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Got a pair of DB walk behinds to get back to working status.

14K views 70 replies 9 participants last post by  Mudwallower 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
As the title says got a pair of these tractors in pieces, and a cultivator, in trade for some VW parts. Got four engines to go thru with them. Both tractors have the speed adjust pulley setup, and hoping to find reverse kits for both. While these will be working tractors, would like to clean them up nicely in the Winter in the next year or two. Right now searching for parts and attachments. The 1946-49 is missing the draw bar, and only have one set of unknown rims that work for now. The old Ford rims will not work without modifications, and would like to have at least one set of original DB rims.

We have a small 4+ acre place with maybe 1.5 acres that can be farmed with these tractors. So hoping that will work out fine for us.
 

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#5 · (Edited by Moderator)
Talked to a fellow down the road a piece about his DB in pieces he has. It was his Dad's so not interested in selling, but will almost certainly never do anything with it. So the tractor and plow sit out in our wet weather rotting away. Sigh.... Gear box 917.5751 Series 176. He does have two DB decal-ed B&S engines in the garage that next time will try to date them. Just going by looks they are probably from the 1950s.

Yes, the blue is a bit much on that one hood! Have a local source for 55 gallon food quality plastic drums. Going to get a pair for derusting parts. Been looking for a container like a used larger hot tub/sauna for bigger items.

Good eye on the VW single cab! Most folks would just think it was a Bus. Do love having a truck that has side and rear gates that can be dropped down for flat bed use. Need to make a new tilt canvas for it. Not many of the trucks got over here after the chicken tax was signed into law back in 1963 by president Johnson. Sad and funny the results that has produced. http://blog.caranddriver.com/feds-watching-fords-run-around-on-chicken-tax-riles-customs-officials/

You can still buy a good restoration single cab candidate for $10,000 or less, and a restored one for 20 to 30 grand. It is the Deluxe Buses that are getting out of this world, some selling for around a quarter of a million in original or fully restored shape. Not like the old days when you could buy a Deluxe out of a wrecking yard for a few hundred bucks.

Gear boxes we have are:

917.57561 Series 303, and 917.5751 Series 156.

Engines we have are:

81302 943579 5904020 B&S with DB decal (Think 9 cubic inch, 1959?)

61102 940558 6005190 B&S decal (9 cubic inch,1960?)

Model # 500 107120 Serial No. 591855 B&S Sears Roebuck & Co. with DB decal (8r6 engine, 3HP?)

Model # 500 306126 Serial No. 701705 Sears Roebuck & Co. (metal tag, but can not read HP stamped number)

If anyone has corrections, or HP ratings, or general dates, or data for these.....
 
#6 ·
Talked to a fellow down the road a piece about his DB in pieces he has. It was his Dad's so not interested in selling, but will almost certainly never do anything with it. So the tractor and plow sit out in our wet weather rotting away. Sigh.... Gear box 917.5751 Series 176. He does have two DB decal-ed B&S engines in the garage that next time will try to date them. Just going by looks they are probably from the 1950s.

Yes, the blue is a bit much on that one hood! Have a local source for 55 gallon food quality plastic drums. Going to get a pair for derusting parts. Been looking for a container like a used larger hot tub/sauna for bigger items.

Good eye on the VW single cab! Most folks would just think it was a Bus. Do love having a truck that has side and rear gates that can be dropped down for flat bed use. Need to make a new tilt canvas for it. Not many of the trucks got over here after the chicken tax was signed into law back in 1963 by president Johnson. Sad and funny the results that has produced. http://blog.caranddriver.com/feds-watching-fords-run-around-on-chicken-tax-riles-customs-officials/

You can still buy a good restoration single cab candidate for $10,000 or less, and a restored one for 20 to 30 grand. It is the Deluxe Buses that are getting out of this world, some selling for around a quarter of a million in original or fully restored shape. Not like the old days when you could buy a Deluxe out of a wrecking yard for a few hundred bucks.

Gear boxes we have are:

917.57561 Series 303, and 917.5751 Series 156.

Engines we have are:

81302 943579 5904020 B&S with DB decal (Think 9 cubic inch, 1959?)

61102 940558 6005190 B&S decal (9 cubic inch,1960?)

Model # 500 107120 Serial No. 591855 B&S Sears Roebuck & Co. with DB decal (8r6 engine, 3HP?)

Model # 500 306126 Serial No. 701705 Sears Roebuck & Co. (metal tag, but can not read HP stamped number)

If anyone has corrections, or HP ratings, or general dates, or data for these.....
You have a Super Power and a Garden Tractor

917.57561 Super Power should have a Continental AU8 127.300 for Original

917.5751 Garden Tractor should have a Briggs Model N
 
#8 ·
Good eye on the VW single cab!

You can still buy a good restoration single cab candidate for $10,000 or less, and a restored one for 20 to 30 grand. It is the Deluxe Buses that are getting out of this world, some selling for around a quarter of a million in original or fully restored shape. Not like the old days when you could buy a Deluxe out of a wrecking yard for a few hundred bucks.
I messed up about 12 years ago. There was a 23 window deluxe in sealing wax red at a living estate auction. I didn't want to mess with it because it was sunk in the ground and very rusty. Had super good jail bars in the back corner windows and all the wide chrome was good. Even the nose wasn't pushed in like most all of-em.

Brought $5!

Had I known what they sell for now........... :wallbanging:
 
#10 ·
Are DB tractor hard to find in your area ? I don't see as many come up on CL as before here but from time to time they do .
 
#11 · (Edited by Moderator)
I messed up about 12 years ago. There was a 23 window deluxe in sealing wax red at a living estate auction. I didn't want to mess with it because it was sunk in the ground and very rusty. Had super good jail bars in the back corner windows and all the wide chrome was good. Even the nose wasn't pushed in like most all of-em.

Brought $5!

Had I known what they sell for now........... :wallbanging:
Know what you mean. Have plenty of VW should haves, could haves, would haves...
 
#12 ·
https://cleveland.craigslist.org/for/6141511628.html

This is a ways away from you, but I don't know where you have family or if they would want to ship...
Wow, nice!! Thanks for the heads up! Very tempting, was looking for the earlier 16" rims, but do have plenty of used 15" tires from our VWs that could be used. Figuring of using one of the tractors for towing a cart around to move stuff and sickle bar work, so plain tires would be fine for that. Right now have a lead on a farm being cleared out in the area and that there is DB stuff there. Will be going over Thursday to see what can be pulled out the scrap pile. Still will keep that Ohio CL number if no luck!
 
#13 · (Edited by Moderator)
Are DB tractor hard to find in your area ? I don't see as many come up on CL as before here but from time to time they do .
Seems harder to find DB parts out here in Western Washington than in the Mid-West. Price of scrap steel was so high not too long ago that a lot of older steel went to the local foundries. Now with the steel prices dropped the nicer family owned scrap places that would sell off steel to locals are now out of business. The only scrap places still open are directly working for the foundries will not sell to the public any metals.

We have so many more days of rain to rust stuff into junk and so many of the old farms have been eaten up by urban sprawl. Plus with escalating property values the old barns are disappearing all too fast to decay because the taxes gone up so much on just the land, and speculators are not interested in saving any old buildings.

Parents bought an old 1911 condemned for several decades house that was still being occupied in Kirkland WA back in the mid 1970s for about $50,000 that had a huge view of West side of lake Washington and Seattle. Saw the last chickens and last horse vanish from in town in the later 1970s as bigger properties were turned into smaller with more houses per acre. Then Microsoft moved into the area and by the mid 1990s mid sized houses down at bottom of the hill with no view and only 6' lawn around them were selling for $400.000 each.

When the wife and I got together in the late 1980s we could not find any acreage that we could afford in the Tacoma, Seattle, Everett area that we would not have to be paying off till we retired at 75 or so. Found a place South of Olympia in the early 1990s and paid it off in just a few years. Since then the value of the land has easily doubled and taxes have gone from $300 to now over $1,500. Today there is a huge exodus of folks who can not afford a home up North and so Olympia up to Tacoma is now a sellers market and in our area houses are selling faster and faster.....

A few years ago sold off the fathers in laws place in N. Seattle that is not a must have location, and it went in less than four hours, while the real estate agent was sure it would not sell for the price we had put on it...
 
#14 ·
Are the rims that I have fitted onto the one tractor, DB rims? Fella down the road had the same ones on his tractor. The ones I have noticed on line have a slit between the inner and outer rim pieces.

Not getting any notices from this forum. Looked around for any FAQs here, did I miss those?
 
#15 ·
Are the rims that I have fitted onto the one tractor, DB rims? Fella down the road had the same ones on his tractor. The ones I have noticed on line have a slit between the inner and outer rim pieces.

Not getting any notices from this forum. Looked around for any FAQs here, did I miss those?
Best I could do is get you pictures of my rims
 
#17 · (Edited by Moderator)
Well it has been a busy last week.

Got a Garden Plow, Cultivator, Sickle Bar, Disc Harrow, and a spare GP blade, but it has different mounting bolt pattern. All from far out East of the Cascades. that is a nice dry environment resulting in just surface rust.

Found less than a mile away a tractor frame, gear box, with wheels. So now have enough parts to probably get two tractors up and running.

Traded a four groove engine pulley for a Seeder that has the fertilizer tray rusted out at the bottom, so could use images and measurements of the tray to repair this one. Missing the seed tray cover and of course the seed discs, so meed measurements of the latter and images of both.

From same fellow who traded me the Seeder, he gave me a Potato Plow 917.57550!

Does anyone have manuals on the Seeder and Potato Plow??
 
#20 ·
If you go into the Implement forum and search David Bradley Garden Seeder & Field Planter there are many pictures and ones of mine
 
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