Cord
Veteran Member
Ok, I don't need this project, but I kinda fell into it. You see, I saw a K20 Cletrac for sale on Craigslist and I wanted to look at it. The price was right and the tractor was mostly complete so I bought the tractor. The problem is that the seller was a hoarder and some of his stuff is really cool. He's a really nice guy and he's willing to sell so that's bad for me. Let's just say that he's being screened for American Pickers right now. Yea, it's that bad.
Anyways, he had this '34 Dodge Doodlebug and I just had to have it. The cool thing is that FOR HIS ASKING PRICE, I got him to throw in a 341 Hemi and NP345 transmission. I'm paying $50 for a second set of rims so I can run duals (5 bolt 20" rims are stupid hard to find). I don't know just which NP435 trans I have, but it'll be either a 4.56/2.28/1.31/1.0 or a 6.68/3.34/1.66/1.0. With the 6.67 rear gears in the 1941 Ford 1.5 ton axle, 35" tires and 3,500 rpm I would then get 12/24/42/55mph or 8/16/33/55mph. The problem is that I'm going to use this Doodlebug at a local thresheree for plowing and those speeds are too fast. I think what I need to do is a run a second 435 transmission and use that trans as a 4 speed ranger. This would give me 30:1 gears in low-1 for a max speed of 2 mph. That feels a bit more tractor like.
I find find a bunch of threads of the rock crawler guys doing this, but no pictures. I was wondering if any guys on this forum had tried something similar?
Anyways, he had this '34 Dodge Doodlebug and I just had to have it. The cool thing is that FOR HIS ASKING PRICE, I got him to throw in a 341 Hemi and NP345 transmission. I'm paying $50 for a second set of rims so I can run duals (5 bolt 20" rims are stupid hard to find). I don't know just which NP435 trans I have, but it'll be either a 4.56/2.28/1.31/1.0 or a 6.68/3.34/1.66/1.0. With the 6.67 rear gears in the 1941 Ford 1.5 ton axle, 35" tires and 3,500 rpm I would then get 12/24/42/55mph or 8/16/33/55mph. The problem is that I'm going to use this Doodlebug at a local thresheree for plowing and those speeds are too fast. I think what I need to do is a run a second 435 transmission and use that trans as a 4 speed ranger. This would give me 30:1 gears in low-1 for a max speed of 2 mph. That feels a bit more tractor like.
I find find a bunch of threads of the rock crawler guys doing this, but no pictures. I was wondering if any guys on this forum had tried something similar?