2005 - Volume #29, Issue #6, Page #34

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"Trucktor" Project Builds Bond With Grandsons

"Trucktor" Project Builds Bond With Grandsons TRACTORS Made-It-Myself 29-6-34 When John Maxfield learned his teenage grandsons were coming to visit for a week, he decided to use the popularity of TV shows like Junkyard Wars and Monster Garage to teach them lessons about farm life. "I realized my time was short to forge a bond with two budding white collar city boys." So Maxfield suggested working on a "shotgun marriage between the back half of a WD Allis tractor and the front half of a very rusted GM 3/4-ton pickup." Since he'd seen many trucktors in FARM SHOW over the years, he knew the project was simply a matter of putting the two vehicles together and hooking up the transmission and drive shaft. Keeping Jordan and Austin interested was the main challenge. To do so, he had them work on it a few hours at a time in between swimming, fishing and paint ball tag. The boys learned how to cut, drill, grind and weld steel. Maxfield did most of the actual welding and torch work. "I let them use the cutting torch but not actually on the project. It was like, æWe've got to cut this and I'll do this but here's a piece of scrap metal you can cut after I'm done.' It was a teaching lesson of different tools and different processes," he says. Maxfield also taught innovative ways to solve mechanical problems. For instance, instead of connecting the drive shaft to the transmission by sliding a piece of pipe over and welding it on, they put a sprocket on the transmission and on the first segment of the drive shaft and put a double chain connecting the two, he says. Maxfield thinks he may have gotten through to both of them. "They really understood the project and the reasons behind it," he says. "I was pretty impressed." Everyone drove the machine around after finishing it. "I think they thought it was cool." Maxfield took pictures during and after the project. "The project itself was worthwhile but the shared memories are priceless," he says. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, John Maxfield, 1407 Road 280, Admire, Kansas 66830 (ph 620 528-3476).