OLIVER POWER UNITS

Like most Tractor manufacturers, the Oliver Corporation looked for other venues in which to sell diesel engines.

- JIM ALLEN

One that kept them pretty close to their agricultural roots were power units. Power units had many uses in industry and agriculture. Primary uses were to run generators, pumps, sawmills, concrete mixers, conveyers, balers, air compressors, hammer mills, hoists, winches... anything that needed power where there was no electricity. They could be adapted to pieces of towed equipment, such as pull-behind combines and to self-powered equipment like surface compactors.

Oliver started producing diesel power units in 1950 and offered them with their full range of engines; gasoline, LPG and diesel. When they debuted, the primary line of Oliver tractors included the 66, 77, 88 and 99 so the power units corresponded by mounting the engines available in those tractors. To designate them, a “1” was added, so the 166 Power Unit had the same engine as the 66 tractor, for example. Rating varied little and there a few tuning tweaks necessary to suit the application. Besides some standardized units, Oliver offered to custom design for specialized applications.