By Rupert Howell

The tractor is not really that old, but the parts are all antique.

David “Henry” Billingsley’s labor of love for the past five years has been working on his tractor. Oh, he’s worked on a lot of other stuff during that time. But his tractor project has been on the front burner.
Bound to be a crowd favorite at this year’s annual Sardis Antique Tractor Show October 15 and 16, the homemade contraption has a top speed of around  a mile-and-a-half or two miles-per-hour.

“I figured I’ve driven it about a mile here around the house and I’ve used up about a gallon of gas,” Billingsley said while scratching his head and then adds, “So I guess you can say it gets a mile per gallon.”

Rocket scientist have formulas, plans and computers to assist them with their work. Bu most of Billingsley’s plans are in his head and the tractor project was done by the seat of the pants.

His close friend and co-conspirator Matt Walker helped along with the project. Matter-of-fact, as they tell it, Walker’s tree stand once leaned against the sweet gum that is now the body of the tractor.

Walker said building the tractor was like a chess match—one piece would go on and then you had to figure how it would affect the rest and the next piece.

Billingsley estimated 1,000 hours of work while Walker estimated that for every hour of work, there were two or three hours of thought.

Ingredients for the tractor include: a 1925 Chevy front axle; A-model Ford radius arm; 1921 6-hp Fairbanks-Morse engine; reduction gear box (50-1); 2-32” steel wagon wheels; 2-48” steel irrigation unit wheels; Buick differential; Chevy pickup axles, Massey-Harris combine sprockets; Mack cement truck gears; steel wagon wheel tire; Gehl pulley and shaft; corn sheller flywheel; big, forked sweet gum log and lots of 1/2 inch steel plate.

Billingsley says he likes his stuff to be different, and it is. Somewhat of an artist, there are fleur-de-les throughout tractor’s 1/2 inch steel plating.

Every piece, except the sweet gum, came from the scrapyard. That would be Martin Brothers, where Billingsley has worked for the past 31 years.

Whether you’re a antique tractor lover or not, it will be worth much more than the price of admission to inspect this machine and meet and listen to the man who designed and built it.