Ford(Thomas) CL55

New to the site since I just found a Ford CL55 (Thomas) that has not run in a while. After a time in the shop and going through a major service it is now running real nice. The little Shibaura does not like water! A couple of questions: 1. The front quick tach I find out is not the newer standard. Whose adapter would you get-Hayspear,Berlon,Worksaver, etc.. I have looked at most of them and my head is spinning. welding and fab is no problem so any thoughts would help. 2. Which Thomas model is close to the CL55 besides the engine? 3. Where can I get 6 lug wheels? 2 of them are pretty beat. Besides getting water out of all the systems I resealed all 4 axles and chain cases so with a updated front quick-tach it should make a pretty good unit.

Welcome to the Forum. The Thomas T173 sure looks a lot like your CL55 and the specs match up pretty close as well. The only thing that is puzzling is there does not appear to be any over lap in the years produced. Are you sure about the 6 lug wheels? All of the CL55's I have seen have 8 lug wheels. With respect to your quick attach options, I think that price and availability (i.e. shipping) would be my determining factors. It looks like no matter which manufacturer you go with, there is going to be some modification / fabrication required. Good luck with your purchase, sounds like you have a dandy machine. HTH FWIW

SkidRoe said:

Welcome to the Forum. The Thomas T173 sure looks a lot like your CL55 and the specs match up pretty close as well. The only thing that is puzzling is there does not appear to be any over lap in the years produced. Are you sure about the 6 lug wheels? All of the CL55's I have seen have 8 lug wheels. With respect to your quick attach options, I think that price and availability (i.e. shipping) would be my determining factors. It looks like no matter which manufacturer you go with, there is going to be some modification / fabrication required. Good luck with your purchase, sounds like you have a dandy machine. HTH FWIW

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Skidroe, Thanks for the welcome. I looked in the parts book and it shows/says the axle could be 6 or 8 stud. I assume my CL55 is an early one because the seriel # is 110 so maybe the later models got updated to the 8 stud. The book does not mention when but other sections show a lot of serial number breaks. Can you mention where you got the specs on the T173, as I would like to see them. I did call Thomas and they said it was very similar except they used Kubota engines and they put the Shibaura's in the Ford labeled units. I changed 2 of the tires and both rims have orange paint on them under the Ford yellow and they had a hand written "173" on the inside along with all the Firestone stampings. Any info is greatly appreciated.

ejb17 said:

Skidroe, Thanks for the welcome. I looked in the parts book and it shows/says the axle could be 6 or 8 stud. I assume my CL55 is an early one because the seriel # is 110 so maybe the later models got updated to the 8 stud. The book does not mention when but other sections show a lot of serial number breaks. Can you mention where you got the specs on the T173, as I would like to see them. I did call Thomas and they said it was very similar except they used Kubota engines and they put the Shibaura's in the Ford labeled units. I changed 2 of the tires and both rims have orange paint on them under the Ford yellow and they had a hand written "173" on the inside along with all the Firestone stampings. Any info is greatly appreciated.

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My resource of choice is diggerdata.com, there is not a lot of data there but some.