The First Turbo Tractor | ALLIS-CHALMERS D-19

The turbo diesel is so commonplace today that naturally aspirated diesels stand out. Go back nearly 60 years, the opposite was true.

In 1961, turbocharging wasn’t yet common in the world of diesels but it was nonexistent in the realm of production farm tractors. There were many reasons for that, starting with cost. Being fairly new technology, it was expensive to implement and farmers weren’t always willing or able to absorb that extra cost.

The beginning of the ‘60s was when a downsized, moderate-cost turbo diesel began to be practical. It was only a matter of time before some tractor company fielded a turbocharged diesel and Allis Chalmers (AC) was that company. Funny thing is… they introduced a turbocharger onto an old-school Buda-Lanova diesel that really wasn’t all that well suited to it.

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For a brief period, the D-19 was Allis-Chalmers’ most powerful rowcrop tractor. Jim Stammen’s ’64 has all the bells and whistles, including front weights (75 lbs. each), Power Adjust rear wheels, rear wheel weights (75 lbs. for each “pie” section), a padded seat and three remotes. Stammen farms 3,200 acres in southwestern Ohio and few tractors on his farm get a free ride. The D-19 gets 60-100 hours a year running augers and pulling grain carts. Stammen grew up with AC and it’s now the “family brand.” He has enough “orange” in his collection to require a special building to store them. This D-19 was restored many years ago and considering how it regularly works, it’s condition is a testament to great care. The step is not original but mighty handy.

The turbocharged D-19 was introduced into Allis Chalmers’ very successful D-Series tractor line for 1961. Launched in 1957, the D-Series started with the D-14, a 34 horsepower, four-cylinder gasser. It would be supplemented with the D-17, which had the option of a 262 ci six-cylinder diesel. The D-10 and D-12 would soon join the group and the D-15 would replace the D-14. The D-19 would come next and then the D-21.

The D-17 was a popular “just right” tractor when it was introduced in the fall of 1957 as AC’s “big” tractor. The diesel was rated at 51 Nebraska-tested PTO horsepower. With the latest version of AC’s Power Director (a power-shift device), Traction Booster draft control, power steering, a power-adjustable front axle, rear wheel track adjustment and a solid powertrain, it was a very capable and well-equipped tractor. By the turn of the 1950s, though, a self-respecting tractor company needed more than 51 horsepower in their star tractor for bragging rights.

Stammen’s D-19 is loaded for bear, with 600 pounds of iron on the 18.4-34 rear tires, 400 pounds of iron on the front wheels, and another 300 pounds on the front weight rack, plus about 2,000 pounds of liquid ballast in the tires, this beast is in the 10,000 pound weight category. On the Nebraska test of the D19 in April of ’62, it cranked out 8,459 pounds of drawbar pull in a similar configuration.

A new model was designed as a stopgap to fill in as AC developed an all-new big tractor. The D-19 was it, and you could call it a D-17 diesel after a body-building course. The big difference between the two brothers was the addition of a Thompson turbocharger. Boost was modest, only 4-5 psi, but it took the D262 diesel from 51 PTO horsepower to 67 (about 90 hp on the flywheel). On the drawbar, the D-17 delivered 36 horsepower in the Nebraska test while the D-19 cranked out 62.

The D262 was an updated B-Series legacy engine from Buda, pronounced “Beuda” not “Booda.” In late 1953, Allis-Chalmers acquired the Buda Engine Company, making it the Buda Engine Division of Allis-Chalmers. Buda had been making automotive, industrial and marine internal combustion engines since 1910 and formed the basis of what was to become Allis-Chalmer’s short but illustrious era as an engine builder. One result of that era was the Consolidated Diesel agreement with Cummins that yielded the legendary 5.9L diesels in the ‘80s

Here’s what made the D-19 stand out, the Thompson turbocharger. Thompson Products (a part of what would later become TRW) was a well-known builder of turbos back then and is best remembered for making the turbo for the Corvair Monza. Typically, the D-19 turbo engines did not have a muffler, though it was an option. Some of the turbocharged D262 engine’s power increase was due to bumping the peak power rpm from 1650 to 2000 rpm. The D262 was a 7-main bearing engine and is known for having a stout lower end. For the turbo engine, the piston had steel inserts for the top rings and full floating wrist pins. The weak link was in the liners, which had a tendency to leak or come loose and damage the block. Many say excessively soft fire rings on the head gasket was a part of the problem.

Buda began working on the B-Series engines towards the end of World War II and the first ag engines debuted in 1946 Cockshutt tractors. They would be built in one, two, four and six-cylinder configurations, all sharing a 3.44-inch bore and a 4.12-inch stroke with wet sleeves. Like all Buda diesels since 1934, they used the Lanova Power Cell combustion chamber, but the B-Series were considerably downsized compared to previous Buda diesels. Two parent bore (non-sleeved) variants would also be built, the 4BD-182 and the 6BD-273.

The 230 ci, 55 flywheel horsepower 6BD-230 would be the first Buda diesel first appear in AC tractors, namely the WD-45 diesel that began production late in 1954. For 1957, the 230 was bored 1/8-inch and stroked inch to make it 262 cubic inches. The 4BD four-cylinder engines would get a similar update to 175 cubic inches. The displacement update would coincide with other upgrades that included changes to the sleeve sealing, moving the water pump from the head to the block, improving the oil pump and updating the oil filter from a canister style to a spin-on.

The D262 turbo diesel was offered with a lower compression ratio than the NA, 14:1 vs 15.7:1, but after about a year of production (engine number 01499 in the late ’61- early ’62 time period), they upgraded the ratio to 15:1 to solve cold starting issues. The B-series engines also suffered from head cracking, made worse by turbocharging, so the heads were updated by reducing the valve sizes to leave more material in the casting. The injector tips were made smaller, again to keep more meat in the casting. At the same, a new camshaft was added to the mix but we could not discover the exact differences in cam specs.

The air cleaner marks another first for AC, a paper air filter. AC engineers claimed the paper filter was 20 percent more efficient than a typical oil bath filter, thus adding engine life. Earlier versions of the B-Series Buda engines had used an American Bosch PSB pump, but the D262 turbo used the versatile Roosa-Master DB pump. Stammen has this tractor turned up to about 85 PTO horsepower.

Besides being the first production turbo diesel farm tractor, the D-19 had another distinction: It was the first farm tractor tested in Nebraska to use a cellulose (A.K.A. “paper”) air filter. Oil bath filters were standard for the era but they have very low airflow rates and are not efficient at cleaning the air, even when perfectly maintained. If you let the oil level get low, or the oil reservoir fill with “mud,” the already marginal filtering efficiency significantly degrades and engine damage can result. A cellulose filter was the answer and in a few short years, the entire industry had left oil bath filters behind.

The D-19 was called a “5-plow tractor,” which put it into the upper tier of rowcrop tractors in 1961. It came standard with power steering, adjustable wide front axle, the Traction Booster system (draft control with A/C’s unique Snap Coupler implement lift), the Power Director, live PTO, a single hydraulic remote, 15.5-38 rear tires with the non- power adjusted wheels, plus a pair of headlights and one rear work/tail light. The price for the base tractor in March of ’62 was $5860.

Operators liked the control layout on the D-Series tractors. Many controls are up near the steering wheel, including the Traction Booster. An interesting thing to note about the Traction Booster was that it had a meter by which you could set the system for optimum performance. The “Big Stick,” and that’s what they called it, on the right was the Power Director control to split each of the 4 main speeds. The Power Director unit was between the clutch and main gearbox but ahead of the PTO drive, so its neutral position could be used as a “clutch” to shift the main gearbox without interrupting PTO power flow. The engine turned instrument panel was a nice touch.

Options included single or dual-wheel narrow front axles, power adjust rear wheels, tires as big as 18.4-34, a side mounted drum PTO, front weights, front and rear wheel weights, up to three hydraulic remotes and a padded seat. The D-19 was available in a high clearance model with 37 inches under the belly for use in rice or sugar cane crops. The D19 was also available with gas or LPG engines.

At the working end, we can see the standard rear PTO and swinging drawbar. AC called the PTO “live” but it wasn’t quite. When you pushed the clutch in to shift, the PTO stopped, but you could also shift gears using the neutral position of the Power Director and the PTO continued in that case. While AC offered a three-point hitch as an option, the D-19 came standard with the AC Snap Coupler. This was AC’s special attachment that allowed very quick hookups to AC implements. The Traction Boost setup worked best with AC implements on a Snap Coupler and most people say it worked very, very well.

The D-19 was produced into 1964. It was joined in ’63 by the 103 horsepower D21, with a new 426ci direct injected diesel, making the D-19 an instant also-ran. As the D-19 was fading it, a totally new tractor emerged to take it’s place in the lineup, the One-Ninety. Even in NA form, the 301cubic inch One-Ninety DI diesel made more PTO power than the D19, though the drawbar power was close. The AC direct-injected diesels marked the beginning of the end for the Lanova diesels in Allis-Chalmers tractors. A bit more than 10,000 D-19s of all types were built.

The D-19 lived up to the advertised performance claims but the engine fell short on durability. Even the NA D262 engine was a little sketchy long term, having issues with dropped sleeves. Being turbocharged, the D-19 engine was even more fragile. A careful operator could avoid the problems but a tired, overworked farmer is often a lot less than careful and a smart tractor manufacturer builds with that in mind. Whatever faults existed with the turbocharged D262, it highlighted the benefits of a turbo diesel and brought the farm tractor market a few steps closer to almost universal acceptance of turbocharged diesels.

Specifications

1964 Allis-Chalmers D-19

Engine: AC/Buda D262
Displacement: 262 ci
Bore & Stroke: 3.56 x 4.38 in.
*Rated PTO Power: 66.92 hp @ 2000 rpm
*Rated Drawbar Power: 61.27 @ 2001
Compression Ratio: 14:1 (later 15:1)
Transmission: 8-speed (4-speed with Power Director)
Wheelbase: 102.3 in.
Weight: 6,480 lbs.
Tires: Front- 7.50-16
Rear- 18.4-34

*Fuel Consumption: 5.211 GPA at maximum power
*Drawbar Pull: 8,459 lbs (ballasted to 11, 210 lbs)
*Top Speed: 13.9 mph
*As rated by Nebraska Tractor Test #811