Written by Larry Gay The early farm tractors were powered by
engines that burned gasoline. As automobiles became popular, the
price of gasoline increased and the tractor manufacturers
redesigned their engines to burn the lower-cost kerosene. By the
late 1920s, distillate began to replace kerosene as the low-cost
fuel for tractors. Gasoline was required to start the kerosene
and distillate engines. The first diesel engines in farm wheel
tractors appeared in the mid-1930s. In 1941, Minneapolis-Moline
introduced a liquefied petroleum gas (LP-gas) engine for its
model U series tractors. The 4-cylinder, 283-cubic-inch LP-gas
engine with a rated speed of 1,275 rpm was built with the same
4.25-inch bore and 5.00-inch stroke as the gasoline engine.
However, the compression ration was 6.8 to 1, instead of 5.4 to
1 for the gasoline engine. The Minneapolis-Moline engines were
unique with the cylinders and heads cast in pairs and attached
to the crankcase by studs. The Minneapolis-Moline U was the
company’s largest row-c