Tractor refurbishing :-)

[mjnurney]

As some of you may know , my brother has bought a farm and some machinery to go with it, one delightful purchase is a 1954 fordson major tractor.

now it does appear to of been dug out of a peat bog but thats just the result of 60 years outside in the rain.

However after buying the old girl and driving it ten miles down country lanes back to the farm it was clear that all is not well. The radiator leaked more water than the titanic and the brakes had almost seized on fully, the sight of the ford going at 10mph with gallons of water escaping from a corroded radiator and smoke bellowing from the brakes was indeed a joy on a summers eve.

Anyway , the old girl worked all summer , cutting , hay making and drilling post holes but it was pretty obvious that serious issues were waiting around the corner.
So i bought the tractor a new (recon) radiator and under full pressure we can see that the block / head was leaking and worse the water from the water jacket was being forced in to the oil.

So we stripped the engine and well... its dead jim

The block is cracked completely (early blocks are weak) and the crank is worn , one piston is picking up and the block is corroded so badly it is leaking water around the throttle shaft.

So what to do...

Fit a 6 litre, 6 cylinder low milage former boat engine ... obvious really.

more details and tractor diary on the way as the build continues

 

[User1301]

Seeing the pics on FB Mike - looking great! Can't wait to see pics of it up and running!

John

 

[mjnurney]

mammoth task and so heavy!

ive fabricated new extended side chassis rails. i need to make the steering , axle and throttle extensions next

 

[Orcish75]

You gotta get her running like this baby..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yHl24QynOM

 

[mjnurney]

Good fun but not much use getting the hay in

 

[r0jaws]

That's a helluva job you've taken on there. It's nearly 60 years old! But then living in a heavily agricultural part of the country myself I have been surprised by seeing tractors as old as this still working out in the Lincolnshire fields. A good friend of mine has also taken over a farm down in Essex quite recently after leaving the RAF and one of his barns is full of old equipment, some of which is still working and being used.
But seeing how much a tractor costs, I'm not surprised they get some good use out of them!

 

[-Acid-]

Now that's really what I call retro lol looks like it should be in a museum but a little piece of my heart loves the fact it can still work more than 50 year later and someone is willing to keep it going too

 

[80sFREAK]

Nice

Can i join your club? Just i'm on a small scale, so using two wheelers.

 

[hooverphonique]

you just happened to come across an engine that fits the bellhousing? or is that semi standardized?

 

[DonutKing]

My grandfather passed away earlier this year but he loved restoring old tractors.

He had two Fordson F's with a crawler conversion - apparently these are quite rare, at least in Australia, supposedly only a handful of the crawler conversion kits were sold here.
He also had a Caterpilar Twenty-Two crawler and a Howard DH22 which he restored to mint condition. Plus a few others I'm not sure about.
He had quite a few stationary engines as well, of the old 'hit and miss' type.

Sadly, since he passed away they are just sitting in the shed and we aren't sure what to do with them. We'd like to keep them but storing them will eventually become an issue, and they aren't really very practical to actually use (Trying to cold start a crank-start tractor is not very fun at all).

 

[moijk]

Reminded me of this

[m]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vntuRUC-DdE[/m]

 

[cosmicfrog]

Fit a 6 litre, 6 cylinder low milage former boat engine ... obvious really.

thats dam right

 

[mjnurney]

Okay next update.

The engine now fitted is a d series 1960s ford six cylinder which as luck would have it, is a like for like fit on the fordson bell housing. The only issue is that the sump is a different shape and the holes no longer line up but as it's an Ali sump anyway this isn't much of an issue.

So after many hours of fabricating , drilling and welding we have made the following parts , 2 chassis rails , from x member , extended steering arm , front axle pivot mounting.

The chassis rails are a pig to locate and line up properly , we had 3 goes at this and it still isn't perfect but it's pretty close. The x member under the engine was interesting to make as it required some angles and good guessing to get right but we did it. Now the front pivot on the axle which can be seen in the video required some heavy gauge fabrication and welding as most of the engine weight is on this and of course the steering but as you can see after 12 hrs of welding we called it a night as it was dark and about 3 degrees ...

But the next morning we fitted the new radiator and my bro drove it out of the barn for the first time in 2 months...

Lots to do yet... After this video he lined to the chassis rails again and adjusted the engine height on the x member. I need to repair the cowl and bonnet next and get some tidying of the bodywork done...

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ezgHWufB3AI

Mike

 

[dougal]

Cool

 

[roy_bates]

is it going to have a respray after the work is done mike?

 

[ShambleS1980]

i love these old things lol.
they are suprisingly resiliant if you think of the life they have.
one of my faves was a single cylinder diesel dumper,
rear wheel steering made for fun days put it in to second gear 1ce breiefly, but as it only had a hand break that worked and you would occasionaly dump the bed out when you used because of the possitioning of the levers, i didnt really try it much.

its amazing how much faster they feel when you are in the things than they seem when you are driving behind one on the road lol.

Hope you get it up and running for a nice low cost.

 

[Merlin]

That's a proper man toy! Love it!