was used in order to dampen engine vibration. He installed a pair of Chrysler stock manifolds on the engine and had aluminum-coated exhaust pipes custom bent. The pipes drop below the engine and then up the sides of the tractor. "It doesn't have the fuel economy of a diesel engine but it runs like a top. The engine looks super clean," says Phillips. "Everything on the tractor works including the 3-pt. and live pto, and it starts right up in cold weather. I use it to plow my driveway and lift stuff out of my pickup. I made steel brackets so I could mount an 8-ft. snow blade on front of the tractor. I mounted a homemade boom on the 3-pt. hitch which I use to lift heavy cargo. The engine came out of a 1984 Chrysler car and had about 60,000 miles on it when I bought it. It has about 130 hp at 4,000 rpm's. However, I run the engine at about 2,100 rpm's. Peak torque is about 1,900 rpm's. I can go about 20 mph on the highway. "Chrysler engines are inexpensive and widely available, and they're built tough and seem to last forever. I sold the Oliver engine for $450. My total cost was about $1,500." To mount the blade Phillips bolted a pair of steel plates onto the sides of the tractor, just below the engine, and welded lengths of 3-in. sq., 3/8-in. thick steel tubing onto them to support the blade. A pair of hydraulic cylinders are used to tilt the blade from side to side and another cylinder, mounted on the tractor weights on front of the tractor, is used to raise it up or down. The cylinder acts on a hinged steel arm connected by a chain to the blade. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Kenneth Phillips, 7261 Prill Rd., East Otto, N.Y. 14729 (ph 716 257-3739).

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