Mechanic’s interest turns from cars to old tractors
ELLETTSVILLE — Some of you reading this column know Chris Kleindorfer, a man who for 35 years repaired vehicles of all kinds at his no-frills shop in a refurbished hog barn west of Bloomington near Whitehall.
Trusted auto mechanics, they are hard to find. Kleindorfer had no need to advertise. Customers found their way to this middle-of-nowhere establishment, willing to travel miles for reliable and affordable service. Over the decades, they kept coming back.
I remember my son following me way out to Kleindorfer’s Garage to drop off my car one day. “How far is it?”
“Not far … close to Owen County.” A road trip.
When I visited a few years later in the spring of 2018, it wasn’t for a car repair, but to talk to Kleindorfer about his impending retirement. He spent most of the interview hovering over the engine in a Ford Taurus
Notable quotes were few; the man was busy. I stepped back and observed.
“A carburetor he pulled from his 1976 Wheel Horse tractor lays on the desk,” I wrote seven year ago. “In retirement, he intends to spend time with his grandchildren and focus on restoring his vintage tractors, instead of fixing everyone else’s vehicles.”
The afternoon of Sept. 16, I drove out to his home near Ellettsville to see if he is living that retirement dream.
He is. Kleindorfer and his wife Donna, who worked with him as the business’s bookkeepper, bragged on the five grandkids, including twins born soon after Kleindorfer retired.
And there parked in the shade were three prized vintage tractors Kleindorfer has purchased and restored over the past few years: a 1949 Farmall, a 1950 Ford and a 1955 Ford.
I peered into a nearby garage and saw several others. They all run, their mechanic owner said.
1949 Farmall Cub
Kleindorfer bought this tractor, in not very good condition, soon after he retired. It had been sitting 14 years in the barn of a car customer. “I told her I was looking for a Cub and she said they had one her grandfather bought new. But she was pretty sure her mom would never sell it.”
He was surprised when the woman called the next day. “She said her mom didn’t care anything at all about that tractor.” Kleindorfer bought it, fixed it up and drove it in a few parades.
1950 Ford Model 8N
Donna Kleindorfer was picking green beans at a friend’s one day in 2023 when she noticed two very old tractors that were bound for the scrap yard.
“Against my better judgment,” she said, a few pictures were taken. When she showed her husband the photos, she knew the tractors — a weed-hidden John Deere and a dilapidated Ford — would soon join the collection.
“I bought ’em both,” Chris Kleindorfer said. He intended the 1950 Ford to be a parts tractor, but after working on the transmission, starter, distributor, carburetor and other things only a mechanic can fix, the engine fired up.
“Blue smoke poured out like a train,” he recalled. So he rebuilt the engine, broke the clutch apart from the flywheel and performed other magic. Painted and shiny, it pulled his church’s float in this month’s Fall Festival Parade in Ellettsville.
1955 Ford 800
When one of his garage customers told Kleindorfer an appraiser was pricing his father-in-law’s Greene County farm equipment, he went out to see a 1955 Ford tractor. “He said if I put in gas and a battery, it would run.”
It did, and Kleindorfer bought the tractor for $500. It had been well cared for and used in recent years, so it’s being put to work hauling wood and downed trees at his place this fall season.
In this garage, no cars
One of the four full-sized vintage tractors inside the Kleindorfers’ extra garage belonged to Wally Myers’ dad. Myers wanted Kleindorfer to have the big blue 1974 Ford 2000 “because he knew I’d work on it and take care of it.”
Retirement and tinkering with his tractors suit Kleindorfer, who never got around to getting a cellphone during his working days.
He still doesn’t have one.
Have a story to tell about a car or truck? Contact My Favorite Ride reporter Laura Lane at [email protected] or 812-318-5967.
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