Tractor and Farming Heritage Magazine - Sample

WIN A fully restored B-275 Tractor OCTOBER 2013 www.tractormagazine.co.uk

AND FARMING HERITAGE MAGAZINE

3 steps to BLUE HEAVEN How John Bell turned work into pleasure

9 pAGEs oF pRACTICAL ADVICE ◆Buying a tractor ◆Dynamo rebuild ◆Ford 3000 brakes

CLAssIC

Tractors at work

CoNFEssIoNs

Of a tractor widow Layman’s Guide

Reader’s Resto

Working in the war

Field Marshalls – how to spot the difference Ferg-Rover conversion

No. 120

October 2013

£3.90

I Remember

YourTractors

Just rewards

McCormick International B-250

Just popping down the shed for a few minutes got to the stage where poor Ewart Ramsay’s wife must have thought he had left home, but all that effort reaped the award for Best International at the Border Vintage show.

Words & pictures Alan Barnes

The B-250 weighed in at 1550kg; its hydraulic system had a lift capacity of 1030kg with 540rpm on the PTO.

T

he annual vintage show organised by the Border Vintage Agricultural Association can always be relied upon to have on display a first class array of classic tractors ranging from those in ‘working clothes’ to showroom standard restorations. is year’s event held in May at the Springwood Park Showground in Kelso was no exception and there were some particularly fine examples of International tractors to be seen. e award for the Best International at the show went to a young man, Ewart Ramsay, who lives only a few miles from the showground where he proudly received his trophy.

He was brought up at Harden Mains Farm at Oxnam near Jedburgh where his father was the tractorman with a passion for all things International. e family moved when Ewart was 14, but only a few miles to the Scottish Border town of Kelso, where he recalls his passion for tractors really began.

Long search

In time he began to look for a suitable tractor, and it just had to be an International. In 2010 he saw an advert for an International B-250 and decided from the brief description that it was worth following up. “e tractor had been used for its entire working life on a farm in East Lothian and was then bought by Peter Miller from Paxton in the Scottish Borders in 2003,” he said. “It was still in running condition and he used it for many years at vintage ploughing matches until he put it up for sale at the beginning of 2010. I arranged to visit Peter to inspect the tractor and although it was certainly well used, it was complete and in running condition and I thought that it had the potential for a restoration project.

About the restorer

As far as Ewart is concerned farming and tractors are most definitely “in the blood”. when he left school he got a job working for Cameron Lowrie, a local fencing contractor, where he often drove a Fordson Super Major equipped with a post knocker. As he recalled: “Looking back it was probably that time working with the old Fordson when my interest in vintage and classic tractors really began.”

“ere were some rust patches showing through the front grille and the bonnet and side panels had a few dents but nothing major and this could all be repaired without too much trouble. e badges were still in place, the back end looked quite tidy and when started the engine sounded fine and so a price was agreed and the International was brought back home in February 2010. ➤ October2013Tractor

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FarmingHeritage

I remember, I remember...

John Blake, writer and retired farmer, shares his memories of tractors that came on to his father’s farm before and during the Second World War.

The farm’s Ferguson seen in action at a Young Farmer’s Club competition in 1948.

Words and pictures John Blake

I

was born before there was a BBC television programme and less than 10 years aer radio was being broadcast across the country. e main form of horse power on farms was, yes horses.

Tractors were few and not a single one was on rubber tyres.

New arrivals

A new Fordson tractor cost £140, but it was the beginning of the war before my father could afford a new one, but we did have two old ones on the farm. One was a Saunderson tractor bought new by my grandfather in 1917. It was used for all sorts of cultivations and had a belt drive on the side to drive a threshing machine. It also had a winch on the back to help move things around.

In 1920 grandfather moved to another farm 15 miles away. e cattle were driven on to a cattle wagon at a local station and taken to a goods yard a mile from the new farm and driven along the road to it. A lot of the machinery was towed the 15 miles by the Saunderson tractor.

By the 1930s I can remember that although we still had the threshing machine, it was past its working life and contractors with a steam engine came in to thresh the stacks of corn. e Saunderson was becoming worn but was still used regularly for belt drive work to grind corn between two metal plates for the chickens on one machine, or the other machine was a very large roller mill to roll grain for the cattle.

War casualty

The Fordson had one major fault, however, the drive to the back axle was by worm drive. This meant that it could never be towed, because unless the tractor was driving the back wheels they would be locked solid.

We were farming only 16 miles from London and German planes dropped many bombs across the farm. The craters made by them were filled in but when my father ploughed over the top of one of them, the tractor sank down and it was impossible to rescue until the spring and the ground had dried out six months later.

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Our Fordson taken at a Young Farmer’s Club competition back in 1948. tractormagazine.co.uk

...but my memories of the tractor on our farm was of it being in a rusty condition like this.

This Saunderson was also at the Fayre in 2006...

My father had gone to a farm sale and one lot was for two roller mills; each had a small wheel and a large six foot cast iron roller wheel. Because they were so big and heavy he didn’t have to pay a lot for them. e first was installed in a farm building near our farmhouse. It was used to crush oats, peas and beans and worked well until a metal bolt accidentally went through it. ere was an enormous bang as the large cast iron roller smashed to pieces, a lot going up through the roof of the shed. e second roller mill was used far quicker than expected but lasted until we had electricity connected to the farm in 1948.

War effort

It was sold to a collector of old farm machinery as a museum piece. e Saunderson was sold at the beginning of the war in 1939 to be used for winching in woodland areas, where millions of trees from across the country were needed for use in the war effort.

In the 1930s I also remember the grey model F Fordson tractor that was made in 1928. It was made without mudguards and the iron wheels had strakes. My father was the main driver as he thought it too dangerous for the horsemen to handle. Although it was used for ploughing the bigger fields it was horses that ploughed the headlands and all the smaller fields.

A new Standard Model N Fordson tractor was bought soon aer the war started in 1939. It had spade lug wheels, half mudguards and was green in colour.

However, the spade lug wheels would be the cause of several problems.

We always had a lot of chickens, ducks and geese on the farm. Foxes were a constant problem and my father would go out and try and shoot them but the foxes disappeared when he did, and yet they would run alongside the tractor. So my father thought the best way to shoot foxes was to take his old hammer gun on the tractor.

He put the 12 bore gun on a sack on the axle of the Fordson and put two cartridges in it thinking it was safe because the hammers were in the safety forward position. As the ground was very hard the vibration made the gun jump off the axle. e butt hit the standing platform so hard it knocked the hammers back enough to fire both barrels up past my father. He wasn’t hurt but would never carry a gun on the tractor again. tractormagazine.co.uk

This Ivel, taken at the Bedfordshire Steam and Country Fayre in 2006, brought back many memories for me.

Farm blaze

e spade lug wheels and the vibration caused by them nearly burnt the farm down one year. We had sold a lorry load of large wire-tied bales of straw one June morning and were carting hay in the aernoon. As the Fordson drove across the loose straw le on the road that morning something burning fell off the exhaust manifold of the Fordson. My brother and myself saw the small fire in the middle of the road but before we could put it out it had swept across to the remaining stack of bales. It was now a job for the fire brigade. ey came very quickly but had trouble because of low water pressure. Although two stacks of straw and a trailer were burnt they managed to stop the fire only about a metre from the dutch barn already half full with hay. Each bale had to be pulled apart and sprayed with water. e last bale to be turned over burst into flames. e Standard Fordson had a very low sump below the engine that could be a killer or a life saver. I went out to drill a field of corn with it; there was one small wet patch that I had to drive across and the spiked wheels sank and spun with the tractor resting on the sump. ere was only one way to carry on, that was by placing a piece of wood under the wheel so that the tractor could li itself out.

Aer finding a suitable length of wood, I put the tractor in gear and jammed the wood in front of the wheel. e tractor lurched up

Farming memories We would like to hear about your farming memories, please write in to Tractor & Farming Heritage, Mortons Media, Media House, Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6JR or email editor@tractormagazine.co.uk

with the front wheels well off the ground before it moved forward. I had to quickly jump back on the tractor again now it was out of the hole. is was a dangerous thing to do and I know of one man being killed by doing the same thing.

Life saver

How could the sump be a life saver? My father sent a young man out ploughing with the Fordson alongside a deep ditch. All went well until late aernoon and he turned the tractor too close to the ditch. e front and back wheels one side slid over the bank and the tractor rocked on the edge of the ditch on the oil sump. It was a very shaken man that came back to the farm to tell my father what had happened.

By 1945 my father bought our first Ferguson petrol tractor and moved to a more modern era, but we still had the Standard Fordson now fitted with rubber tyres. In 1948 it was a new David Brown Cropmaster to add to the fleet, but that’s another story. ✦ October2013Tractor

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FarmingHeritage

Know your

Field Marshall

If you believe all Field Marshall tractors are the same, then you are very much mistaken. Stuart Gibbard visits Lincolnshire specialist, Robert H Crawford & Son, to discover the difference.

An anachronism or a great British icon? The Field Marshall is a tractor that divides opinion.

Words & pictures Stuart Gibbard

T

he Field Marshall is one of those tractors that divide opinion – you either love it or hate it. It was different from all the other British tractors with its single cylinder, two-stroke design. e concept was something of a novelty when it first appeared on the Marshall 15/30 in 1930, but by the 1950s it was regarded by many an old-fashioned design; arguably outclassed by the new breed of multi-cylinder diesel tractors coming on to the market.

Even the marque’s most ardent followers will openly admit that the Field Marshall was something of an anachronism. But this is what gives the tractor its appeal: it is a very individual machine, and it harks back to an era of great British tradition. In its time it was a tried and tested design that was simple and unfussy, rugged and reliable. e tractor offered unrivalled fuel economy, and was a firm favourite with the threshing contractors.

Transition

e famous Lincolnshire engineering firm Marshall, Sons & Co Ltd had been building steam engines at its Britannia Works in Gainsborough for more than half a century when it introduced its first tractor in 1904. ese ‘Colonial’ models for prairie farming came to an end during the First World War. During the 1920s, the company again turned its attention to tractors. Marshall took its inspiration from Lanz of Germany and began experimenting with two-stroke, compression ignition and semi-diesel designs. ➤

The inner workings of the single-cylinder Field Marshall engine are revealed in a sectionalised Series 3 tractor from Robert Crawford’s collection.

A Field Marshall Series 1 with a later domed Burgess oil-bath air cleaner. Note the cigar-shaped exhaust silencer and the protruding rear hubs. tractormagazine.co.uk

Lincolnshire collector, Tony Dickinson, puts his 1946 Field Marshall Mark 1 tractor to work with his Marshall 568 combine.

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Words Ben Phillips PICTUrEs Peter Phillips

Workshop

Forget the gloss it’s time to take a brake I

Stopping power is critical for your vintage tractor yet it’s too often overlooked... n every restoration everyone strives to get the paintwork right or the engine running sweetly, but essentially the most important area is the brakes. On most of the tractors that I have to restore almost inevitably I have to overhaul the braking system. ey are either worn out or the inner half seal has failed and it has doused the lot in oil. Most of the time it’s both. Here is how to go about doing the job on a Ford 3000.

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First you have to slacken the brake adjuster off, this is done with a big flat headed screwdriver inserted into the gap at 9 o’ clock on the brake back plate. e screw driver needs to be fitted into one of the slots on the adjuster and moved from end to end until it can’t be moved any more, if when the adjuster goes tight and the drum can’t be moved you’ve gone the wrong way, so go the other way; then you can begin.

Ben’s top tips

Be careful when stripping this assembly down to component parts as... a) careless use of the hammer can easily cause damage to the drum b) wear goggles and watch out when you try to remove some of the springs they can fly off

tractormagazine.co.uk

the brake adjuster off, fitting the 1 Slacken screwdriver into one of the slots on the

adjuster and moved from end to end until it can’t be moved any more. The drum needs to rotate freely.

the drum off remove the springs, the 4 With two blue ones at the front are very strong

these return the shoes when the brake pedal is pressed. Prise off with a screwdriver, taking care.

The plate can now be removed from behind 7 the brake return springs, this plate holds the

are no extraction holes on this drum, so 2 There with a good hammer you need to gently tap

the edge of the drum evenly all the way round – be careful, damage to the drum can easily be done.

The orange spring that keeps the end of the 5 shoes tight on the adjuster can come off next,

again a screwdriver to prise it off is the easiest way.

This one isn’t such a heavy duty spring so it’s easier.

this point the shoe now needs to be held in 8 At position with one hand while the adjuster can

you have a gap you can then gently prise 3 Once the drum away from the back plate. This can

be done with a screwdriver; again be very careful doing this procedure.

the springs that hold the shoes, grip 6 Remove the outer cup push in and turn half way to

release. Remove the parts, on each one (four in all) there should be two cups, one pin and one spring.

Here the shoes are soaked in oil due to the 9 seal failing around the half shaft; these are

shoes against the back plate.

then be removed.

generally fit for nothing other than the bin.

Now the bolts at the rear of the back plate 10 need removing in order to get at the oil seal.

brake rod now needs disconnecting, the 11 The split pin and clevis pin should be removed to

The half shaft should slide out be careful of 12 the brake rod that will drop out of the hole,

On the Ford it was a 7⁄8 af spanner. tractormagazine.co.uk

allow this to happen.

watch for the shims against the hub being loose.

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NextMonth

AND FARMING HERItAGE MAGAZINE

classic tale of the big blue ▲ Back in 1980 farmer Trevor Cooke replaced his main cultivations machine with the biggest wheeled tractor yet known in his part of East Anglia – a mighty Ford TW30.

Red or Dead

Nottinghamshire’s John Walker has an impressive collection of International Harvester crawlers, but was his latest ‘Red Peril’ addition to the family going to be a bridge too far?

ON SALE OctO B 8

ER

Massey-Harris 745

Like a good many vintage enthusiasts Keith Taylor’s interest in machinery came from his father, although in his day what we now regard as “classics” were just everyday working machines.

Plus Farmall F20 ■ Graham’s Grumbles ■ Practical Workshop ■ Jo Roberts ■ Tractor Widow ■ MF 158 ■ Northrop 5004 ■ Buying a tractor ■ Archives 106

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