Grandpa's Tractor

Grandpa’s Tractor

I first met my wife, Carolyn, in the eighth grade when she and her family moved from Boise to Careywood, Idaho in October of 1971. The following year, her grandparents also moved here and brought along with them a 1952 Allis-Chalmers Model WD tractor for which Grandpa had paid the princely sum of $200. Carolyn’s Dad then installed a home-built loader which was purchased from a neighbor; it was a somewhat crude affair with a small trip bucket, but it was certainly a whole lot better than no loader at all. This tractor/loader served as the only tractor in the family for many years performing yeoman’s service on their little homestead pulling logs, plowing snow and whatever was needed at the moment.

After Carolyn and I were married in 1981 we purchased my parent’s house along with a few acres of land. I often borrowed the old WD for various tasks around the place, so it frequently made the 2.5 mile trip back and forth. One time when I was using the WD to move a bulldozer blade my chain rigging slipped and the dozer blade crunched the radiator on the tractor. I wound up buying a derelict WD45 for parts from another neighbor, I had its radiator cleaned out to replace the damaged one on Grandpa’s WD.

In 2003 I purchased a brand new compact diesel tractor complete with a fully hydraulic loader and small backhoe attachment. The old WD saw considerably less use after that, but my Father-in-law still used it some for plowing snow, etc. About fifteen years ago it sat unused in a shed the whole winter, and come springtime the engine was stuck. We tried in vain to get it un-stuck by pouring various concoctions of home brewed ‘snake oil’ in the cylinders, but to no avail. Alas, all seemed hopeless for the poor old WD.

After Carolyn’s father, Ron, passed away in 2017, we towed the WD to our place with the intention of overhauling the engine ‘one of these days’. My grandson, Levi, and I continued pouring snake oils in it  but nothing seemed to be of any benefit. Last summer I read an article online by a fellow calling himself the King Of Obsolete; he had built what he called a “bar starter” by modifying an old engine starter to allow using a socket wrench on the starter and then by placing a long cheater bar on it one can apply a tremendous amount of torque to the flywheel in an attempt to rotate the engine.

Figuring that I didn’t have much to lose at this point, I fabricated my own version of a bar starter for the WD tractor, bolted it in place and started yanking it back and forth. Much to my amazement, I soon saw the engine wiggle ever so slightly. Redoubling my efforts resulted in ever-increasing movement, and I soon had the engine rotating freely for the first time in many years.

After doing the necessary work on the carburetor and magneto we attached a temporary fuel tank, installed a fresh battery, and soon had Grandpa’s tractor running again! It was only hitting on two cylinders and sounded absolutely awful, but it ran well enough that Levi was able to drive it under its own power to my shop, a distance of about fifty yards or so.

The WD sat there for a couple of months until this fall when I was able to remove the old loader which had served us well for so many years, it had to come off to allow removal of the hood in order to access the valve cover. With the valve cover off, we found stuck exhaust valves on cylinders #1 & #2, and a bent pushrod on #2 exhaust. After a bit of work to free up the valves, straightening the pushrod, and a bit of tuning on the carburetor, we soon had it purring smoothly on all four cylinders. It doesn’t even appear to smoke, which is surprising considering how long it sat there stuck, but there is a significant oil drip coming from the front main crankshaft seal that will require attention eventually. Frankly, I never thought that this engine would ever run again without doing a complete teardown and rebuild.

Yesterday we fired it up and attached the back blade on the snap coupler hitch and Levi did some road grading just for fun; everything seems to function properly, and Grandpa’s tractor is once again earning its keep.

Joseph W. Smith (AKA Les Kerf)