So my Dad's got this doodlebug...

somebody needed a tractor, back in the days my grandfather and uncle bought old military jeeps cheap and used them to do light farm field work, had a tractor but the jeeps would work fine as light duty tractors. good hp for the price.

 

Im originally from Lyons Falls, you?

 

They were built as farm tractors..........tractors didn't need a license.............kids could drive tractors..........you fill in the blanks.

 

Westernville born and raised, live in Rome now. My grandfather worked at the paper mill in Lyons Falls till the day he died. Literally, he fell into a pulper. I could think of dozens of better ways to go.

 

Is that up around Franklin? My wife's from there and we stopped and talked to Mel who lives along Rt. 357 and he had a few of these things. Never heard of them till I talked to Mel! I stopped bc he had an "original" '49 Ford that turned out to be a bonafide Moonshine car. Bad ASS! Not to mention his copius amounts of Model A's and other diamonds in the rough....

 

You a fiddler?

 

haha, no. All I can play is my meat whistle

 

Do a search on Doodlebugs and there is a thread on the Doodlebug club in Franklin,N.Y.

 

Please, post a photo of the one you had with the '29 Briggs Fordor cowl & hood and 20'AA rear wheels. That was a Cadallac of Doodlebugs. Bob

 

Mike, Do you know the guy that owns this? He lives on Rt.8 just below New Berlin IIRC

 

Finally. A HAMB-friendly project for us poor folk.

 

You guys are making my head spin. I've wanted one of these since I was a kid.

 

Ha, thats cool and I like the passenger side door!

 

You could buy this tractor "Kit" from the Sears Catalog! On some kits you had to turn the rear end over small gears bolted in place of the rear wheels and they drove the bigger gear inside the tractor kit rear wheels. Many of these tractors only had a small draw bar because they used horse/oxen drawn equipment or just towed wagons to and from fields.

 

Well I never heard of such a thing. I learned something new today. That's cool as crap and I really don't know why. Great find!

 

Used to be quite a few of them around here. They used them in the woods for skidding pulpwood. I've had a couple. One just about like that one and one made out of a Chevy. They used to be called "depression tractors" as farmers couldn't afford regular tractors. Good find. Pretty cool!
Tom

 

And everybody thought these were a now invention. Go figure.



Doc

 

Very cool.
A buddy of mine had one in all the stuff we bought in West Texas a few years back. It had a flipped front axle for more ground clearance. The rear axle was welded to the frame.

 

There was also a tractor company that used a combination of new Model a parts and some special made parts in their tractors one style used a complete model A pick up cab with the lower door bottoms notched to clear the big rear tires it had a special front axle pivot something like the one posted here.I'm told it used rear doors from an A fordor sedan in the cab but don't know that for a fact,You could easily think that this was a cut down model A home built but was a commercial tractor not many were made I have seen only 1 in real life a restorer friends of mine sold it for big bucks as it was complete and he had brochures and stuff about the company that he got with it when he bought it .

 

i'd get her running, and drive that everywhere.

WHOODANG!

 

We had something like that for Dear Camp in S.E Texas it was only brought out to the paved F.M. Road. Left their and used by the next person going to camp. It was public road for a long way not drivable. It was better at the farm.... The chains did it all.

 

That is real funny shit !!!
Nearly spilt a cup of coffee all over the laptop

 

Worthington built one similar, not sure if they used Ford engines. I knew of one with a Studebaker engine. The owner told me they were used mostly on golf courses to pull gang mowers.

 

Lots of life and limb lost in that mill. Sorry to hear it. One of my grandfathers worked there as well. The other hauled logs.

 

Love these gizmos. There are more threads on them, just search.

The rake on this one is perfect. Ha ha. The non-rubber rake could catch on. Gary

 

I'm surprised so many on here had never seen or heard of traditional doodlebug. They were quite common in my area.

 

stick a flathead v8 in itt

 

Those little suckers used to be a common sight in Texas. I still know where there's a handful of them.

They were used for light duty work on farms.

 

That's awesome! The funny part is that it's more traditional than a lot of the period un-correct rods and kustoms that are being built these days.

 

I'm not sure what it is, but I think I like it!