A good way to shorten your life, a tractor story

About WW2, a story circulated around Howard County Iowa where a fellow killed himself by building a two wheel trailer with truck rear end and transmission, driving it with the tractor PTO. Was said the rig would go pretty fast with tractor in neutral and PTO through shiftable transmission. It sounds so doable, its a wonder it wasn't tried elsewhere. Anyone have stories of this kind of setup? Leonard

Hey Y'all, watch this!!!

I have thought about this before, PTO speed is 540 rpm, if the rear end of the truck was still in the truck the motor runs at one to one so the input speed would about 2500 to 3000 RPM at 60 MPH but the tractor it is only 540 so speed would only be 25 to 30 MPH. Yes 30 is very fast on an old tractor but not any faster than an 8-N with overdrive. 540RPM would only be an idle on a truck.

The crafty farmer.....but for every one of these stories that end up in tragedy, you can find 1000 that have a great ending. I see things at sales, on farms, etc that have AMAZED me. Farmers are NOT stupid...the guy was thinking but just didn't see the whole picture.

Back in the day there were lots and lots of those 'power trailers' around here. They served a purpose. I don't recally ever hearing about anyone ever getting hurt with one. Real popular for working in the woods at one time... but as with everythign else, time marched on. Skidders, then forwarders took over woods work and big MFWD tractors dragging wagons buried to the axles hauled out of fields... so 'power trailers' were no longer needed.

They'd actually go pretty slow when you think about it. In low gear with the tractor idled down to mid speed or less the input shaft would only be turning mabey 300 rpm. How fast does an old truck with a 6.17:1 rear end go in granny gear at 300 rpm? Not very fast...

Rod

Yes I've told this story before but will tell it again. Back in the 40s my dad ran some land about 6 miles from his home place. He picked ear corn with a 1936 model B JD. single row New Idea picker. He got a old car rear end and hooked it to pto just like your story. He could then pull two flare box wagons empty to the other farm. Did not hve enough power to pull them loaded but at least he made good time when empty. I'm told that would go 25 mph. The funny story that was told was to keep rear end from bouncing he fastened an old wheel barrow box on top and put a couple cement blocks in. Then he had a dog that would jump up in there and ride out to field and back. Well one day a jack rabbit pops out of the ditch and the dog jumps out of the front of the box to get it so gets run over by the trailer and both axels of both wagons and rolls dead into the ditch. After pa gets that whole contraption stopped he decides to load the dead dog into box and continue out to field, pick his two loads and bury dog when he gets back home. To his surprise when he gets to field the dead dog hops out of the box and follows the picker just like he always did. Tuns out he wasn't dead at all just must have been stunned. For years after Pa and my uncles would laugh about how his dead dog hopped out of that box. Anyway shortly after hwe put a Behlan drive on the B and built a trailer on that old Chrysler rear end. I still have that trailer.

Sounds like a Farm Show story, No! J

Hi Rod
Saw lots of these in the Valley when I was stationed there in the Air Force. Actually had a farmer take us on one back to a crash site when a light aircraft decided to stop flying. Seems to me he only used the wagon to get through the tough spots. Don't see any down there anymore asa you have said, the big tractors have made them obsolete.

a millitary outfit called a gamma goat had something like that. it was a 4 x4 power unit pulling a driven trailer. I am told it would go almost anywhere.

We tested that Gamma Goat back in 1964. It was the hottest project at that time. Found out later that Lady Bird Johnson owned a lot of stock
in the LTV company. Hal
PS: The old 3/4 on Dodge out performed it in mud moblity tests. When we first received it they wanted to do brake tests on it. After we measured the brake shoes and installed thermocouples for temp we bled the brakes and couldn't get much brake pedal. We were using a Wagner bleeder ball and we ran a lot of fluid thru the system. I went under the vehicle to watch the drums and they were flexing when the brakes were applied. Had to wait on new drums.
We sank one doing amphibous water test too. I would have never drove it in swift water. That was the second time I ended up in the water.

Where did they build the gamma goats? Did LTV in fact build them (as in Ling-Temco-Vought Aerospace)?

(quoted from post at 19:10:05 12/04/09) I have thought about this before, PTO speed is 540 rpm, if the rear end of the truck was still in the truck the motor runs at one to one so the input speed would about 2500 to 3000 RPM at 60 MPH but the tractor it is only 540 so speed would only be 25 to 30 MPH. Yes 30 is very fast on an old tractor but not any faster than an 8-N with overdrive. 540RPM would only be an idle on a truck.

Click to expand...

Your math is al -a -skew. If the original truck turned 3000 at 60, this is a factor of 3000/60== 50

So if we have a PTO running 540, that's 540/50 or only about 11 mph

One of those was sold at an auction in Boylston NY about 5 miles from me this fall. A farmer had used it to haul sap out of the woods in the spring. At first when I saw it I thought it was a dump wagon, but on closer inspection it became clear what the drive shaft was for.
Zach

Okay Personal experiance. Growing up We had a F 12 Farmall. Don"t know how fast it would go but I could walk faster. I personally took a rearend out of a 39 Ford. Torque tube type. Welded a hitch on it and hooked up the pto shaft. Maybe 18 mph. Just My story Bernie Steffen