Homemade Mini Pickups

Homemade Mini Pickups FARM HOME Toys/Games 26-1-35 I built this pair of mini pickups just for the challenge, but they turned out to be real workhorses on the farm. One measures 4 ft. wide and 8 ft. long. It has a 3-ft. long bed and rides on 8-in. boat trailer wheels. Power is provided by a 5 hp Briggs & Stratton gas engine. The rear end and 3-speed transmission came out of a car. Larson used 2-in. dia. steel pipe to build the pickup's frame. The grille is off an old oil stove, while the hood was made from sheet metal. The dash was also made from sheet metal, with a length of pipe bent around the perimeter. The rig has a wooden seat that's covered with old carpet. It travels at speeds up to 8 mph. My other mini pickup is a 4-WD model that's 4 ft. wide and 8 ft. long. It has a hydraulically-operated dump box on back and a blade on front that can be manually set at three different angles. The rig rides on 15-in. lugged wheels. I've used this pickup for plowing snow, pushing dirt, and hauling materials. It'll go up to 10 or 12 mph. A pair of Toyota car rear ends provide 4-WD, with Jeep hubs used on the front end. Power is provided by a 12 hp Briggs & Stratton gas engine and the 4-speed transmission is off a Toyota. The box is raised and lowered by a small electro-hydraulic cylinder that was originally designed to lift Mercury boat motors out of the water. The cylinder operates off a 12-volt battery. I use it a lot for hunting. It has a lot of clearance and can go through some awful mud holes. To remove the blade I just remove two bolts. 4-in. thick, 2-in. wide steel bar to make the hitch, including the lower lift arms and an arm between them that supports a conventional drawbar. The drawbar is simply pinned onto the tractor's original drawbar. A pair of vertical steel rods connect the lower lift arms to a pair of hinged metal brackets that bolt onto the tractor frame. A small hydraulic cylinder under the tractor seat is used to raise or lower the 3-pt. I use it to pull a plow, disk, and a spring tooth harrow. I copied the design of a 3-pt. that I saw advertised in a Central Tractor catalog. One of the vertical rods is threaded so that when I hook onto an implement such as a plow, I can adjust it so it rides correctly on the ground. (Levi Larson, 3651 Co. Rd. 145, International Falls, Minn. 56649 ph 218 377-4334)

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