The Lindeman J. Deere Crawler
The Lindeman J. Deere Crawler
August/September 1985
Gene Brady
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Norma Brady and Jesse Lindeman, taken at Yakima, Washington in the fall of 1984.
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1460 Colchester Drive East Port Orchard, Washington 98366
As the proud owners of two Lindeman-John Deere 'BO'
crawlers, my wife, Norma, and I journeyed to Yakima, Washington to
meet with the inventor/producer of the well known unique orchard
tractor. We had done our homework before meeting Jesse Lindeman and
knew that he was 85 years young, an Air Service veteran of World
War I and co-founder/president of the Lindeman Power Equipment
Company (founded September 1922, Yakima, Washington). When the sale
of this Company to John Deere was finalized in January 1947, Jesse
Lindeman entered the J.D. work force as chief engineer and later
became involved in product development.
It didn't take long for two tractor enthusiasts to find a
common ground; consequently the reminiscing flowed as fast as a
mountain stream! At this point Jesse Lindeman concurred in my
request to tape record the conversation. Here are some highlights
that may interest other tractor collectors:
The idea of a John Deere tracked machine got its impetus from
the Port-land, Oregon J. D. branch manager who needed a tractor to
compete with Caterpillar. The Portland manager, a cousin of Colonel
Wiman who was president of John Deere, said he could get one of the
new four-wheeled orchard tractors, the BO model. It then took Jesse
Lindeman nearly a year to complete the design, casting and
production of a prototype. The first tractor was field tested on a
local Yakima orchard... unfortunately this orchard had all level
ground. The absence of hilly terrain very common to many western
orchards allowed an initial design weakness to survive the field
test program. When the first production units got their real test
on hilly terrain, the problem surfaced in short order.
The first ten units produced used metal-to-metal clutch plates
which operated in oil. As you know, the Lindeman-J. D. crawler uses
steering levers which first release the clutch plates before
engaging the brake band. Everything worked fine until two crawlers
were sold to a McMinnville, Oregon orchardist who had all sidehill
fields. The near-constant use of the uphill brake to maintain a
contour line brought the major problem to the fore. Since the
clutch housing held only two quarts of oil, the plates got hot, dry
and shed steel particles. Ultimately the gap between the plates
filled and the clutch wouldn't release. The Lindeman-J. D.
crawler almost met its Waterloo then and there as later reports
indicated that six of the ten crawlers were experiencing the same
problem!
The clutch dilemma was solved within two weeks by using
Chevrolet dry thermoid clutch plates rivetted on the existing steel
plates, revising the clutch housing and the release system. As soon
Jesse Lindeman finished a modification package, his younger
brother, Joe, would do the refit at the farm site. Fortunately, the
ten crawlers were only spread from Vancouver Island, B. C. to
Oregon so overnight trips got the job done in a hurry with minimal
loss of tractor time.