My BABY - 1945 John Deere BO Lindeman (NOT FACTORY ORIGINAL)

[Ray]

This is a 1945 Lindeman BO crawler.

It has a John Deere model-B engine and transmission and the parts to make it a crawler were made by the Lindeman Company of Yakima, Washington.


The loader was built by: Mid-Western Industries Inc of Racine, Wisconsin and is model #F-32 Serial #1456.

It was built for: Massey-Harris-Ferguson Inc between 1953 and 1958.


Lindeman never built a crawler with a front end loader.

I built the crawler up to use for driveway maintenance and doing landscaping around the property

[NNAATZ]

thats neat, the loader has a clean look, also to the vintage to the crawler and as if it should be there, i would leave it on, some thing like that seems to spark good conversation at a show, great job
nick

[mini kahuna]

ray,that is a feat of engineering to say the least,amazing work,you saved that machine from a scrap pile and turned it into a cool little unit,you should be proud.
it is not a hack job either,looks like something a factory would put out,you are a skilled craftman to be able to pull that off and make it look so good.

[Ray]

ray,that is a feat of engineering to say the least,amazing work,you saved that machine from a scrap pile and turned it into a cool little unit,you should be proud.
it is not a hack job either,looks like something a factory would put out,you are a skilled craftman to be able to pull that off and make it look so good.

Thank you very much for the comment. I had the advantage in that I worked in a machine shop. Having access to the right tools and machines always makes a big difference.

At the shows, I have a display board that clearly states that these are home made modifications and not factory options.

I did this for two reasons:

#1 .. I like building things and try hard to make things look and work right.

#2 .. Right from the start, I didn't want anyone to accuse me of trying to pass this off as a "very rare" Lindeman.
It is not rare, it's just different.

[wwattson]

Great job on the crawler Ray! Nothing to be ashamed of there. Really nice work.

The views in the background have a familiar look. Are are up around Gaylord area?

Bill

[Ray]

Great job on the crawler Ray! Nothing to be ashamed of there. Really nice work.

The views in the background have a familiar look. Are are up around Gaylord area?

Bill

Hi Bill

You're close. We live SW of there ( about 20 miles south of Traverse City ).

[FarmLife]

That is a great looking crawler, all the modifications look like they are supposed to be there. Who made the loader, was it Wagner or was it built by Massey. Welcome to the site from a fellow Michigander!

[Ray]

Who made the loader, was it Wagner or was it built by Massey.

There is a tag on the loader that says it was manufactured by Mid-Western Industries for the Massey-Harris-Ferguson Co.

[Ray III]

That thing is so cool. It looks perfectly natural. The ones that John Deere made to put on John Deere 420 crawlers are an abortion by conparison.

[NNAATZ]

davis or mid-western industries had always made a pretty desent loader, i have a couple of later models with the same style of lift cylinders with gun drilled shaft for down pressure. (models 101a,102).

[Tractor 850]

That is a fine looking machine Ray.
You have done a lot of good work there.
That crawler is something to be proud of.
Thanks for showing it to us.

[Ray]

davis or mid-western industries had always made a pretty desent loader, i have a couple of later models with the same style of lift cylinders with gun drilled shaft for down pressure. (models 101a,102).

A farmer down the road had this loader on his old tractor. The tractor was really rough. It finely blew a rod out the side of the case and he decided to junk it.

I bought the loader. This is why I went to that farm auction. I was looking for something to put the loader on.

The original hydraulic cylinders were the old style that would only lift the loader arms and they leaked like a sieve. They came down by gravity and the bucket tipped by gravity.

The cylinders I'm using came off a Payloader.
You can see a flat spot on the side of the cylinder case. There was 2 a inch dia. boss on each side for mounting the cylinder.
I machined the mounting boss's off and welded a mount to the bottom of each cylinder case.

I've been very satisfied with the loader, although I did break off the mounting bracket on the right upright where the arm pivots. ( If you look at the rear photos, you can see the right bracket is different from the left bracket. )

Even with 5,960 pounds crawler weight, I have dug the bucket in hard enough that the tracks spun in the dirt. This has put a tremendous amount of force on the loader.
I think that says a lot for the quality of loader ( it still has the stock pivot bracket on the one side ). Although without the bracing, I'm sure I would have torn the rest of it up a long time ago. .. Ray

[Granddad]

Ray, you say you're close to Traverse City. I wonder if your Lindeman was used up on the peninsula in the cherry orchards?

[Ray]

Ray, you say you're close to Traverse City. I wonder if your Lindeman was used up on the peninsula in the cherry orchards?

Hi Granddad

The farm I got it off of was down in the thumb area east of Saginaw. .. Ray

[DiggerLarry]

Ray,
That is a great looking machine! Very nice work.

Larry