Build Yourself A Truck-Tor

Build Yourself A Truck-Tor TRACTORS Made-It-Myself 2-1-1 If you're looking for an "inflationfighting" project to tackle in your farm shop this winter, here's a tip from Iowa farmer Steve Boendor: Build yourself a Truck-Tor! The front half is a pickup truck and the back half a tractor. It's equipped with a pto and serves as a second tractor for performing dozens of jobs around Steve's Oskaloosa, Iowa, farm. When he wants to go to town, he jumps in his Truck-Tor and zips down the highway at 50 mph. "I got stopped a lot at first by highway patrolmen," Steve told FARM SHOW. They questioned the vehicle's legality on the highway since Steve hadn't licensed or insured it as a truck. "I discussed it with the motor vehicle enforcement office in Des Moines and, after much discussion, they decided it was a tractor and could be driven on the road without a license." Steve has used his $600 Truck-Tor - which took only three days to build - almost every day since he put it together last winter. "I'd be lost without it," he points out. "Handiest thing you ever saw. Main reason I built it was because I had only one tractor and oftentimes needed two. Also, there were many times when I wanted a cab. A second tractor with cab was going to cost more than I wanted to spend so I brainstormed some alternatives and hit on the idea of a Truck-Tor which I could use both as a truck and a tractor." Steve bought a 1957 Chevrolet one-ton pickup for $500 and was given a junked Graham Bradley (Sears) tractor by his father-in-law. He spent $100 for a pair of used rear tires for a total project cost of $600. "Everything else I either had, or made from pieces I found in the iron pile." First step in building the TruckTor was to cut off the truck frame just in front of the rear wheels. "Then I took everything from the transmission and back off the tractor and mounted it behind the truck. I cut pieces in the truck frame for the tractor axles to fit," Steve explains. "I made the drive shaft and hooked the truck and tractor transmissions together which gives it 17 gears forward. It will go from a slow crawl, so you can pull a working tiling machine, and on up to about 50 mph for road travel." Key to the vehicle's all-purpose versatility around the farm is its reversible pto. It has four speeds in the clockwise direction and one in reverse. "If I want to run the pto with the vehicle standing still, I simply shift the rear transmission out of gear and put the front transmission in any of the four gears, depending on how fast I want the pto to run. If I want to reverse the pto, I shift just the front transmission into reverse. This reversing feature is handy for a lot of uses, such as raising and lower the silo unloader, or to run a winch which I made out of a 90? gear box and a home-made spool. I use the winch to pull portable buildings onto an A-frame trailer." Other uses for the home-built Truck-Tor include hauling manure, hauling water for both spraying and watering livestock, and for powering elevators and augers. "I also use it to spread dry fertilizer," explains Steve. "I can go to town and pick it up a lot faster than with a regular tractor and wagon. It's also handy for moving machinery from farm to farm.because it travels down the road much faster than a regular tractor." Steve plans to equip his Truck-Tor with hydraulic brakes to give it more braking power when pulling loaded wagons or other heavy loads. He also plans to equip it with a pto-driven hydraulic system for operating hoists, motors, cylinders and other hydraulic equipment. Biggest problem in building a similar combination truck and tractor vehicle would probably be to find a junked tractor transmission with a high enough gear ratio to give the "hybrid" vehicle adequate road speed for use as a truck. The higher the ratio, the faster you can go down the highway," Steve explains. If you'd like to compare notes with Steve, he can be contacted at this address: Steve Boendor, Route 5, Oskaloosa, Iowa 52577 (ph. 515 673-7986).

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