TRACTOR TALK
1949 SHEPPARD SD-2
BY JIM ALLEN
This 1949 Sheppard SD-2 belongs to Wendell Kelch, the well known tractor collector and restorer in Southwestern Ohio. It’s a very early production unit and Kelch thinks it’s the second oldest Sheppard tractor still in existence and the oldest SD-2. Wendell has one of each of the Sheppard tractors and even a Farmall M with the Sheppard conversion. This SD-2 was built as a narrow front rowcrop tractor with both a rear live PTO and a belt pulley, as well as the optional lights. This SD-2 does not have an hour meter but Kelch had the engine apart to replace a wrist pin and says it looks like a low-time engine.
With this, we will have covered three of the four Sheppard tractor models built from 1949 to 1956. We covered the SD-3 in the March 2016 issue. The super low production SD-1 was presented in the October 2020 issue and here is the SD -2. Once we find an SD -4, we’ll hit you with that one to complete Sheppard’s history building tractors.
ENGINE BUILDER BY TRADE
We won’t cover the entire Sheppard story again. You can read the details in earlier stories on the SD -1 and SD-3 online at the links below. Just to overview it, Richard Sheppard designed and began manufacturing diesel engines starting in 1937 and was soon manufacturing engines from 5 to 100 horsepower with one to six cylinders. They were mainly intended as stationary or marine engines but R.H. Sheppard Company was happy to sell engines for any purpose and they were adaptable to most anything you could imagine.