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"Ron Deere Jr." Is Home-Built 4-WD Tractor
I've got a 10 hp walk-behind snowblower but this is much faster. I can clean my entire 125-ft. driveway in 15 minutes.
The 8 by 4-ft. tractor is powered by a used 8 hp Briggs & Stratton engine with belt drive. It's coupled to a 4-spd. transmission out of a Toyota car. The enclosed flywheel, clutch and pressure plate mount on front of the trans-mission on a bearing. A pulley on front of the transmission drives the flywheel and clutch.
I used a Nissan 4-WD truck transfer case to drive the front and rear ends. Two wheel bearings out of a front-wheel drive car are used for steering, while one bearing is used to allow the tractor to pivot in the middle to keep all four wheels on the ground over rough terrain. The two rear differentials came out of a Chrysler rear wheel drive car.
Axles are fitted with spoked rims off a 1/2-ton truck. They're fitted with used 33 by 15-in. tires to provide plenty of flotation.
It's equipped with rack and pinion steering out of a Dodge Dakota truck. I built the frame out of 3-in. channel iron and the fenders out of 1/4-in. thick plate. It's fitted with an iron seat out of an old farm tractor.
A 52-in. wide blade was built. Flat iron was used for the cutting edge. Angle of the blade is adjustable manually with two bolts and height is adjustable up to 4 in. off the ground with a lever built out of pipe on the operator's .left side. Out-of-pocket expense was about $500 (Canadian).
I built another 4-WD tractor similar to the one described above for my son, Kevin. It's powered by an Aries 2.2 liter engine and has a transaxle running through a Nissan transfer case. The cut-down rear end is out of a Chrysler car.
It's fitted with 33 by 15-in. tires on back and 2.15 by 15-in. tires on front. It features tilt steering and adjustable seat.
It's fitted with a Fisher plow on front and my son uses it for plowing snow around his place. (Ronald Morse, R.R. 1, Wilmot, Nova Scotia, Canada B0P 1W0; ph 902 765-4450)


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1998 - Volume #22, Issue #3