Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Oliver Super 55?

If you have your dad's D-19 restored you really do need to post some pictures so we can see it. It amazes me that these old tractors endure so long. A testament to MADE IN THE USA.

A farm I worked on had a D-17. My favorite of the older tractors.
If it had just had better hydraulics and live pto.
We used it, along with a WD-45 and Farmall 300, to pull tank wagons around in
Maple sugar season. It wasn't unusual to be wagon axle deep in mud, deeper in snow,
Or on grades that really weren't safe. All were chained, the whole time. The D-17 never
got stuck, and was the only tractor used on the very worst slopes. It always felt solid,
even on the slopes we were afraid to take the other tractors.

I wouldn't hesitate to bet on that tractor against about modern 4wds in our situation.
It had weight, low stance, and low rpm. Slippery hills don't showcase the strong points
of 4wd, high hp/lower weight, higher rpm engines.

yep. mowed a lot of hay with that M raked even more with that D17. don't even wanna think about how much plowing I did with the 8840 and a 6 bottom.

Sort of on topic: did anyone else live in a "brand pocket" determined by there being a local dealer of one make? We had an IH dealer in town. 10 miles NW was a JD dealer, so there was some overlap in between. 13 miles SW was an Oliver dealer. For some reason, that circle and the IH circle didn't really overlap; they sort of had a wall between them.

had 5 tractor dealers in our county. For/NH, 2 JD dealers, Oliver/WHITE/Massey, Case IH, one side of the county is Green, the other is red

No pocket. Farmall/International and JD were popular.
We had a Ford Dealer, A/C was popular, would see Oliver and Minneapolis too.
There were some Fordsons, but they looked so much like Fords it was hard to
pick them out.
Even had a few Cockshutts.

cockshutts were very popular raound here. still a local collectors club for them

the D17 was a great tractor, but it was pretty much relegated to pulling a rake or haywagos/ [bleep] due to it not having a 3 point hitch

To the OP I have had a few Super 55 and I own alot of Olivers what ?s do you have I will gladly try to help

I'm just thinking of buying one.

good little tractor not bad on fuel power steering is a plus live pto a 30 hp tractor

Forgot about the Fast Hitch setup.

We pulled the small nailer with one. Only if the kicker was broke or we were in a hurry.
A lot of the kids were small, lazy, or couldn't stack a wagon, so I got recruited to go
bail with the farm owner. Bill like to run it in third. The fields weren't glass smooth,
and if it was good grass you killed yourself to hang on and keep up.

Had to do that today, I'd lay down and let the wagon run over my head!

I had a Super 77 when I was about 20. Good tractor and wouldn't mind finding one again. The neighbor had a Super 55 and as I recall had a lot of problems with it but have no details. Good luck, Dave

Cockshutt 40 & 50's share the same basic engine as Allis D-17 D's & all D-19's, a Buda inline 6. A great engine that can be heavily modified for farm stock type pulling or just fun. Oliver 88's popular for this type fun as well.


www.tractordata.com is a great sight for leaning about tractor specs, especially older ones. And, to me especially who used what engine, the size etc.

We had three Oliver 88 Supers (from the mid-50's I think) on the farm in the 70s. Used them to pull hay trailers, pipe trailers and Gehl "green chop" forage wagons. Great tractors. Dad installed an aftermarket yellow hand brake that connected a long-levered handle to the brake pedal and vastly improved the leverage on the brake pedal and the braking effectiveness. We had fluid in the tires. They had a 6-speed manual tranny and could lug a full green chop wagon up a pretty steep grade.

I have a buddy in South Texas that owns a machine shop. He has two or three Oliver tractors. He’s pretty much restored both of them. Don’t have clue what they are, look to be 60 to 70 ish HP. One was his dads tractor that passed away. Stout tractors.

My grandparents had a Super 88. Remember helping my dad get it running, we had to pull it with another antique a Farmall Super A. Never remember it firing up on its own. They probably didn't use it enough to justify a new battery and fixing the charging.

This old Oliver was on a consignment sale today.

Wabi a friend of mine gave me some advice on buying an older tractor. If the seat is worn out and it's mounting points and the hole in the drawbar is elongated the tractor has seen allot of use. Pretty simple advice but he was around allot of them as he worked for John Deere for years, I'm talking the old 2 cylinder days.

I worked at dealerships as an Allis Chalmers mechanic 15 years. The snap coupler set up was the main downfall. The D17 series 4 had live hydraulics, so they still worked with the foot clutch engaged. Pretty solid old tractors.

Fairly simple old tractors to repair. One of the biggest errors were the engine connecting rods were offset. Folks normally center the piston pins in the connecting rods. (clamp style rods to the pins-not floating pins) You had to set the piston pin out equal to one side of the piston, depending which cylinder, before clamping them down.

If you did not do that and centered the pins, they wore a groove down that new cylinder you just installed. Smoke and filings soon appeared! I saw a couple red-faced machinists come into the shop, after some farmer pulled their engine and took it to the local Napa store for an overhaul. Then they brought it to the dealership for diagnosis.