Innehållsförteckning för September 2021 från Tractor & Machinery

MORE THAN 80 vintage tractors created a spectacular sight during a special tractor run that raised more than £2,000 for charity. The Mearns Vintage Vehicle Club (MVVC) staged one of its special events on the roads from Laurencekirk to Brechin on Sunday 25 July, attracting interest from many members of the general public along the way. All proceeds will be split between the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary Cancer Ward and the Friends of ANCHOR unit at the same hospital, the central hub of cancer and haematology care for north-east Scotland. Mike Robertson, of MVVC, said: “It was a great day and even more popular than we expected on every level. We had 86 vintage tractors, which was our largest number to date, and we had a great reception from people on…

Dear T&M, Having recently arrived at the classic tractor stage (with a restored MF 35X), I saw your magazine whilst on a rare (post Covid-19) holiday in the Borders. I read and smiled at the article in the July issue about the MF 600 Series. Having been at Silsoe, I joined MF at Stoneleigh at around the time the 600 Series was in full swing and we were preparing for the 300/3000 Series introduction. I remember working with Chris Clack and many other colleagues at the time in the marketing and product management team – Dennis Schweiger, Claudio Pagani, Eric Fredriekson, Stig Dieckman, Roger Dean to name but a few. All based at Stoneleigh. I particularly remember the 699 you showed, fitted with the Allman sprayer and photographed in front…

6 for £20* Classic Massey celebrates the hey-day of Massey Ferguson. • Comprehensive restoration coverage• Essential articles, news and models for owners and enthusiasts• Large free advertising section Ford & Fordson Tractors: the official magazine of the Ford & Fordson Association. • Coverage from the early Fordsons to the last of the Fords• Readers’ stories, buyers’ guides, news, reports and technical advice• Large free advertising section with parts for sale 6 for £21* Tractor & Farming Heritage celebrates the development of the farming tractor from its roots to today. • In-depth technical features• Reports and new industry development• Owner features and spectacular restoration projects SUBSCRIBE AT SHOP.KELSEY.CO.UK/PA21 OR CALL 01959 543 747 AND QUOTE PA21 *when you pay by direct debit. For full price options, visit the website. **Savings are…

On Saturday 24 July, Wellers Auctions of Guildford held the late Gerald Parsons dispersal sale at Honeywood Lane, Oakwood Hill, Surrey. With more than 800 lots, there was plenty going on. The second half of the sale started just after 12.30pm, with online bidding available, although many of the lots went to the large crowd present. Gerald had a substantial plant business and loved his Hymacs. There were three in the sale, as well as a 1965 Fordson E1A Major-based Bray 23L loading shovel. It was rough, but complete, and sold for £920. In the 1980s he bought two Roadless 118s, XJG 529V and NAA 96T, for his business. One came from Ben Martin, at Dunsfold, and the other, it’s said, from Bepton. XJG 529V was classed as a better…

GOT A STORY? THEN WRITE TO THE EDITOR: Scott Lambert, Kelsey Publishing Ltd., The Granary, Downs Court, Yalding Hill, Yalding, Kent ME18 6AL EMAIL: tm.ed@kelsey.co.uk IN BRIEF Apprentice promotion Sealey’s brand-new apprentice promotion has launched! If you or anyone you know is currently doing a vehicle maintenance and repair, plumbing and heating or welding apprenticeship, then this one’s not to be missed! It features more than 190 deals with discounts up to 55 per cent off list price and there’s a free welcome pack with every purchase too. You’ll just need to opt into Sealey’s e-newsletter and register your claim on the website (sealey.co.uk). The promotion is valid until 31 December 2021. T&M to your door! Why not get Tractor & Machinery delivered to your door? A subscription is safe,…

Literature specialist Gibbard Tractors is holding an open weekend on 2-3 October for collectors of sales brochures, manuals, instruction and parts books. “We held our last open day in early 2020 before the pandemic took hold,” Stuart Gibbard told us. “It was a great success, with many visitors saying that we should make it a regular event for literature collectors to get together and chat about their hobby. Of course, with the lockdowns, that couldn’t happen.” With restrictions easing and with so many enquiries from customers wanting to visit, Stuart and his wife, Sue, felt that the time was right for another event. “We’ve chosen the first weekend in October because that was traditionally the date of the Spalding Model Tractor Show,” said Stuart, “but as that was held earlier…

The Ransomes story began in the mid-1700s when Robert Ransome was born, in Norfolk. By his early 20s he had opened an ironmongery store in Norwich and before long he had branched out into the production of cast iron plough shares. These proved to be a successful part of his business and he patented his process of tempering the shares, selling them across East Anglia. By the end of the 1780s he moved the business to Ipswich in Suffolk, where it flourished – thanks largely to new ideas relating to the production of plough parts and how standardising them meant they would no longer have to be made by a farmer’s local blacksmith. Ransome registered a patent for the standardisation of plough parts in the early years of the new…

Dear T&M, Thank you for printing our letter in the July issue regarding the Matbro Mastiff loader that we have purchased. It has Super Major axles and a Brockhouse torque converter as you stated, but it has a Ford six-cylinder engine – not a four-cylinder unit. If anyone can help us identify it, please get in touch. James & Milly Burt, via e-mail SL: Apologies for this mis-print. If anyone can help James and Milly, please contact me in the first instance: tm.ed@kelsey.co.uk WRITE TO THE EDITOR: Scott Lambert, The Granary, Downs Court, Yalding Hill, Yalding, Kent ME18 6AL E-MAIL: tm.ed@kelsey.co.uk…

SHOW OFF YOUR SKIL LS Send your drawings to: ‘Junior’, Kelsey Publishing Ltd., The Granary, Downs Court, Yalding Hill, Yalding, Kent ME18 6AL or, if you’re a whizz-kid like me, scan them and e-mail them to: tm.ed@kelsey.co.uk PICK OF THE CROP FEEDING THE HORSES I hope seeing your picture printed is as good as you had hoped! Dear Junior, This is a picture of my granddad driving the tractor and giving the horses some hay to eat. I would love to see my picture in the magazine. Noah (aged 6), Derbyshire DREAM TRACTOR I think you’ve got it just right! Dear Junior, I’ve drawn a Fordson Major, my dream tractor, with a Ferguson tipper trailer. I hope I got the colours right! Harrison (aged 13) A LOVE FOR TRACTORS I…

Aclassic vehicle and tractor Run took place on the evening of 17 June 2021, jointly organised through a combined effort between Kilmood Playgroup and Killinchy Young Farmers Club, writes James Connolly. In what was a very pleasant evening, more than 160 entrants took part in the 17-mile road run, that started at Kilmood Playgroup on Kilmood Church Road. The vehicles had the pleasure of having access to the spectacular 200-acre Florida Manor estate, where the photographs for this report were taken. Both Kilmood Playgroup and Killinchy Young Farmers club would like to thank Michael and Barbara Lagan for giving them permission to drive through their estate. This was appreciated by all those taking part. Both groups would also like to thank the Wright family for the use of a field…

The Kent County Summer Fayre was the replacement for the annual three-day Kent County Show, taking place on 10-11 July, says Peter Love. The event was far smaller than the usual event and cost £16 to attend. A number of national show jumping events were the focus in the main ring, with other animal-based displays in the second ring. Further down the vast site were the Young Farmers stands and a number of trade stands. Many of the people involved in the heritage section had not seen each other for two years and it was a time to catch up with what had been going on in the world. The section was well placed, mostly on hard standing at the top end of the site, with steam (large and small),…

DIFFICULTY RATING With the work on the brakes largely finished, and only the hand brake lever to service, I have now moved on to the leaking hydraulic tipping ram. Since owning the trailer I have only attempted to tip the trailer once, and this ended up with a jet of oil ejecting from the ram cylinder to such an extent I haven’t tried to tip it since! TWO-STAGE RAM The ram fitted to these trailers is a two-stage unit, which has seals for each stage. The removal of the ram from the trailer chassis was straightforward enough, as it is secured by two pins, one each end, both of which are held in by split pins. Before removing the ram, the hydraulic pipe was disconnected, after placing a tub to…

This was basically the last of Andrew Hinman’s sales that have taken place over the years and featured his enamel signs and other machinery to bring things to a close at Coldwells Farm, Morton Valance, Gloucestershire, on Saturday 10 July. This time he called Stroud Auctions in to conduct the clear-up sale, with online bidding part of the set-up. The signs sold well, but we will concentrate on the tractors here, with some selling very well for what they were. All told, the sale went very well and it was certainly the end of an era for this famous collector. Commission was 10 per cent +VAT. Results (abridged): 3499 Ransomes MG 5, 2/4, £750 3500 Fordson Standard, on steels, 4, £1,200 3502 Minneapolis-Moline 1050, diesel, 2, £1,900 3503 Oliver 1850,…

H J Pugh & Co. held a two-day sale on 16-17 July as a combination of the sales the company would have normally staged at the Much Marcle and Welland rally sites. There are plenty of tractors to go for at the moment, but occasionally one comes up that two people desperately want and that was the case for a grade 5.5 1938 Ferguson-Brown A (no. 502), registered GNO 521 (with V5C), with original enclosed-pattern rear tyres. The final result was an amazing £53,000! This beat the restored Ferguson-Brown grade 5 record by £28,000! There has not been an example that looked so good, with so much documentation, for many years. A restored example was making, on average, £18,000 at best in 2019. Neither bidder was going to give in…

The British National Ploughing Championships & Country Festival will be celebrating 70 years when the event is held on 9-10 October 2021 at Mindrum Mill, Northumberland, by kind permission of D Harvey & Son. Entries are coming in from all sides for the event. Space for trade stands, shopping stalls and agricultural machinery demonstrations is being snapped up after many shows have been cancelled. As there are fewer to attend, visitors are actively looking for somewhere else to go and this year, the 70th British National Ploughing Championships & Country Festival will give them something different than the norm. Ploughing entries are coming from ploughmen and women from all over the country, with some competitors travelling more than 400 miles to take part in the championships – from as far…

A road run took place on Sunday 25 July, with £2,139.50 raised for Midlands Air Ambulance, writes Shaun Middleton. The event was well attended, with more than 50 tractors of various ages and sizes, starting at the picturesque Batchcott Hall Farm, by kind permission of Mrs Judith Borlase. From there a scenic route of approximately 20 miles was enjoyed through the Shropshire countryside, with a pause at The Red Lion in Longden Common, for lunch. Gareth Jones’ Valtra Prostock tractor puller was on display and he was on hand to explain the tractor to interested people, as well as driving a Massey Ferguson 3125 on the route also. A raffle also took place at the lunch stop, with the winners very appreciative of their prizes. A great day was had…

New Holland balers Dear T&M, I read with interest Chris Marlow’s letter regarding New Holland balers in the August issue. It brought back memories of when I worked for the Glamorgan WAEC, in 1945, at Stormy Down RAF airfield in South Wales. The airfield runways were grass, so there was a couple of hundred acres of grass to cut. The baler, which was the first of its kind I had ever seen, was, I think, a Massey-Harris with another name added. The foreman at the time was Matt Hughes, who decided it would be used as a stationary baler using a hay sweep fitted to the front of a Standard Fordson – only moving the baler to a new part of the field when needed. Two men fed the pick-up…

It was something I was really looking forward to. I had seen the big blue tractor before when I had visited the farm it lives on in Leicestershire, but it had not been working on that occasion. My mission that day was to see a much smaller Ford tractor of around the same era at work: a Ford 8730 complete with a Ransomes push-pull plough combination. Having shown an interest in the big, blue leviathan, I was only too pleased to be driving back up the country to catch the beast at full roar, breaking oilseed rape stubble with a large sub-soiler. I was told to drive through the farm and out the back, up a rutted track and then carry on going until I saw, or heard, the tractor…

Agricultural mechanisation has seen a number of advances over the years, in a bid to increase performance and productivity. More powerful engines, the introduction of the three-point linkage and larger implements helped farmers cover more ground in less time, but in recent years the most serious technological innovations have centred on tractor transmissions. Today, the continuously-variable transmission (CVT) has demonstrated its advantages over standard and powershift transmissions, but in the days before CVT, a gearbox was the mainstay of tractor transmission technology. In Britain, the 1950s and ’60s saw experiments with hydrostatic drive, from the likes of Lucas and others, but it would be the 1970s when hydrostatic tractors became more prevalent – largely due to the option of a ‘Hydro’ transmission on International Harvester’s Doncaster-built World Wide Series, affectionately…

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The 12th Annual Fylde Vintage, Steam & Farm Show took place between Preston and Blackpool over the weekend of 3-4 July, says David Reed. It saw a multitude of entries, with good crowds in attendance on both days, despite some uncertainty about the weather. There was an excellent selection of tractors and the event had a good rural feel to it. The show is a charity event, with the Rosemere Cancer Foundation benefitting from the proceeds of a tractor that was auctioned off, and with other donations, more than £3,500 was raised. Eddie Worthington’s superb 1963 Nuffield 342 was seen parading around the ring. There were some rarities there too, including a 1953 Newman E2 standard with Petter AV2 engine that is one of only a dozen that were known…

DIFFICULTY RATING Regular readers will remember the strip down of the tractor in the first part, after the owner had not been able to select any gears. At that stage we had reached the opinion that this was due to the spigot bearing, which supports the gearbox primary motion shaft in the centre of the flywheel. This appeared to be seized, which would cause the primary shaft to continue rotating and prevent easy engagement of the gears. A new spigot bearing had been ordered and meanwhile preparations were made to reassemble the tractor once the replacement front casting had arrived. GOOD CLUTCH An inspection of the original clutch showed no apparent problems with it, and plenty of wear left on the friction plate. The spigot bearing housing is splined on…

On Saturday 17 July, the machinery contents of the Ashby family’s Willetts Farm came under the hammer of South East Marts. The farm was dedicated to Leyland tractors and featured in T&M’s sister magazine, Tractor & Farming Heritage, nearly 15 years ago now. Most of the relics from that era were present, with the exception of the Leyland 2100, but all looked rather war weary and not in the condition they were the last time I had seen them. In 27-degree heat, a good crowd assembled to bid on the lots that had been well laid out in the field, as there was no online bidding. More than 300 lots were offered, with the tractors placed all the way up the hill. The best was a 1983 Leyland 482 Synchro…

On Wednesday 21 July, H J Pugh & Co. was at Maesifan, Carmarthen, for the disposal of the late Humphrey Edwards’ collection. He was a well-known part of the Welsh tractor preservation scene and was a great Allis-Chalmers and Land Rover fan. For many years he exhibited at the Great Dorset Steam Fair and took part in the working area with some of his fleet, especially his A-C B on road bands. Most of the stock had not run for some years, owing to ill health, but the majority had been in the dry and were in original condition. One to do well was an original 1958 A-C WD-45 standard that sold for a very good £5,000. With 426 lots offered, it was certainly the end of an era. Results…

On Saturday 17 July, the Cheffins team was at Bideford, Devon, for this delayed sale held in brilliant weather. Dave has been a keen enthusiast for many years and has been very much part of the preservation story in Devon for decades. Most of the tractors worked locally. The first crawler he purchased is one could well be unique in the UK today. I believe it to be a Continental CD70, but I stand to be corrected on that, with an electric-start, 7.24-litre Berliet MDB3R engine. These crawlers were made at Saint-Cyr, Lyon-Vaise, Rhone, but there was a British ‘wing’ established at Faggs Lane, Feltham, Middlesex, by 1950. The company started making crawlers in France just before WW2 and continued until 1966. Only 139 of these crawlers were made and…

August 27 – Cornwall Online Machinery Collective Auction. Edward Buckland edwardbuckland.co.uk 27 – Kidderminster Machinery Sale. The Gallops, Stanklyn Lane, Stone, Kidderminster DY10 4AR. Halls, tel: 01562 820880. 28 – East Devon Summer Collective Sale of Tractors, Vehicles, Farm Machinery, Livestock & General Equipment. Honiton Showground, Stockers Farm, Gittisham, Honiton EX14 3AW. Stags, tel: 01769 572042. 28 – Collective Sale of Vintage & Modern Tractors, Machinery, Implements & Farmyard Sundries. North Heale, Ashreigney, Chulmleigh, Devon. Andrew Lane, tel: 01837 810845. 28 – Collectors Auction. Castle Irvine, 200 Junction Road, Castle Irvine Demesne, Irvinestown, Co. Fermanagh, Northern Ireland BT94 1GG. Euro Auctions, tel: 02882 898262. 28 – Westbrook Head Collective Sale. Graham Watkins & Co, tel: 01538 373308. 30 – Honiton Hill Collective Machinery Sale. Kivells, tel: 01392 252262. September 1…

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Well, hasn’t it been good to get out? I spent three days on the road visiting various sales and finished at the Marshall Club’s excellent Marshall’s Yard event on Sunday 25 July, at Gainsborough, Lincolnshire. There were 39 machines at the event, including John Stephenson’s 1930 7nhp traction engine, no. 85620, that he has just put up for sale. Also present was Ducksburys’ wonderful 1900 Marshall 10-ton steam roller, no. 34042, called Monica. Paul Ducksbury’s late mother bought the engine in 1968, for £640, and it is the oldest in the world. It eventually ended up at the back of the shed, but in 2016 Paul initiated its revival and thanks to the help of a boiler maker in Cornwall the engine is back together and looking good. I was…