Antique Miniature Dozer Will It Run?

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]We just picked up the smallest dozer ever made. Let's see if we can get it running. We went to this guy's house to buy a hovercraft, but instead we accidentally bought a miniature dozer, homemade dozer and a Honda Z50. It has this old Wisconsin engine. It spins over in typical Barn Brothers fashion. We didn't look at it at all. And we already have a very bad discovery. the spark plug stripped out, but we're going to get it running. You guys have been begging us to go back and work on the Caterpillar tractor. This is the best we can do. These tracks are super neat.

[00:00:38]This whole machine used to be a walkbehind roiller, but it was turned into this mini tractor. It's powered by this old Wisconsin engine. 2 and 78 by 2 and 3/4 if that means anything.

[00:00:52]>> What?

[00:00:52]>> Probably about 8 horsepower. has that WCO Magneto on there.

[00:00:58]Um, there was some suspect chunks coming out of the carburetor. The spark plug stripped out. But let's spin her over and check for spark.

[00:01:09]We're going to peek under this cover.

[00:01:11]Some of these parts on this machine were made in Seattle, Washington.

[00:01:15]>> I think the whole thing was made in Seattle.

[00:01:17]>> Not too far where we're from, which is pretty neat. Okay, I'm I'm picking up what it's throwing down.

[00:01:22]>> I'm not. When it's when this is touching the pulley down below, that makes it go in reverse.

[00:01:30]>> Oh, interesting.

[00:01:30]>> When it's up like this, that tensions these pulleys and makes it go forward.

[00:01:37]>> Huh.

[00:01:39]>> I think >> we're going to be bulldozing by sunset.

[00:01:43]>> All right, we got a rope wrapped around the pulley. We're going to see if this spark plug is sparking.

[00:01:51]Whole lot of nothing. Some stuff blasted out there.

[00:01:55]>> Didn't the guy say this rain?

[00:01:58]>> Yeah, we also didn't check the spark plug.

[00:02:03]Let it rip.

[00:02:09]Let's try spinning it the other way.

[00:02:10]Pull away. Let it rip.

[00:02:13]Nope.

[00:02:18]Nothing. There's probably some points behind here.

[00:02:23]We get the point.

[00:02:26]We still don't know what we're doing about the stripped out spark plug hole.

[00:02:30]But the spark plug looks too long. No, too short.

[00:02:35]>> That's what I said.

[00:02:43]Huh.

[00:02:45]All right.

[00:02:47]We got a set of points here.

[00:02:49]>> We know what to do with those.

[00:02:51]Um, and magneto condenser should be simple.

[00:03:01]Too easy. All right. Get this in between those points.

[00:03:06]Those points are pretty dirty.

[00:03:08]>> Oh, yeah.

[00:03:10]>> So, I'm guessing that's why we weren't getting spark.

[00:03:15]Hopefully, that was the only reason we weren't getting spark.

[00:03:27]We have spark. I guess this wasn't a waste of $300. Is that spark plug going to thread in there?

[00:03:33]>> Nope.

[00:03:34]>> Tell them what you did.

[00:03:36]>> So, what we did is we found a slightly longer spark plug. Just a couple more threads. And it's barely in there.

[00:03:42]>> And it's barely on there. We got our good oldfashioned friend starting fluid.

[00:03:49]crank way.

[00:03:50]>> Hopefully this starts a little puff.

[00:03:56]We haven't lubed a single thing on this engine.

[00:03:59]>> I don't I don't know.

[00:04:01]>> There we go.

[00:04:04]>> Chunk of mud just shot out of the carburetor. We're giving a full throttle and hopefully this miniature Caterpillar dozer doesn't launch into the side of my house.

[00:04:25]I would be surprised if there's like no lube in the cylinder.

[00:04:32]We are launching some chunks out of the head out of the carb. All right, let's take this back off. Make sure we have spark.

[00:04:42]Yep.

[00:04:47]Levi's insisting that we take this head off. My brother insisted it was way too much work. 3 seconds later.

[00:05:04]Oh, one more.

[00:05:10]This bolt looks suspect.

[00:05:13]There's a lot of suspect things. Also, did we mention that we spent $500 on this and the Z50? Let's see what we got inside.

[00:05:25]Crunchy. Holy.

[00:05:31]We got a concerning amount of chunkage going on here. Uh, a little bit of dirt, gravel, sand dobbers. Uh, we almost bought a whole bunch of other stuff.

[00:05:43]This guy had >> 20 foot piles.

[00:05:47]>> 20 foot piles.

[00:05:48]>> Quads, >> truckers, large full scale lo like semi half scale locomotives, >> hit and miss engines, chainsaws.

[00:06:05]>> What >> is there a hole? No, there we got to take the carb off or Oh, watch this.

[00:06:12]I'll see if I can blast it through the carb.

[00:06:24]>> We still got half a wasp nest hiding under there.

[00:06:29]Oh. Oh no.

[00:06:45]Oh, is it on?

[00:06:55]>> Now you get slow, brother.

[00:06:57]>> Huh?

[00:07:02]All right, let's see if we have that work.

[00:07:19]>> It can't be touching.

[00:07:21]I don't think it'll spark.

[00:07:29]Yep. We got spark.

[00:07:30]>> We got spark.

[00:07:38]>> Yeah.

[00:07:40]>> This thing doesn't seem to have a lot of carbon. I'm not sure it ever ran.

[00:07:44]>> He said he would take it to tractor shows and the kids would sit on it and that's all they did.

[00:07:50]>> We assumed that meant it was running, but it may have just sat here.

[00:07:55]But we're going to get it running.

[00:08:02]How confident are you feeling?

[00:08:08]>> Not very.

[00:08:10]>> The carb definitely needs to be cleaned.

[00:08:13]>> We should probably just take it off and get that soap.

[00:08:26]This is the two boys, one engine action you've always wanted.

[00:08:33]One mini dozer.

[00:08:36]Would you stop getting in my way?

[00:08:46]Didn't someone comment once that they hated that we're just giggling and laughing so much?

[00:08:51]>> We're not allowed to have fun.

[00:08:55]>> Is this on? The camera's on.

[00:08:57]>> We got to give them every grabby little shot.

[00:09:01]>> That's 4K 30 fps. It's going to fill up my camera roll in like 10 seconds.

[00:09:08]We'll see what the carb looks like.

[00:09:13]How clean do you think it's going to be?

[00:09:15]>> Don't break it easy.

[00:09:18]I bet there's going to be some crust in there.

[00:09:21]>> I am feeling confident that it's going to be clean.

[00:09:27]Just like I said.

[00:09:30]>> What type of gas were they running?

[00:09:32]>> Looks like the great Sahara.

[00:09:35]It's like mold. This looks like a whole cross cleaner.

[00:09:42]Oh well.

[00:09:56]>> Well, we figured now is a good enough time as ever to go ahead and check our >> What are you wearing?

[00:10:05]>> A hat. I see gems back in your life.

[00:10:11]>> Oh, let's see if this thing has oil.

[00:10:14]And if it has oil, that's good enough for us.

[00:10:20]Oh, there's oil in there. It's black, but it's in there. Good enough.

[00:10:26]If you haven't noticed, we have some of the worst fuel jugs ever. We're uh currently working with tough jugs.

[00:10:35]Still can't pour a freaking fuel tank.

[00:10:38]But these are some beautiful jugs.

[00:10:41]>> Way better than our last jugs we've had our whole lives. Basically, >> holy smokes. How much are we dozing?

[00:10:50]You completely failed that game.

[00:10:56]>> It gazeman get ready to rumble.

[00:11:02]Open the >> It's choked.

[00:11:04]>> It's choked.

[00:11:06]All right. I'm going to let the fuel fill for a second.

[00:11:17]We can give her a little help off the line. Pass me that.

[00:11:26]There is no throttle hooked up, which is really interesting. And I'm not sure that the governor is >> governing >> governing the right direction.

[00:11:40]All right.

[00:11:45]Here we go.

[00:11:55]>> Keep cranking her.

[00:11:59]>> It's weird. It started without the carburetor. Yeah, this could be pushing it the wrong way. I guess this would be idle.

[00:12:16]Well, we can Which way is it? Which way's open all the way?

[00:12:19]>> That should be the idle stop. So, we want it open.

[00:12:22]>> Yeah.

[00:12:37]Come on, Betsy.

[00:12:50]Woo!

[00:12:59]Woohoo!

[00:13:12]Yeah, let's raise the buck to the scoop.

[00:13:22]Turn the idle down a bit.

[00:13:57]No way.

[00:14:04]There is no steering on this.

[00:14:14]scooting.

[00:14:15]>> I guess didn't like dirt.

[00:14:17]>> Let's see it.

[00:14:25]You broke it.

[00:14:35]All right, you're good.

[00:14:39]Go ahead.

[00:14:46]Lean forward.

[00:14:48]Whoa.

[00:14:54]What are you doing? There you go.

[00:15:19]That's what I'm talking about.

[00:15:29]Try to go backwards.

[00:15:38]Nice.

[00:15:55]It's heavy.

[00:15:58]Heat.

[00:16:20]Heat.

[00:16:24]Let's see why the nose Better give her the beans.

[00:17:05]>> Oh yeah.

[00:17:06]>> Look at that scraping action.

[00:17:21]And this is how you start your mini dozers.

[00:17:34]Increase the idle.

[00:17:39]Increase the idle.

[00:18:07]Yeah.

[00:18:10]Oh, >> it's going to take us a long time to flatten out your yard.

[00:18:15]>> It's stuck. I think because we can't control it, it's just digging in and getting stuck. But the engine's running pretty solid.

[00:18:24]>> I'm really starting to fall in love with this old girl.

[00:18:27]>> Going frontwards and backwards, popping wheelies.

[00:18:32]>> I never expected this thing to do wheelies.

[00:18:36]We completely lost spark basically right when we were about to test this thing out.

[00:18:41]>> How did they How did we get so much more dirt in here?

[00:18:45]>> That's probably a problem.

[00:18:49]>> Look at that.

[00:18:52]>> I thought you blasted that out.

[00:18:57]Apparently not.

[00:18:59]Weird.

[00:19:03]Yesterday, we got this thing to run for the first time in decades. We currently have no spark. So, today we're going to take apart the mag, try to fix this thing up so we can test it out.

[00:19:13]One bolt.

[00:19:16]Toss that right in the grass.

[00:19:22]Oh. Huh. Well, there's no backside to that one.

[00:19:25]>> That's easy to get to.

[00:19:34]No.

[00:19:34]>> No.

[00:19:43]>> The reason we're taking this off is cuz there's a whole bunch of chunks in there bouncing around and get Huh.

[00:20:10]There's a whole bunch of chunkies floating around in there. We're hoping that's causing some issues. We also got a new condenser on the way, so we should be able to fix it. Blast these chunks out of there. Get dozing into the sunset.

[00:20:28]Only in a straight line.

[00:20:48]We need to get that little inspection bolt out of there.

[00:20:53]I think it's welded in there.

[00:21:16]First try.

[00:21:18]>> Ready? Yep. Here we go.

[00:21:23]I didn't see anything. I don't see nothing.

[00:21:28]>> We just got a new condenser. It's not the right condenser, but we're hoping it does the trick for us.

[00:21:37]Installed. Let's test it out.

[00:21:39]>> Bigger condenser means bigger, juicier spark, right?

[00:21:42]>> That's what they say.

[00:21:48]Crank away.

[00:21:52]>> Huh. A lot of nothing.

[00:21:56]I'm not confident in our this wire still. How did we make so much backwards progress?

[00:22:07]>> Ready?

[00:22:08]>> Mhm.

[00:22:32]We have nothing.

[00:22:34]>> Here we go.

[00:22:39]>> Nothing.

[00:22:39]>> Oh, it didn't sound like it did anything.

[00:22:45]Well, we're thinking we're back in business.

[00:22:47]>> We found the elusive spark.

[00:22:49]>> The reason we didn't have spark was because we're using modern spark plugs that had a internal resistor. We got a better one in here now.

[00:22:59]>> Crank away.

[00:23:00]>> And we're thinking it's going to go >> right. You told me it would go.

[00:23:12]You sure seemed real confident a minute ago. You guys didn't hear anything.

[00:23:26]>> All right, we're back in business. This thing is a real pain to pull over.

[00:23:33]>> I second that. You get one shot and when it's not running well cuz whoever fixed this thing.

[00:23:50]All right, you're up.

[00:24:00]>> What's going on?

[00:24:01]>> See, it's still not running. spark plug is dry. So, we're wondering if more of that mud is on the intake valve or we don't really know. We're going to keep digging in, taking it apart, doing the same thing over and over again. We're promise we're not trying to make this take this long. This is equally as painful for us.

[00:24:24]Well, we spent somewhere somewhere around five hours tinkering on this thing trying to get spark and we're in the exact same position and uh yeah, we have basically accomplished nothing.

[00:24:37]>> We get spark, we lose spark.

[00:24:39]>> We don't know if we have good compression. Our head gasket's bad. So, we're going to take off the head. We're going to put a helic coil on because we might be losing compression from the spark plug. And that's it. That's our last dish ever before we engine swap this thing.

[00:24:59]Maybe perfect. Nice straight cut.

[00:25:16]This tap is going surprisingly well so far.

[00:25:22]How confident are you that this will fix all our problems?

[00:25:27]>> Huh?

[00:25:29]It needed to be fixed at some point though.

[00:25:31]>> Yeah.

[00:25:37]>> The tap and angle you wanted to see.

[00:25:39]What are we in? A little old project.

[00:25:44]Say a prayer. We got our whole rethreaded.

[00:25:50]Wow. Oh, it's threading in there. Nice.

[00:25:52]>> It's actually tight, huh?

[00:25:58]>> There's a chance the solution that's been sitting in the garage all day is what solves all of our life problems.

[00:26:06]Hopefully.

[00:26:26]What?

[00:26:52]Oh yeah.

[00:27:08]Huh?

[00:27:09]>> We're tailing.

[00:27:11]>> We're not tilling.

[00:27:13]>> We're scraping.

[00:27:14]>> Why'd you stop it?

[00:27:16]>> I was going towards the power box.

[00:27:35]You better not mess up my lawn.

[00:27:48]>> Send it.

[00:27:51]It's hooked up.

[00:27:54]>> Send it.

[00:28:31]We're going on the concrete.

[00:28:59]Oh, nice.

[00:29:09]All right.

[00:29:19]Are you trying to go up?

[00:30:00]Oh yeah.

[00:30:15]Oh, heat.

[00:30:52]Heat.

[00:31:01]Heat.

[00:31:28]Heat. Heat.

[00:32:04]Heat.

[00:32:05]Don't kill him back there.

[00:32:08]>> Oh no.

[00:32:11]>> Scooting.

[00:32:13]We lost the piece.

[00:32:14]>> Oh no. Well, that's going to freaking do it for this little chungus. The world's smallest dozer is fixed for now. We had a lot of trials and tribulations. Wasted a lot of time doing a bunch of nonsense, but we got her running and scooting around the yard. Thanks for watching. If you like these videos, go check out our merch. Make sure you're following us.

[00:32:36]>> Love you guys. Bye >> bye.