My Doodlebug tractor

[true temper]

In another thread Joe Michaels mentioned doodlebug tractors. I was out back and stopped to take a photo of mine, or what’s left of it.
My uncle came up with it in the late 60’s I was too young to drive it, by the mid 70’s I was running it. It originally was a three wheeler and would tip over fairly easily. One of my very first welding projects was installing a wide front end. I found some trolly plates for the oscillation. Dad had parted out a 50’s chevy pu I got the front axle and cut it down using the king pins.
The model 23a Briggs and Stratton engine was tired and would run till it got hot, I tried everything to fix it, finely threw a new set of rings it and it run like a top.
It’s got a 3 speed transmission and rear end form I think a model “A”
We would rap rope threw the spokes in the wheels to gain traction to pull sled in the winter snow.

 

[Sumo91]

This has to be one of the coolest little tractors I've seen. It looks almost comical, like a child's drawing, especially with the steering wheel set up.

Do you have any more info on these?

 

[michiganbuck]

Man, You gotta put some lights on that tractor or you might get lost and end up in Kansas.
Oh wait ,, you are already in Kansas..are you lost?

 

[M.B. Naegle]

I need to scan some pages out of my old Popular Mechanics farm books that go over building these (or at least gives DIY inspiration). I remember one was a ride-on with a wood beam frame and the other was a walk behind 2 wheeler. Both used old model T engines I think.

 

[Frank R]

http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/411944/480677.html?1413674493

This link shows lots more doodlebugs. Keep scrolling and you will find one set of reprints from an old magazine.

 

[Frank R]

I need to scan some pages out of my old Popular Mechanics farm books that go over building these (or at least gives DIY inspiration). I remember one was a ride-on with a wood beam frame and the other was a walk behind 2 wheeler. Both used old model T engines I think.

I would like to see the one with the wood frame.

 

[Frank R]

Doodlebugs remind me of Thomas Edison saying: “To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.”

 

[JoeE.]

There was a firm in southeast Kansas that made little tractors like that. Shaw Manufacturing in Galesburg.
Plenty of pictures on line.

 

[Joe Michaels]

Doodlebugs exemplify the kind of homespun ingenuity that once was prevailent on the USA. Unfortunately, this homespun ingenuity as well as the skills to 'make something out of nothing' has largely been lost. The world is moving ever faster, and seemingly daily, we hear of some new advance in Information Technology (IT), or high tech stuff. Now, if a person is "creative' or 'inventive', they are doing it using software to play with their design and maybe 3-D printing. Junkyards, as some of us knew them, are now "scrap processors", and very few of these will allow a person to go pick through the piles of junk. The related thing to Doodlebugs was for a person to build up an old car or pickup from parts. Transplanting engines and transmissions was a routine thing. With the move to cars with front wheel drive and transverse engine/transaxle packages, this also has become a thing of the past. The days of a couple of people hanging a block and tackle or chainfall from a stout tree limb and pulling an engine or putting it into a car are about done.

True Temper's doodlebug looks like the inspiration for a lightweight assembled tractor of the 1950's and 60's known as the "Power King" or "Economy". These were assembled from automotive parts (3 speed transmission and rear end that may have been narrowed in width, steering box). Like True Temper's doodlebug, these tractors used a Briggs and Stratton engine. I remember ads for them in "Popular Mechanics", and the claim was 'all gear drive'. A buddy of mine has a couple of the "Economy" tractors his late father bought in the 50's. When the steering box on one of his Economy tractors went south due to a destroyed bearing, my buddy priced a new bearing. It was quite expensive. My buddy remarked to me about the cost of the bearing as money is tight in his household. He does have a lathe and mill/drill and is a great hand at home machine shop work. I reminded him of this, and suggested he mike the steering box shaft journal and the bore where the bearing seats in the steering box. I suggested he make a bushing out of bronze. Since the tractor sees occasional use (he has a Farmall H and a few other tractors and riding mowers), I figured the bronze bushing would hold up just fine. That was a good 15 + years ago. His Economy tractors were ordered with the optional hydraulics, a small vee belt driven pump to work a 3 point hitch.

Another bro of mine has a doodlebug he built when he was about 15. It is an old pickup chassis that he modified and mounted a snowplow on. He puts on goggles and runs this thing around some backroads near his house aside from plowing snow with it. This fellow is now about 50, so the doodlebug has stood him in good stead all these years.

I remember as a kid in Brooklyn in the 50's, seeing men working on their cars out in the street. If a person did not have a garage or driveway, they bought parts and worked on their car in the street. One fellow rolled his car up on a set of ramps and did an in-frame overhaul of the flathead Ford V-8 engine with the car parked along the curb. No 'alternate side of the street' parking regulations in those days. The guy was a few days doing the overhaul as he did it afternoons and evenings, or maybe got started on the job and waited til payday to buy the parts.

There were "Speed Shops" in Brooklyn in the 50's, and they sold things to 'hop up' the performance of a car. Plenty of guys would do just that, adding trick cylinder heads, manifolds, and bigger or multiple carbs. Now, people think they have improved on their car's performance if they have paid a shop to mount bling wheels, darken the windows, and install a sound system that rocks nearby cars on their springs. Instead of the throaty sound of a V-8 engine with header pipes and cherry bomb mufflers, we are subjected to sub-bass woofers blasting what passes as 'music' to the newer generations.

The days of doodlebugs and hotrods were the times when creativity and shop skills went hand-in-hand, and a limited purse was no bar to projects happening. As I've said before in various threads, our country has truly lost something as the move to high tech has accelerated in all areas.

 

[magneticanomaly]

I used to go and sell...and buy...." junk" at a flea market in a tiny place just over the mountain from me in rural New Jersey called Neshanic Station. A little old man with one arm one day admired my collection with an appraising eye. He said he lived in Sergeantsville.
A few months later my head swivelled around as I was driving, because i saw a few 1930's tractors and other machinery in a weedy yard around some tumbledown buildings. I realized I was in Sergeantsville
Albert was some thirty years my senior. Today he might be called autistic, or some other not-very-useful dismissive categorization. But he was the mainstay of the farmers in the area , welding their broken equipment with a 1920s Hobart welder with a flathead six-cylinder engine, and building elegant hay-wagons with axles and tongues fabricated from old pipe and I-beams, spindles by preference from Nash-Rambler automobiles, and bodies of custom-sawed oak planks. He painted them red, white, and blue.
In his shop, the only unpiled surface was the table of a tall sliding-head drill press. He also used an old roughly 14 x 30 solid-spindle lathe, and had a big B&S horizontal milling machine.
He lived in the slowly-collapsing family home a block away with his spinster sister. Unfortunately something bad had happened around the will of their late father, and over the six or seven years that I knew them, they lost all the property. I have an anvil and a small leg-vise from his collection, but the milling machine, tractors and welder got away from boh of us at the final auction.
Belive it or not, there is a connection to the topic of his thread. He told me that he used to help farmers who could not afford a factory-built tractor, add a second transmission and a heavy-truck rear axle to a Model A Ford to create what they called Doodle-bugs. I never saw one.

 

[kenton]

I used to go and sell...and buy...." junk" at a flea market in a tiny place just over the mountain from me in rural New Jersey called Neshanic Station. A little old man with one arm one day admired my collection with an appraising eye. He said he lived in Sergeantsville.
A few months later my head swivelled around as I was driving, because i saw a few 1930's tractors and other machinery in a weedy yard around some tumbledown buildings. I realized I was in Sergeantsville
Albert was some thirty years my senior. Today he might be called autistic, or some other not-very-useful dismissive categorization. But he was the mainstay of the farmers in the area , welding their broken equipment with a 1920s Hobart welder with a flathead six-cylinder engine, and building elegant hay-wagons with axles and tongues fabricated from old pipe and I-beams, spindles by preference from Nash-Rambler automobiles, and bodies of custom-sawed oak planks. He painted them red, white, and blue.
In his shop, the only unpiled surface was the table of a tall sliding-head drill press. He also used an old roughly 14 x 30 solid-spindle lathe, and had a big B&S horizontal milling machine.
He lived in the slowly-collapsing family home a block away with his spinster sister. Unfortunately something bad had happened around the will of their late father, and over the six or seven years that I knew them, they lost all the property. I have an anvil and a small leg-vise from his collection, but the milling machine, tractors and welder got away from boh of us at the final auction.
Belive it or not, there is a connection to the topic of his thread. He told me that he used to help farmers who could not afford a factory-built tractor, add a second transmission and a heavy-truck rear axle to a Model A Ford to create what they called Doodle-bugs. I never saw one.

Autistic is only dismissive if that is the way you intend to use it.

 

[Joe Michaels]

Magnetic Anomaly:

Your description of the doodlebugs as built by the fellow in Sergeantsville, NJ is in line with what a lot of doodlebugs built in the Catskills were like. People added the second transmission to get extra deep reduction and more pulling power. In the Catskills, the doodlebugs were often used to skid logs out of the woods, haul firewood, and to haul bluestone (a variety of sandstone which is used for walks, walls, and architectural stone work). Plenty of people existed by a combination of hunting, fishing, trapping, raising a vegetable garden, and selling cordwood and bluestone (to several plants which cut the stone to dimension/shape). The doodlebugs were what many of these people used. They'd cob together a doodlebug from whatever vehicle was too tired to be on the road. The truck rear end was usually blocked to the frame rails with wood blocking, and a bed made of rough sawn lumber would be on the tail of the doodlebug. When used for tractor work, this bed got what the locals here refer to as a 'jag of stone' on it. Chains on the rear wheels were often left on the rear wheels all year, as the doodlebugs never got 'ag tread' (tractor 'chevron' pattern) tires. Bald road tires needed all the help they could get. The doodlebugs were built by people in backwoods shops with whatever was at hand. A buzz box welder, cutting outfit and drill were the only real tools used. A buddy of mine has the remains of what might be considered a doodlebug of sorts. It started out in life as a GMC 6 x 6 truck used by the military in WWII. It was sold as surplus in the late 40's or early 50's to a logger. The truck frame was shortened to bobtail it, driveshaft shortened, and the twin screw rear was removed so only one rear end remained. A 'skidding arch' was made out of scrap truck frame rails and mounted on the rear frame rails. The original Power Takeoff for the front mounted winch & the winch itself got relocated so the winch is behind the cab. In the 50's, loggers hereabouts did not have money to buy factory made skidders. The alternatives were to use a small tracked tractor (a lot of them used "Cletracs"), or convert an old truck into a skidder. The former 6 x 6's were considered ideal as their transfer cases have a low range, and they were all wheel drive. My buddy's old skidder/truck is sitting up on a mountain, no engine in it, for at least the past 40 years.

Other doodlebug builders took a cue from tractor design. Namely, they installed individual brake pedals for the left & right rear wheel brakes. On older cars with mechanical drum brakes, this was easily done.

Doodlebugs were built by people who were long on imagination and skills and mighty short on cash. It was a different era. The mechanics in the local garage or repair shop who might do some of the welding often did it on barter, in exchange for cordwood or maybe a side of beef. No one thought in terms of potential liability associated with cutting and welding and modifying vehicle frames and running gear. Life was simpler, and in that regard, better in my opinion. The oldtimer you describe in Sergeantsville was of that breed. It's an almost-extinct breed, and perhaps some of us such as yourself are the keepers of that flame.

 

[Jim Christie]

I have found the true temper's pictures and the follow up posts interesting .
Until now I had only remembered the term Doodlebug as referring to a self propelled gasoline or diesel powered rail car usually of the smaller size of truck or bus converted to run on rails.
Some examples shown here

Old Time Trains

I have seen an example of an Autotrac that was a tractor built from an automobile with an add on kit for the rear wheels with a pinion on the differential and ring gear added to the rear wheels to give the reduction.
While not a true home made Doodlebug the kits were made in Canada as well as the U.S.A.
Some links I found about them although the one I saw like most of the originals were probably not painted up as show pieces.

https://www.autos.ca/classic-cars/motoring-memories-the-autotrac-1930-1963/

Orillia's history brought back to life at mall exhibit

Orillia Heritage Centre volunteers behind fascinating exhibit at Orillia Square Mall

www.orilliamatters.com

Tractor conversion

What was this before it became a tractor? I found this out in the countryside in the western end of the Michigan upper peninsula. I have owned two other ones.

forums.aaca.org

I found an old Popular Mechanics Shop notes from around 1953 in my collection .
It was too distressed and fragile to put on my scanner so I have taken some pictures from it of an article about making a tractor from an old truck in a section devoted to farm equipment and devices .
I hope they are readable .

 

[Jim Christie]

I posted some of these pictures from the Cumberland Ontario Heritage Power Weekend show 2010 in other threads
One is a home built mini dozer .
The other maybe a Doodlebug but I think it is actually a commercially made unit like an early Economy or other mentioned by Joe Michaels.
I don't seem to have other pictures of it but the front blade and the cultivator to the left of it were all part of the package as I recall.
The other type of conversion was to fit a car like a Model A Ford with tracks and skis for winter travel over snow.
There are other older threads on this forum about these .
If I remember John Oder described making some patterns for some of the front end parts in one of the threads.
Jim

 

[animal12]

You have a pretty good restortion project there .
animal

 

[Joe Michaels]

Jim Christie:

Thank you posting the photos. The orange tractor is quite an interesting study. It is most likely not an "Economy", though the orange color is similar to Economy's factory color. It is a factory made tractor, looking at the front axle and how the whole machine is built. The engine is a Wisconsin, and what jumped out at me is the starter motor. The starter motor and its chain drive look like they came off a Gravely "L" series (2 wheel or 'walk behind') tractor. The large sprocket on the front of the Wisconsin engine with the nut in the center is just what is used on the old Gravely tractors. There is a 'sprag' (if I am correct in my terminology) or "over-running' clutch inside the hub of that sprocket with some rollers having a flat on them. This clutch engages when the starter motor cranks the engine. When the engine starts and runs, the clutch in the sprocket hub disengages. I rebuilt a couple of these on old L model Gravelys. I have never seen this starting system applied to anything but the old L model Gravely tractors. The Wisconsin engines were rugged beasts in their own right. I have a 1948 6 HP Wisconsin that I used to run a Quincy compressor with. The Wisconsin engines (at least the one I have) typically have a magneto ignition, magneto mounted on the outside of the crankcase. Either a Fairbanks-Morse or Wico mag was used. The old Gravely used the same magnetos (Wico, F-M, and some few got Scintilla mags). As such, there is no charging system for a battery. When the Gravely is not in use, the battery has to be put on charge with a battery charger. Kind of a downside if you have an old/weak battery and are out in the field and stall the engine. There is a projecting stub of threads sticking out the side of the sprocket hub on this type starter clutch. This was to hook on a 'starting strap' rather than a rope, so you could pull-start the engine. Interesting little tractor, having 'joystick' steering rather than a steering wheel. The overall little orange tractor looks quite well built, and may use a narrowed automotive rear end. It is a far cry from the lightly-built mass-produced riding mowers and so-called 'lawn tractors' sold as consumer goods today.

The photos of the aftermarket kits for converting Ford cars to run in snow were a fairly common item. These kits were made for both Model T and Model A Fords. Another common item was a kit to convert a car or light truck into a tractor. I believe Sears, Roebuck (or Simpson-Sears in Canada ?) sold these kits. The kits had steel rear wheels with grousers. Some people call them 'lugs' or 'cleats' or 'calks'- this latter being a term used on draft horse shoes. The rear wheels had a cast iron ring gear with internal teeth. Pinions were fitted to the axle shafts on the rear end, and these drove the ring gears in the rear wheels. This gave a deep reduction for tractor work. Another item used in car-to-tractor conversions was the "Garford" auxliiary transmission. I saw a few of these on old Ford A's and T's out in a rancher's iron pile in Wyoming in the late 1970's. The Garford (if I remember the name right) was a simple two-speed auxiliary transmission. One gear for the road (probably 1:1) and a deep reduction gear for hard pulling/slow speed without lugging the engine. There were numerous kits available to convert Ford cars and light trucks into a variety of other things. Sitting outside the little museum in our town is a road roller conversion on a Model A Ford. It was a factory built conversion kit. It's been let go for too long, so will never run again unless some dedicated soul decides to take this on as a project. No maker's name on the kit parts that I could see.

Any time I work on our older equipment here at home, I think of how this sort of thing is approaching extinction. Things like knowing to lightly rap a carburetor bowl with a screwdriver handle to get the float needle to seat after things were laid up for a few months... knowing how to tweak the idle and needle jet screws in cold or warm weather... recognizing when a carburetor is setup too rich or too lean.... cleaning and setting ignition points (and having a genuine point file and flexible point stone and point grease in my tool chest).... cleaning and regapping spark plugs... setting valve lash... cutting a gasket from a thin carton.... repairing tire chains..... repacking bearings and setting the preload.... it's all the kind of thing people did routinely as suburban or rural homeowners or farmers. Now, light power equipment like lawn mowers and riding mowers and snowblowers are built with a short life expectancy and a throw-away design philosophy. Carburetors are built with fixed adjustments so there is usually no tweaking idle and main jet adjustments. Lightly built 'plug and play' equipment is the rule.

I taught our son to drive maybe 16-17 years back on a Dodge Ram pickup I owned at the time. 5 speed manual transmission. I had him driving on narrow dirt backroads, making 'broken U turns' when the roads ended or snow on unmaintained roads was too deep to continue on. I taught our son what 'lugging an engine' is about, and a lot more that he picked up along the way as it rubbed off on him. Our son came home from attending a public event and told us of a little encounter in the parking lot. He had left the event and was walking in the parking lot when one of my buddies spotted him and called him over. It seems my buddy and his wife were in a car with a weak battery and manual transmission. My buddy asked my son to help him bump start the car. My buddy's wife was at the wheel, and my son and my buddy pushed the car out of the parking spot in the lot and got it rolling along. My buddy's wife popped the clutch in second gear and the engine fired right up.
My son thought it was kind of a funny experience. I told him this was a fairly normal thing in the 50's and 60's, and told him that when cars had 'real bumpers' and manual transmissions, being asked to give another motorist a push with your car or pickup was commonplace. I also told my son how, if you had a car, truck, or tractor with a weak battery and a somewhat flat wallet, you tried to park with the nose facing downhill. You chocked the wheels, as a precaution. Pull the chocks, hop in the driver's seat, and let gravity replace the weak battery for cranking the engine. Ir was all stuff we knew and took for granted. Now, it's uncommon, and I am glad our son knows some of it. I fear the new generations are a lot more helpless than our generations, and if they can't solve it with a 'smart phone' or iPad, they are screwed, dead in the water.

 

[Frank R]

Our son came home from attending a public event and told us of a little encounter in the parking lot. He had left the event and was walking in the parking lot when one of my buddies spotted him and called him over. It seems my buddy and his wife were in a car with a weak battery and manual transmission. My buddy asked my son to help him bump start the car. My buddy's wife was at the wheel, and my son and my buddy pushed the car out of the parking spot in the lot and got it rolling along. My buddy's wife popped the clutch in second gear and the engine fired right up.

I once had a car in high school where I could do this. Although once I pulled in to an inclined parking spot, forgot to put it in gear when I shut off the engine, hopped out and closed the door after locking it. While walking away one of my friends caught my attention and pointed at my car; it was slowly rolling backward. I had to run over, unlock the door, jump in, and put my foot on the brake. I still remember that $400 car.

 

[magneticanomaly]

Roll-starting on a hill has always been my default. Helps that I live at the top of a hill. But for months at a time I have driven cars with bad starters or batteries, and always looked for that little hill to park on, wherever I was..
My little Yanmar tractor is geared so low, even in "road" gear, that it is almost impossible to roll-start it, even using the compression-release. The aftermarket road gear on my Farmall works fine, though.
One can get in trouble roll-starting. I have straightened a couple of the long driveshafts used on Farmall A's and similar, when roll- or bump-starting was attempted in too low a gear, and the shaft twisted into a corkscrew.

 

[Jim Christie]

After a few trial searches I think I have identified the small tractor in my earlier post as a Gibson Model D

TractorData.com Gibson D tractor information

www.tractordata.com

gibson tractor - Google Search

Jim

 

[Frank R]

So, a doodlebug was just a vehicle with an extra transmission installed to reduce the speed and increase torque? And whatever else you could do to improve it, like larger tires?
You could easily do that today with two old pickups with manual transmissions. Wouldn't even be that hard.

EDIT: I went back to my link above and found this image.