Farmall H Re-Repower

Farmall H Re-Repower Chris Floerkey repowered his Farmall H with a Predator 212cc engine (Vol. 46, No. 5), but it didn’t give him the power he needed to Bush Hog his pasture. His first thought was to gang three of the little Predators to drive the H. Partway through the conversion, he switched gears and engines, all of which he shares on his Keyfarm YouTube channel. “I repowered my old Chevy truck with a DuroMax 440, but I was going to have to modify the hood,” explains Floerkey. “I decided to use it on the H instead.” Floerkey wasn’t sure the 18-hp DuroMax would have the power for his Bush Hog, but thought it was worth the try. When he first repowered the H with the Predator, he fabricated a jackshaft between the engine and the manual transmission. He broke the H’s clutch plate down to the eye to connect the two, trimming off all but the inner eye with its splines. In one of his YouTube videos, he explains two ways to match the eye with a coupler for the jackshaft. “The clutch plate eye conversion can let you connect almost any manual transmission to any motor,” says Floerkey. “I’ve used it for almost all of my repowers.” With the jackshaft already in place, all he had to do was get the gear ratio needed. He replaced the 80-tooth sprocket used with the Predator with a 36-tooth sprocket. He mounted a 14-tooth clutch on the DuroMax driveshaft, giving him a 2.57:1 gear ratio. “The OEM H engine turned 1,650 rpm to produce 540 at the pto,” notes Floerkey. “With this gear ratio, I had 1,400 rpm going into the tractor, which was less, but it gave me a little more torque. You can’t add horsepower to an engine but can gain torque with the gears.” Floerkey’s original repower had been simple to the extreme, with a rope for throttle control. He upgraded his throttle on the DuroMax with a cable. He fabricated a bracket to hold the cable housing in place just ahead of the H’s original throttle lever. “I planned to connect the cable to the old lever, but discovered it was just about impenetrable when I tried to drill a hole in it,” says Floerkey. “Instead, I drilled a hole in a 3/8-in. bolt and slipped the cable through it and secured it in place. I used two large washers on the bolt to fix it to the lever. Eventually, I plan to weld the bolt to the lever, but this works for now.” Floerkey took the tractor to the field for the big test with the Bush Hog. “It didn’t cut like it would with a 35-hp tractor, but it did pretty well for only 18 hp,” he says. “I made three rounds, and the clutch didn’t overheat. I think it’ll be fine for clipping trails through the woods and lighter grass and weeds.” Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Chris Floerkey, Danville, Ala. (ph 256-303-0696; ckeyfarm@gmail.com; YouTube: Keyfarm).

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