Vintage Tractor Engineer

It is important to use the correct fuel in Ferguson tractors that are running on Petrol, lamp oil or TVO, otherwise engine damage may occur. These great little tractors are not always in the ownership of people who have grown up with them, so what seems like an obvious question to some people is important to others.

Great site, considering that today my FE 35 was delivered. Problem is I don’t know which hole to fill with petrol or VO. Come to think of it, what is VO?{City bloke} I changed the plugs, cleaned the carb and with a bit of splutter it’s great. It has less than 4000 hrs and as far as I can see is origional, but is red and grey.

I would also like to know if it has a hydraulic pump and if so, can it be used to drive any other implement?

Hi there,

The smaller tank was originally used for petrol, just for starting and
warming the engine. Once the operating temperature (as indicated by the
temperature guage) is reached then you can change over to VO. VO was
considerably cheaper than petrol and the tracotr would then be able to run
on VO from the larger tank all day.

You can mix VO (tractor vaporising oil) yourself

Presumably the tractor has 2 levers on the right hand side of the seat and lift arms on the back of the tractor? If so, then it has a hydraulic pump and system. This can be used to tip trailers, lift a front loader or operate other hydraulic rams. The pump is a low capacity pump (litres/min) compared to a modern tractor and so can only be used to power very small hydraulic motors - not really a good application for these tractors.

If you need something powering with a large capacity hydraulic motor (e.g. hedge cutter) then I would suggest powering an external hydraulic pump/motor system from the pto. (the pto. is the power take off shaft that protrudes from the back of the tractor!)

Hope that gives you some useful information.

VTE

 The hydraulics on this tractor have been getting worse and then failed completely.  The front loader had to be lifted up with a forklift (and then be proped up) in order to transport the tractor to the workshop.  The surprise came when the top cover was unbolted and turned over, as the hydraulic cylinder was not fastened to the top cover as it should have been.  You can see the pushrod in the photo below which should be connected to the cylinder.

The casting of the hydraulic cylinder was broken, but Massey Ferguson did not have the part in stock and had no plans to manufacture any.  After a few telephone calls we learned that Massey Ferguson had not stocked the part since 2002, although they do have the original 2″ cylinder available.

The camera crew were able to get some good shots inside the transmission casing to show where all the components are situated.  Lighting of the camera shots is a difficult job due to all the oil covered metalic parts which reflect the light straight back towards the camera lens.  The lighting man managed to get things set up with several lights and filters held up in the roof of the workshop, where there was a plethora of gantries, ladders, pieces of wood and baler twine from the farm used to fasten it all together!

Filming all the procedures slows things down a lot, but we soon had the pump out and on the bench.  On the underside of the photo the yokes were found to be smashed, possibly by pieces of the broken top cover dropping down and getting jammed in the reciprocating pump mechanism.

The pump components come to pieces in a matter of seconds.  Now they can all be carefully assessed for wear and any other obvious problems before it is re-assembled. 

 The control valve is a very precision piece of engineering, and central to the operation of the hydraulic system.  Next we await the arrival of the replacement parts that are on order before the system can be repaired.  The DVD is recording each step of the process in great detail.  After watching the DVD it should be possible for everyone to understand how the system works and undertake the repair with competence.

In order for the system to work smoothly and efficiently is is not just a case of replacing any worn parts.  Here in the photo above we see one of the set-up procedures using a spring balance to measure the correct amount of tension on the levers.  There are several set-up procedures to undertake to get the system working properly. 

This is the tractor back in action after the full hydraulic system rebuild.  It can now easily lift a full scoop of earth with the fore-end-loader.  One of the first tasks for the owner has been hay turning on his smallholding, and he can’t remember the tractor ever performing so well.