Kieffer Steiger 

The Kieffer family is very well known around the Casselton, North Dakota area.  Peter Kieffer was an exceptionally talented, naturally gifted mechanic and engineer.  He built his own four-wheel-drive tractor, the Blue Ox, when he was only 22 years old.  While building the Blue Ox, he became good friends with Douglass and Maurice Steiger, and he had a great deal of respect for them and their engineering abilities, and they felt the same way about him.  Peter farmed and also operated a custom earth moving business.  After he built the Blue Ox, he also built a large elevating-style dirt scraper, which he pulled with a crawler tractor.  The Steiger brothers had just begun producing tractors for sale at this time, and the three men decided to work together on a venture that would combine Peter’s scraper with a Steiger tractor.  Douglass and Maurice sold Peter a new model 1700, serial number 107, which Peter used as the power source for a new scraper that he built specifically for this tractor.  The scraper was identified as the Steiger 4E-14.  It is a fully hydraulically controlled elevating-type scraper with a 14-cubic-yard capacity.  The tractor and scraper combination was demonstrated to the road contractor that was building Interstate 29 near Grand Forks, North Dakota.  The combination easily outworked the equipment that was being used by the construction company, but for whatever reason, a deal could not be made.  The decision was then made to abandon the scraper project entirely.  Peter used this tractor for a few years before selling it to his brother Leo for use in his farming operation.

Leo Kieffer operated this Steiger for several years until a broken fan belt during some nighttime field work caused the engine to severely overheat, resulting in some damage to the engine.  Leo always loved Mack trucks, and he felt that a 6-cylinder Mack engine would be the perfect power plant for a tractor.  They have tremendous lugging power at lower RPM, unlike the original two-stroke Detroit Diesel, which needs to be kept at very high RPM to produce power.  He also disliked the noise that the Detroit made.  They can be fun to listen to for short periods, but hours of continuous operation can lead to a major headache, let alone the permanent hearing loss.

Leo had considered purchasing a different tractor, but he decided to put a Mack engine in this Steiger, as he knew it would make an exceptional farm tractor engine.  He found a nearly new engine from a wrecked truck in Nebraska, and he proceeded to install it in the Steiger.  He also replaced the transmission, but he couldn’t use the Mack transmission because the case is very deep, and it interfered with the front differential.  He found an Eaton Fuller 905, 5-speed transmission which was more compact and fit perfectly.  The front of the frame had to be extended by about two feet to accommodate the added length of the inline six-cylinder engine.  He also wanted a larger radiator for added cooling.  The Mack radiator was wider and taller, so Peter and Leo fabricated a new grille that resembled that of a later-model Steiger tractor.  The Mack radiator also allowed for a driveshaft to be used from the front of the crankshaft to operate a hydraulic pump.  The original Detroit engine used belt-driven hydraulic pumps for implement and steering control.  Leo said that Peter had a belt break once while driving down the road and lost all steering control, and he didn’t want that to happen again.  The original Steiger-built transfer case had overheating issues, so Leo also added a small hydraulic pump to the rear output shaft to circulate oil to an oil cooler mounted in front of the radiator.  This pump also allowed for the installation of a filter on the transfercase.

This Steiger 1700 was built as a cabless tractor.  When Leo did the engine conversion, he decided that he wanted a cab for protection from the elements.  He found an authentic Steiger cab at Fargo Iron and Metal, a scrap yard in Fargo, North Dakota.  This cab came from the nearby Steiger factory where it had been used for rollover testing on a Bearcat model.  It was in pretty bad shape, as you can imagine.  Leo brought it home and mounted it to the large I-beam workbench in Peter’s shop and used several hydraulic jacks to push it straight.  When he got it to where it looked right, he mounted it atop the tractor and had all new glass installed.

Originally, the tractor was equipped with single 23.1×26 tires, but dual tires provide more flotation in soft ground, so he added some 16.9×34 tires for duals, as they are close in diameter to the inside tires.  A fair amount of work went into making these different-size rims match up, but the results look factory.

After several more years of use, Leo finally bought a different tractor to use and put the Steiger up for sale.  His ad was answered by two brothers from Luverne, North Dakota, Norman and Harold Pross.  Norman was a well-known tractor collector, and his name appears on several tractors at WMSTR.  Norman and Harold used this tractor on their farm for several years until it was parked in the early 1990’s due to a noise that had developed in the transfercase.

I (Jesse Henderson) live near Casselton and the Kieffer family, but I was raised on a farm near the Pross brother's farm.  My brother Aaron still resides on the family farm, and in 2018, Aaron and I decided to visit Harold Pross.  Harold asked if we would be interested in buying his old Steiger, and of course we couldn't say no.  It didn't take much to get it running, though we did have to obtain some gears and bearings to rebuild the transfercase.  My first thought was to find another 6V-53 Detroit and return it to original condition.  However, after visiting more with the Kieffer family, and especially after getting it running, we decided to keep it in its current modified form.  It has a lot of history the way it is, and it would be a shame to erase that.  I love homemade tractors and the ingenuity of farmers that took it upon themselves to build or modify a machine to suit their needs.  I feel that this tractor falls into that same category, and I feel truly honored to carry on its legacy.

An attempt was made to reconnect the scraper to the 1700, but we discovered that the mounting lugs connecting the scraper neck to the tractor's center hinge had been removed, and some fabrication would have been required to reattach them.  Time did not allow us to complete the project in time for this year's Steiger feature.