My old Deere at play...

[Bob]

Don't know if any of you are into old tractors but figured some might get a kick out of this...?

This is an old 1957 Deere 820 two cylinder diesel I built up for pulling. Been working on it off and on for the last four years. Kept running out of money etc. or had other stuff needing done but this summer I put on a full court press to get it ready for a local pull. We have a pull nearby that is unlimited weight on tractor and they need to be 1957 or older. I've pulled before but this was my first time pulling at the "King of the Mountain" pull.

This type of pull is what they call a dead sled pull or some call 'em derby pulls. You have all the weight from the start. Typically a 20 foot pull is a "full pull." Then they will add more weight until there's a last man standing. I won the pull this year...Wooo Hoooo!!

This is a video of one of my practice pulls I did up the road from my place. The sled was about 28,000 lbs. ust click on the pic and it should run?



This is a video of one of the pulls at the show. Think I heard that the sled got up to about 24 or 25,000 there but they raise the hook point of the chain on the sled to make it harder to pull. Raising it reduces the down pull you get on the tractor and so reduces your traction some.



Now that the tractor is about done other than some tweaking of a couple things... I need to get back to getting my 71 Ford back in action. Motor has been out for over a year. Need to once again get hold of Barry R and get it shipped up to him and wrap that thing up.

[gregamorton]

Very nice tractor! How much weight are you running on the front wheels and the whole tractor? I built a few garden tractors but nothing like what you have built.

[averagef250]

That's cool! I get to operate a friends M 2 popper once in awhile.

[Mancar1]

I enjoyed that, thank you.

[Thunderfoot]

Very cool Love watching work horses of many types grunting and showing their mussel.

[Bob]

"... How much weight are you running on the front wheels and the whole tractor?"
The front tires are urethane filled skid steer tires. I didn't weigh them but I'm guessing they're at least 400 lbs. each. They were heavy buggers. I made up adapters to fit them to my hubs. They had the same bolt pattern but different hole and lug holes. Made new lugs as well. Then added a second bolt pattern for the tubes that I have the weights on. The tubes and collars were close to 100 lbs. and six 150 lb. weights each side.

Took two sets of new rims and cut them and welded them together to mount 30.5 x 32's on my 26" hubs. Have 1,500 lbs. of weights on each side. Also filled the rears with water. Wanted to be able to just drain them in my driveway and not have to store 8 drums of heavy juice. Took 4 drums per tire at 80% fill so that's another 1,850 per wheel. I built a subframe to tie the rearend to tthe main case and stiffen things up and move my hook point. The extra frame work weighed 1,900. All totalled up with doubled rims and weight of the big rubber and some other misc. I figured I was weighing about 19,000.

I still need to whip up a set of wheelie bars so I can comfortably pull in a transfer pull. Need to shed a bunch of weight for that type of pull also. Highest weight class we usually run around here is 12,500. I'm not sure if I'll be able to get it down to there or not without pulling my rears and dropping the weights on the insides of my hubs. If I need to do that to pull this year I'll probably skip it till next year. It's a major pain in the... back... moving those big things around...!!