1954 Copar Panzer Model A

[Kiely Feeds and Seeds 9]

Hello All, my Grandfather J. R. Kiely of Garrard Creek WA, owned a feed store with his father starting in the 1940's and up into the 1960's shortly before I was born.  The store started out in Centralia WA along with Fords Prairie General store and ended up moving north to the state capitol in Olympia.  During the 1950's while my Grandfather was running the store he took on a Panzer tractor and Gibson tractor dealership.  He also sold various other equipment including milking machines of which we still have one in a crate from the store.  Anyway when he was ending his dealership he had a left over model A which never sold.  He sold several of the 4 wheeled but not much 3 wheeled.  Out here in the PNW people like to do their own home logging and a small 4 wheeled tractor fit the bill better, than a crop set up.

 

Back in 2004-2005 my grandfathers farm came up for sale in Olympia WA and was going to be turned into a housing development.  I was helping my father clear of the remainder of the properly when we found the old Panzer in the middle of a very large blackberry patch.  It was completely rusty, both rear tires were rotted off and one rear rim was rusted through.  With the only paint remaining was under the seat and under the chain guard, I used those to get a color match from a local Coast to Coast hardware store that was still hanging in there at the time, its been closed for years.  I reconstructed the left side rear rim from a lat 1990's Dodge Caravan spare doughnut tire.  Those spare rims are 16 inches by 3.5-4 inches and have the correct 5 lug bolt pattern.  They have a disc brake offset so I had to cut the center out trim it and then re-weld it into the center of the rim.  It does lack the old hub cap clips and I was not able to save the hydro fill tubes as they were rotted, but those are not use  anyway.  Amazingly the original General 4.80/4.00-8 front tire survives to this day but I only fill it to 35 PSI because if the cracks.

 

I initially was just going to clean off the rust and repaint the tractor for a yard display but after only one day of soaking the cylinder with penetrating oil the piston came unstuck and the engine turned over.  I decided to re-ring, lap the valves, re-seal the block and re-build the carburetor.  The engine ran and did okay for a couple years before it developed a coil issue.  I torn the tractor back apart with the intention of getting it running again but never did.  It sat in pieces until a month ago when I finally got around to getting it running again.

 

Here are some videos

 

 

 

 

 

[elcamino/wheelhorse 9,326]

Great story .

[Achto 27,609]

 

 

[Pullstart 62,916]

 Awesome story, and cool little machine!  

[rjg854 11,387]

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