Tractor & Farming Heritage December 2014

MAGNIFICENT MF 165 RESTORED DECEMBER 2014 www.tractormagazine.co.uk

Tractor DECEMBER 2014

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■ NUFFIELD UNIVERSAL ■ RENAULT 103 ■ JOHN DEERE GP ■ FIELD MARSHALL ■ FORDSON N ■ MF 165

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WORKING MUSEUM Keeps old ways alive

WIN A K-SEAL REPAIR KIT WORTH

£30

Reader’s Resto JOHN DEERE GP

TRACTOR OF THE DECADE

AT WORK

the power of three NUFFIELD UNIVERSALS ◆ marshall combines ◆ little casterton ◆ overtime in ireland

Fordson N Standard

CONTENTS

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Ce Tracteur magnifique

TRACTOR AND FARMING HERITAGE DECEMBER 2014

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Welcome

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News

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Tractor Talk

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All the latest news in the world of tractors and heritage.

Your news, views and comments about the vintage and classic scene.

Emyr the coalman

From coal loaders to American curiosities - Jo Roberts finds out how a father and son-owned collection has grown and evolved over the years.

Graham Hampstead ticks off an item on his bucket list, spending a delightful day as a judge at the Masham Sheep Fair.

Christmas gift guide

Ideas for the perfect gift for the tractor lover(s) in your family.

Preview of the January issue of your Tractor & Farming Heritage magazine.

138 Last Word

It’s getting to the point where Farmer Brown has got to confess he’s got obsessive compulsive ‘high visibility’ disorder.

YourTractors

COVER STORY

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12 COVER STORY

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Just when you think three-cylinder Nuffield tractors are becoming so rare, you go to an event where three turn up.

42 COVER STORY

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52 COVER STORY

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Show us yours

In our new feature, we invite you to send in your tractor snaps – you never know, you might win the prize we’ve got up for grabs.

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New Performance Super Major

It took some time, effort and expense, but Dave Taylor tells us how he finally managed to land the tractor of his childhood dreams.

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Reader’s Restoration

After 14 years, reader Harry Henderson thought he knew this John Deere GP well enough, but when it came to the restoration, little did he know…

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Back on the farm

Working Overtime

Billy Donegan from Co Limerick shows us around his unique collection of three Overtime tractors.

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SUBSCRIBE!

A future in the past

Old Hall Farm not only aims to retain lost and forgotten farming techniques, but also to keep them alive by offering courses from steam ploughing to tractor driving.

Free polo shirt

✦ see page 22 for further details

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Christmas memories

Tractor of the decade

1930s - Fordson N Standard. In the first of a new series, Ben Phillips nominates his own favourite tractor from each decade – see if you agree.

The good old days or what?

Home Farm diaries

December is a strange month down on the farm; there are really only two weeks in the month before the country goes on holiday.

Balance of power

Stuart Gibbard focuses on a Midwestern pioneer – the Avery 18-36 powered by a horizontally opposed ‘flat-four’ engine.

Tractor Archive

More heritage memories from the farming literature of yesteryear.

Marshall combine harvesters

We continue our story up to the point that the realisation dawns on the Marshall company that it would have to end its association with harvesting machinery.

Christmas presents from a time of lost innocence – children’s tractor and farming books and puzzles from the past.

For fans of vintage and veteran tractors and machinery in action, there is no better place to go than the Little Casterton Working Weekend.

Time for turbos

Like motorsport competitions, the introduction of the turbo In the 1970s and the 1980s was a significant step in the development of the farm tractor.

Club focus

Spotlighting the works and deeds of the many tractor clubs we look in on what the Ferguson Club has been getting up to…

Heritage

The Nuffield Three

COVER STORY

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Bucket list bliss

106 Next Month

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Workshop 86 COVER STORY

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Ce Tracteur magnifique

‘This magnificent tractor’ with French connections is one of the favourites that restorer Ben Phillips has done so far.

Silver soldering and brazing

Richard Lofting gives us some practical tips for brazing and soldering - essential metal joining techniques for a host of jobs around the workshop.

Marketplace 102 Sales & Marketplace

We travel around the auctions with Jo Roberts in our regular roundup.

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BAG A BArGAin in our TrACTor CLASSiFiEDS tractormagazine.co.uk

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Balance of power

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Overtime

TRACTORS FEATURED THIS ISSUE Avery 18-36.................................................64 Farmall A......................................................76 Farmall B ......................................................74 Farmall M.....................................................76 Field Marshall Series 1............................42 Fordson E1A...............................................74 Fordson E27N............................................42 Fordson E27N............................................76 Fordson N Standard ...............................52 International W6 ......................................74 John Deere GP...........................................32 John Deere Overtime.............................36 Marshall Combines .................................70 Massey Ferguson 165 ............................86 Massey Ferguson 175 ............................44 New Performance Super Major.........28 Nuffield............................................................6 Renault 103.12 ..........................................12

Having trouble finding a copy of this magazine?

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The Home Farm diaries

Win a K-Seal KiT

Why not Just Ask your local newsagent to reserve you a copy each month?

Page 137

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Saredon Hill Farm sale

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A future in the past

12

Time for turbos

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Emyr ‘the coalman’ tractormagazine.co.uk

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TractorNews There’s no sparing the horses for the Fordson team – but they still only just managed to match the mighty Scammell.

The Scammell Challenge

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t’s always been the aim of the organisers, to make St Mawgan Rally more than just a series of parades of vintage vehicles – they want them to do something a bit more entertaining, writes Dave Taylor.

Well, say the organisers, we think we’ve managed it with most things, but the commercial vehicles have always been a problem to us, Why? Well, it’s because they’re so diverse and, in most cases, big!

We had an idea – we’d tow something

across the ring with a Scammell. Well, that idea soon fizzled out because that’s what it was built for. We had to be more scientific.

We needed something to match it and show what it could do.

We looked at the specs – 200hp, six-speed gearbox, 6x6 drive and weighing about 12 tonnes.

Hmm – not much around to match that? en we had an idea – what about a tractor?

A Fordson Major is about 52hp, has a six-

speed gearbox, 4x2 drive and weighs about two tonnes. If we had six Fordson Majors, that would equate to 300hp, 12wd and about 12 tonnes gross weight. at should give him a run for his money!

Come the day of the rally and we finished up with six tractors – we were afraid of getting in a tangle with any more! We were up against the ex-tank carrier Scammell belonging to Phil Simmonds. e good news was, we pulled him but only just!

Welsh posse pull out all the stops for charity The Cymdeithas Hen Dractorau Dyffryn Clwyd, a vintage tractor club based in Clwyd, North Wales, enjoyed a successful tractor road run on June 21 and collected £2050 for the Cancer Treatment Centre, Ward 4, Ysbyty Glan Clwyd Hospital. The cheque for £2050 was presented to Iona Davies, head ward housekeeper and Haydn Edwards a staff member

by Mr and Mrs Gwynfor Roberts.

We want your news and views

Write to us at Tractor, Mortons Media Ltd, PO Box 43, Horncastle, Lincs LN9 6LZ or email news@tractormagazine.co.uk

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Snippets Making tracks for charity

The Massey Ferguson 175 basks in the sun at Ufton Green Farm, Ufton Nervet, Reading, having sold for £3550.

Being driven away, the Ford 7810 III, which sold for £8300 caused a lot of interest.

Vintage tractors draw attention

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mong the lots, great interest was generated in the vintage tractors at this Uon Nervet farm dispersal sale (September 17) on the instructions of David Hayes, which was undertaken by imbleby & Shorland, writes Peter Hammond.

Aer despatching a New Holland BB940R baler to an internet bidder for £7200, auctioneer Chris Boreham turned his attention to David’s line of tractors, with two Massey Ferguson 135s which both moved quickly to a successful £3600. Successful as it was, the £3550 telephone bid on the Massey 175 with Cameron Gardner fore loader brought forth the observation from Chris as to where the tractor prices were landing.

A County 954 offered with a quantity of parts including a spare back end, looked as though it was heading in the same direction, as bidding quickly rose to that £3600 mark, but a moment’s respite saw the £50 increments kick in to see it take £3900. With the spell well and truly broken, a 1984 Kubota KH28L digger stormed through to £4000 a fresh bidder stepping forward at the very last moment to take it to a winning £4100.

With heads under the bonnet, faults on the circa 1990

Detailed differences separated the two Massey Ferguson 135s that each saw £3600.

Ford 7810 III 4WD with a recorded 6000 hours, had been diagnosed by potential buyers and it made £8300. Of more recent build, a 2004 New Holland TS100A with Trima loader saw £18,550 and a 2008 T6030 found £24,000.

Having reached £3150, Chris had his work cut out to cajole the bids on a circa 1983 Ford 7610 2wd with ‘H’ pattern gears, but eventually a winning bid of £4150 saw the gavel fall. e comment came from one potential buyer that the two Ferguson tractors included with permission would make an interesting project for someone.

Our local young collector from earlier seemingly in agreement, his valuation however was not as high as others, the result seeing the TEF-20 diesel take £500, with

Track’s Charity Ploughing event (October 12) raised a record £1951.92 for the day.

This was the seventh year of the event and over the years £9886.28 has been raised, which has all gone to the Big C Centre at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital.

There was a fine variation of vintage crawlers and steel wheel tractors on the day at North Elmham.There were three Allis-Chalmers Model Ms, five Track Marshalls (Models 50s, 55s, 70), one Fowler 440, three CAT D4s, two CAT D2s, one Bristol 24, three David Brown, three OTD, two SOTD, six Internationals, two T6, three T06, T08, TD14, TD20, one Allis Model U steel wheel, and one International Harvester on steels. The date for next year’s event has already been set for October 11, 2015.

Classic set for Somerset

For £550 this TEA 20 was considered as making an interesting project for someone. the TEA-20 petrol variant finding £550 on i-bidder.com Two to go, late entries both that saw a circa 1976 Massey Ferguson 165 quickly take a £3100 bid and a Ford 3600 which Chris indicated he was here to sell, and that’s what he did as it found £1850 with the gavel finally going down.

Things are progressing well for the Somerset Vintage & Classic Tractor Show early next year. The special feature will be David Brown tractors at the Royal Bath & West Showground for the event which takes place from January 31-February 1.

For further information visit www.somersettractorshow.com or tel: 01749 860514.

Funds keep flooding in Well done to the organisers of the Lineside Vintage Working Weekend near Boston, Lincs who raised £1546.43 to present to the Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire Air Ambulance, from their event which took place in early October.

SUBSCRIBE!

Free polo shirt Sold for £3900 and the County 954 was offered with numerous spares including a back end. tractormagazine.co.uk

This Massey Ferguson 165 was a late entry to the sale and made £3100.

✦ see page 22 for further details

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YourTractors Work on the GP was finished just in time to go and pull Robert Self’s John Deere trailed pick-up press at the 2013 Little Casterton Working Weekend. Photo Noel Bridgeman

Reader’s restoration

Getting under the skin

How wrong can you be? After 14 years, reader Harry Henderson thought he knew this John Deere GP well enough on the surface of it, but when it came to the restoration, little did he know…

WORDS & PICTURES Harry Henderson, unless stated

T

here was a time when I spent every Sunday at the Toddington Manor Collection. From the early 1990s to the final sale in 2010, I would be there working alongside Sir Neville BowmanShaw on something, most likely two-cylinder.

It was in 1996 that John Stephenson of Market Weighton brought a John Deere for Sir Neville to look at. “You might as well unload it,” he said, and the unrestored GP was pushed into place among the other Deeres in the collection and in the queue for restoration.

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Years slipped by and the GP got overlooked again and again, until the time came for the final sale and it was towed out of its resting place of 14 years. Having worked on so many two-cylinder John Deeres, I fancied owning my own, and being partial to unpainted, original tractors I reckoned this was the one. A couple of bids later the gavel came down in my favour.

Never assume...

I thought I knew as much as I could know about the condition of the tractor. It held water, so no frost cracks; it had oil pressure as soon as the engine was turned and it had

reasonable compression. e clutch felt in order, as did the gearbox, and the brakes worked aer a fashion. I thought a change of fluids, a thorough service and we’d be away.

How wrong could I be?

I got the tractor home and was tempted to try and start it. But experience told me otherwise and I thought it best to just remove the crankcase cover and have a look inside first. Everything looked fine until I focused on the cranksha timing gear. I grabbed a torch and looked again. I could see that all of the teeth were more than 50% worn away, worse still on some parts of the gear. is was going to be a bigger job than I thought. tractormagazine.co.uk

Before you know it, my poor GP looks like this – it was not intended to.

Wheel find

e tractor sat on ‘cut-off rubbers’, the original steel wheels had been reworked with pneumatic rims fitted all round, a very common practice in the US. I wanted to plough with this tractor and it wasn’t possible with the current tyres, as the rear wheels were set wider than the fronts.

I decided to return it to all steel wheels and started enquiries for a full set of steels. It soon emerged that GPs are enjoying a surge in popularity in the US and while most GPs were converted to rubber, most restorers were also looking to return their GPs to steel wheels, making a full set hard to come by.

But aer two years searching, a stroke of luck. A long term GP collector was selling up in the States. ere was a set of steel wheels in the auction and a phone call with the auctioneer secured a ‘good bid’ on a full set…

I was the under bidder. However, the auctioneer told me that a tractor with a full set of wheels had been purchased by a two cylinder John Deere parts business. A call to those guys confirmed they had the tractor and they’d not had a chance to advertise the fact. No need, a deal was done on the wheels, they were coming to Lincolnshire.

Back to the engine, the cranksha removed revealed the wear on the timing gear. It had to be a new gear, or as close as. e camsha gear had not suffered the same fate and was perfectly usable.

I signed up to the John Deere parts website and with GP parts book at hand, started punching in part numbers. Unsurprisingly, the crank timing gear was not available, but it is surprising what is still available for an 84year-old tractor, sent to a local John Deere dealer within the week in most cases.

Special delivery The John Deere GP as it was in the Toddington Manor collection where it sat for 14 years. tractormagazine.co.uk

oughts of getting a gear made as a one-off passed through my mind, but then I called the business in Indiana, US, which supplied the wheels. ➤ December2014Tractor

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FarmingHeritage

Memories of

ChrisTmas pasT

Christmas presents from a time of lost innocence – children’s tractor and farming books and puzzles from the past. Stuart Gibbard reveals a world of collectable printed ephemera evoking childhood memories.

WORDS & PICTURES Stuart Gibbard

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he modern farming scene is one of frenetic activity largely dominated by financial institutions dabbling in global commodities. It is a symptom of the high-tech age we live in.

Change is inevitable, but we have lost that idealistic view of the rural landscape as a place of relaxed tranquillity.

Once there was a golden era when everything appeared rosy in the countryside; agriculture flourished, farming was a family affair and there was money to invest in the

latest machinery. at is probably a rather optimistic view of things, and the reality was undoubtedly quite different, but as far as children’s books were concerned, life on the farm was idyllic.

Today’s generation, growing up with the current trend of computerised games and gadgetry, wouldn’t be content with picture books of romanticised farming scenes. But there was a time when youngsters found the countryside a place of wonderment with crops and animals tended by brightly coloured machinery. And what better present to receive in your Christmas stocking than a

magnificent volume filled with vibrant illustrations of newborn lambs and family picnics in the hayfield.

Traditional

It was a time of lost innocence when every village had its working farmyards. e world needed to be fed and the farmer was the saviour of the land. e latest scientific advances were admired, even applauded, rather than being vilified as they oen are today. Many of the books appeared at a time when traditional methods still coexisted alongside the march of technological change.

An illustration of an ‘American motorplough’ (actually a Little Giant tractor) from Motors of All Sorts, published by Geographia Ltd in about 1917.

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Published in the mid-1950s, My Picture Book of Tractors on the Farm was probably the first children’s book dedicated to agricultural machinery.

One of Galbraith O’Leary’s magnificent illustrations from My Picture Book of Tractors on the Farm.

“It was a time of lost innocence when every village had its working farmyards.”

The Wonder Book of the Farm was part of an educational series produced by Ward, Lock in the mid-1950s. picture books released by Geographia Ltd. Each page carries a full colour or half-tone illustration of a motor vehicle of some type, including cars, buses, lorries, fire engines and, topical at the time, military vehicles and tanks. ere are two illustrations of tractors – a Holt 75 on the Western Front and what is described as an ‘American motor-plough’, closely resembling a Little Giant tractor, made in Minneapolis but imported into the UK by Marlboro Motors Ltd of London.

One of the few children’s farming books published during the Second World War was On the Land, part of a series of educational picture books produced by Raphael Tuck & Sons. ➤

Draught horses competed with modern machinery and the countryside was a canvas of awe and inspiration.

Part of the charm of the children’s books was that they encapsulated this world of wonderment. e view of agriculture they offered was rather stylised, avoiding the harsher realities of life, but the more controversial aspects of farming weren’t le out and even chemical husbandry and battery farming were celebrated as part of the growing revolution to feed mankind. Aer all, this was the era of pre-political correctness!

Tractors were part of that march of

technological change. In an age when they still retained their individual identities, each with its own livery and character, they were a colourful addition to the pages of a preschool book – kindling a childhood interest in farm machinery that has stayed with many for all of their adult lives.

A Nuffield appeared on the front cover of Timothy’s Book of Farming, published by Collins in the late 1950s.

An illustration of a Fordson Major from C Hamilton Ellis’s Trains and Tractors, published in 1957 by George Allen & Unwin.

tractormagazine.co.uk

Early example

e earliest children’s book that we can find with pictures of tractors is Motors of All Sorts, published in about 1917 as one of a series of

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FarmingHeritage

The final irony

Marshall combine harvesters We continue our story of Marshall combine harvesters up to the point the realisation dawns on the company that it would have to end its association with harvesting machinery, an area it had initially built its foundations upon.

WORDS & PICTURES Peter Anderson

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he postwar years witnessed the end of lend-lease agreements and, in a bid to stimulate industrial growth, restrictions were imposed on imported machinery that included the many American manufacturers.

Some American companies cleverly managed to evade restrictions by building their own factories in the UK; Massey-Harris, Allis-Chalmers, Minneapolis-Moline (through agent Sale Tilney) and International Harvester were among few that remained, by establishing Anglo-American based companies. Strangely Manns of Saxham

Prototype Marshall 568 trailed combine harvester on display at the Royal Show in 1947. became importer for the German built CLAAS combine harvester in 1946, just one year aer hostilities ceased.

The 568 arrives

With a cutting width of 5 6in and a maximum drum speed of 888rpm, the new combine aptly received the identity of ‘568’. e prototype machine displayed on the Royal Show stand was fitted with a twincylinder Petter air-cooled engine but that was

replaced – due to overheating problems – by a 17hp Ford four-cylinder petrol engine. e 568 retained the canvas belt feed system as employed in the E9, the belt covering a large percentage of the pick-up bed, therefore eliminating the need to use feed augers. An auxiliary canvas belt situated in front of the threshing drum conveyed the crop uniformly into the drum, constructed of ‘English pattern’ and fitted with six ribbed beater bars.

A Fordson E27N Major tractor hauls a Marshall 568 combine harvester, circa 1948.

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A 568 combine harvester harvesting a windrowed pea crop.

Press advertisement for the Marshall 568 combine harvester.

Unlike the E9 and Marshall threshing machines that employed conventional boxtype shakers (straw walkers), the 568 emulated the arrangement favoured by American combine manufacturers by using a large onepiece shaker (also referred to as a riddle). is arrangement coped well with lighter crop conditions but struggled with British crops that were oen tall in the stem and contaminated with a vast amount of weed material. is inevitably oen led to blockages inside the machine that became frustratingly annoying for the operator.

Marshalls received a barrage of complaints from various customers who regularly aired their views and discontent with the performance of their machines. One particular dissatisfied customer hauled his combine into the market square at Gainsborough for all to view, with ‘White Elephant’ painted in large letters on each side of the machine. tractormagazine.co.uk

Sales brochure for the Marshall 602 combine harvester.

Two more variants arrived in 1948, the 560 with a slightly narrower bed and shaker rack and the 602. e 602’s shaker rack received an increase in width by five inches; the pickup reel was also increased to 5 10in and equipped with oscillating spring-tine blades.

Fitted as standard

Dual wheels were fitted to the ‘off side’ of the machine as standard equipment to assist with weight distribution and provide extra buoyancy in so ground conditions (springtine blades for handling laid crops and dual wheels were also available for the 560 and 568 models but listed as optional equipment).

A crop collector attachment was listed as an addition for harvesting windrowed crops, available for all models. e livery remained the same as the E9, therefore the nickname ‘Silver Queen’ remained, however, a handful

were finished in the familiar Field Marshall tractor ‘Mid Brunswick green’ colour. Priced at £750, the Silver Queen was competitive with other trailed combine harvesters on the market at the time. It failed however to become a threat to the popular Allis-Chalmers ‘all Crop’ combine that was priced more favourably at £650 and due to its lightweight construction, was far more nimble and could be hauled by a much smaller tractor.

Development began on the Silver Queen’s successor in 1949. A prototype machine was prepared for field test work in 1950, spending the summers of 1950 and 1951 on trial out of sight from competitors in a remote area of Scotland. e new and much improved combine was officially released in May 1952 and for a brief period a small number of ex-stock Silver Queens were marketed alongside the new product. ➤ December2014Tractor

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NextMonth

AND FARMING H ERITAGE MAGAZINE

Part of the family ▲ Kevin Waugh followed in his father’s footsteps in choosing to train as an agricultural engineer – his Ferguson too has a family connection which spurred him on to do this restoration.

ON SALE D EC 9

Stepping up a gear

A splash of sunshine yellow

At the ripe young age of 66, John Loosley felt that he needed a project to keep the old grey matter active. Having restored stationary engines, he decided this Fiat Someca 20D was something a little different.

We talk to a young restorer about his fine International B-275 industrial restoration, which is a fine job worthy of coming out of the Wedgwood pottery factory where it once worked.

Plus Graham Hampstead ■ Tractor of the decade 1940s ■ Practical Workshop ■ Newark tractor show review ■ Home Farm ■ Jo Roberts ■ Polly Pullar 106

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