Ferguson/Davis Loader Tractor

[14reamdalton]

Hello All,

I'm new here but I wanted to share, and hopefully gain some insight on one of my recent project purchases. I stumbled across this tractor on an abandoned property along with some others, and the price was right so I bought it and brought it home hoping to restore it back to running/operating condition. I have attached a couple pictures of when I brought it home. The tractor appears to be a TO-20 or TO-30 (I can't tell for sure because the serial plate is hard to read). The tractor has a Davis reversed loader/backhoe setup on it: Model# 500-851 and says it was manufactured by Mid-Western Industries Inc. There are a lot of factory, aftermarket, and homemade pieces on this rig and I'm slowly figuring it all out. It appears the hydraulic pump in the counterweight has been bypassed with an aftermarket pump, and the tractor is also sporting a Perkins 152 diesel engine which appears to be set up with a poorly conceived homemade conversion kit. Everything appears to be intact aside from the outriggers and one of the outrigger cylinders.

There are a lot of welds on the bellhousing, which makes me nervous, but we will see when it gets torn down. and the fuel tank was replaces with a square aftermarket tank on a homemade bracket. The hood and grille are still intact, but obviously can't be mounted on the original hinge pins up front. needless to say, I will have to do some fabricating and re-arranging to fit everything back under the hood or in one of the saddle boxes which also appear to be homemade out of whatever materials were available.

Does anyone know of or have seen anything else like this? I can only find a couple pictures of others that exist on the internet. Were these popular or were they a failed dream by Davis company? ANY information on this thing would be greatly appreciated. I will do my best to restore it and keep updates as I go.


Thanks in advance!

Dalton