Mit dem Bremswagen nach Frankreich zum Tractor Pulling - Teil 2 - Floati...

Mit dem Bremswagen nach Frankreich zum Tractor Pulling - Teil 1 - Floati...

Lille Bjørn Pulling Team switches to John Deere

Some exciting news coming from the Lille Bjørn Pulling Team from Denmark today. The Lille Bjørn Pulling Team around Dieter and Lasse Bjørn from Hojer switching the brand of their tractor for the 2025 season. They are switching from the brand Ursus to John Deere next year. After the CDH Pulling Team from France has announced they are switching the brand on their limited super stock tractor called ''Warrior'' for the 2025 season, the Danish Team is the second team in Europe in the limited super stock class which is doing this step for next year. The reason for that switch from Ursus to John Deere was simple, but more about that later in the story.

The Lille Bjørn Pulling Team did the step into the limited super stock class after many years in the 4.5t farm stock/super sport class in 2019.

After the old 4.5t farm stock was sold (was an Ursus 1201 as well), the Lille Bjørn Pulling Team started to build the Limited Super Stock tractor in the winter of 2018/2019. With the support of Willem Veldhuizen of VSP from Loosdrecht in the Netherlands, the Ursus 1201 component limited super stock was outright from the start successful. Alongside their campaign in the Danish Championship, they also competed in the Netherlands at the Dutch Championship round Putten in 2019. 

At the 2019 Beachpull in Putten, they shocked with their orange Polish alky burner tractor the whole Dutch competitors in both passes, especially in the final pull. 

In the final pull, they have beaten the second placed tractor, which the New Holland tractor called ''Moving Mountains'' was by over 14 1/2m. With that pass in the finals and the win in Putten, the Danish Team showed they are a real force to be reckoned with in the future. At the end of the 2019 season, they also won the Danish Championship in the limited super stock class at the end of the season. But already at that time, they had some trouble with the 8.3l 6 cylinder Ursus engine, especially with the bearings and the crankshaft. 

During the winter of 2019/2020, a new 6 cylinder Ursus engine was built with a displacement of 7.6l. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020/2021, they couldn't test the new engine very much, but on the couple of competitions that were held in Denmark, the engine ran very reliably compared to the old power plant with 8.3l displacement. 

During the winter of 2019/2020, a new 6 cylinder Ursus engine was built with a displacement of 7.6l. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020/2021, they couldn't test the new engine very much, but on the couple of competitions that were held in Denmark, the engine ran very reliably compared to the old power plant with 8.3l displacement. 

But after the pull in Sonsbeck in 2021, they went home with a hefty repair bill. In the finals, the engine kicked a rod out of the block. They won the competition there, but they had to build a new engine for the 2022 season. 

For the next 2 seasons from 2022-2023 the tractor then ran very well, and the team improved the engine further and also replaced the billet Holset HX82 turbocharger by a new billet turbocharger from Harts Diesel in the USA. The new billet turbocharger from Harts Diesel gave the engine more boost and more power.

In 2022, they won again the Danish Championship title for the second time and also competed at the Made's Powerweekend in the Netherlands where they finished in 6th place in an International limited super stock competition.

In 2023, they could defend their Danish Championship title from 2022, but they also signed Lille Bjørn in for the German Championship in 2023. The Danish Team competed at 3 of the 6 German Championship rounds and also won all these rounds and finished runner-up in the point standings. 

The Lillie Bjørn Team was also invited again in 2023 to the International competitions in Bernay, France, and Made in the Netherlands. In Bernay they could achieve the win in the class and in Made they finished in runner-up position in a very strong field of 15 competitors. 

After the great year in 2023, the Danes improved the Polish power plant further and also found more horsepower in the engine with the limited super stock tractor on the Dyno.

But at that time, nobody knew, that the engine should come to its limits in the 2024 season. 

At the first round of the Danish Championship in Visby, they won the competition against Old Smoky and Sonic, but also had their first major damage on the Ursus engine this year. At home in the workshop, the team found out they had a crankshaft bearing damage. That was already a big damage, but what would happen a week later would exceed everything again. On the next Championship round in the finals of Allingabro, the power plant blew apart spectacularly. The whole engine block was split in half, and almost all important and expensive parts of the engine were ready for the junkyard. 

Ultimately, they won the competition again, but it was a bitter victory due to the huge damage. After Allingabro, the Lille Bjørn Pulling Team had built up from the ground a completely new engine and returned to the pulling track just after 4 weeks. That new engine in the Ursus 1201 limited super stock was then tested for the first time in Made in the Netherlands. 

The freshly built power plant ran there not yet on maximum power, better said in a safe mode. But in the end, the work was rewarded with a 5th place. More importantly was, The Ursus alky burner stayed in one piece, and no damage was to be complained about.

But the luck should end again for the Lille Bjørn Pulling Team just one event later in Brande, Denmark in July 2024. After the first pass, everything looked very promising. The newly built engine ran well and had plenty of power, like in the old days before. But in the finals, unfortunately, everything came to a sad end.  At the beginning of the run in the finals, the tractor ran like in the qualifying run, but then between the 70 and 80m mark, the 6 cylinder alky burner engine blew up again and spread out a lot of internal parts on the track like pieces of pistons and rods.

After that, for the Team around Dieter and Lasse Bjørn, it was clear it didn't make any sense to continue in that way, because it was the second big engine damage this season.

The two major engine failures also cost them a lot of money and also made quite a hole in the team's annual budget.

So the only logical decision was to close Ursus chapter after all these costly damages.
But what was the real reason for the closure of the Ursus chapter by the Lille Bjørn Pulling Team?

Dieter Bjørn told us the problem was to find Ursus engine blocks for the tractor, because they are not so easy to find anymore. Another problem was, the Ursus engine block is very thin in wall thickness, especially in that part of the block where the camshaft runs (just 6 mm).
Dieter is sure that the power was simply too much for the engine block at the end. After completing the Ursus chapter, the team looked around which brand they could switch to. After some considerations and investigations by the Lille Bjørn Team between the brands Case IH and John Deere, they decided to switch to the John Deere brand. The reason for the switch to the brand with the jumping Deere on the hood was the good availability of parts. 

They also considered a switch to the big super stock class, but in the end, they wanted to stay in the limited super stock class. For the switch to John Deere, they will not build a completely new limited super stock. The old component chassis with the shortened semi truck rear axle and the gearbox from the old Ursus limited super stock will be used again for the new project. Due to the new hood and the new engine, they have made some small changes to the chassis. The rest of the chassis will stay the same.
The new John Deere limited super stock will receive a brand new John Deere 8R 340 hood. In terms of hoods, they had plenty of different options, but in the end the decided on a new hood of the current 8R Series. The guys of the Lille Bjørn Team have found this hood through a sponsor. In Denmark, it's currently the first pulling tractor which is equipped with this current 8R hood on the chassis. The original hood was in the back end a little bit shortened a and new side shields on the hood were made out off aluminum sheet metal by the team himself. The hood can later be opened electrically with a cylinder. Under the new John Deere 8R hood will roar a newly built turbocharged 6 cylinder John Deere engine with a displacement of 7.6l on alcohol fuel.

The engine is equipped with a John Deere 6076 engine block with new billet steel sleeves, new GMS billet aluminum rods and pistons, a new billet steel crankshaft from the Belgian company Nuyts, a billet camshaft, a revised John Deere 6076 cylinder head with better valves and valve springs by VSP (Veldhuizen Special Products), a new homemade intake and exhaust manifold and a billet Harts Diesel turbocharger. Components like the MSD ignition, the Aviaid oil pump, the VSP fuel pump, and the fuel system are taken over from the old Ursus engine. In terms of the engine, Willem Veldhuizen from the Netherlands will support the team again to get running the new John Deere alky burner engine properly in 2025.

Due to less competitors in the Danish Championship, the Lille Bjørn Pulling Team has planned to run with the new John Deere 8R 340 limited super stock tractor in the German Championship in 2025.

But they also have planned to run competitions in their home country Denmark and maybe on some more events outside of Denmark and Germany in 2025. The maiden run of the new Lille Bjørn is planned for the beginning of the 2025 season.