1918 Holt 75, Sn: 3379

Holt 75 Restoration

Gary Gallagher, Westmont Tractor donated this 1918 Holt 75. This one has a factory narrow track and usually came with the standard gauge tracks.

In 1980, when Westmont Tractor closed, Gary donated this and many other tractors to the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula. They sat out back for years outside in the weather. The Montana Historic Equipment Area (MHEA) volunteers began restoring these pieces. Some that we restored we left in their "Work Clothes" like you'd see them out working. This Holt 75 is to rare and unique, so we did a frame up restoration and painted every piece before re-assembling the machine. Removing the cylinders, pistons, clutches, magneto, etc. Each piece was inspected and rebuilt. Many of the cast iron pieces, nuts and bolts were sand blasted and painted. (Nation Coatings in Missoula donated all of the paint) Over the next year, the machine was slowly put back together. The radiator shroud was missing and Hellgate Forge in Bonner reproduced the shroud for us. TNT Springs donated all of the brake and clutch linings. Richard Kibble rebuilt the High-Bar magneto.

We were able to get the engine running and all of the adjustments we could in the shop. We took it to the MHEA and as we were unloading the tractor, the front flywheel fell off. Luckily it did not hurt the machine, crank shaft or radiator. It's a split collar flywheel and the inside is fairly rough. Being cast iron, we didn't want to torque it down too much. Somehow it slowly walked off the crank shaft. After removal, we noticed several small cracks. We shopped around and there are none anywhere. These were notorious for cracking. We looked into casting a new one, but way too expensive. So, we cleaned it the crank shaft and inside the pulley and tried it once again. We had some great test runs with the machine but then noticed the flywheel slowly working itself off the shaft again. We're currently working for solutions.