Well as you can see we have another little blue tractor in the workshop  , its a Leyland 154 in for some work on its electric and some paint and decals , No we have not gone mad ,its that some of our customers have other toys as well as Grey ones and we like to keep our customers happy and with the way things are at the moment in the world , work is work And we still specialize in the TE20 Ferguson's from the ground up .


you will be seeing more of this little blue tractor when i start pulling it apart later



I quite like it ,

Fordson Dexta
Its a kind of cousin to the Ferguson , but ah ho that was long ago , and i don't give a dam
here's a picture just in case you don't know what one looks like ,

right your probley wondering what i was doing to this fordson , well the clutch sounds a simple enough job and it should be , split the tractor take old pressure palate off  fit new one easy ( I should be so bloody lucky ) below is a picture of a brand new pressure plate with a new thrust bearing laying on the 3 actuation levers NOTICE ANYTHING

And the manual says this


 I did laugh , when the owner said he had taken it back and the bloke behind the counter said they where all like that
anyway i was asked to sort it out because he had (  had enough to say the least  ) I don't blame him there is so much crap out there ,
so i went to work making an adjustable copy of the end of the fordson gearbox main shaft


and yes that is the top of an old piston put to good use, you will see what i did with another old piston a bit further on in this blog,


this thing will mimic the travel of the thrust bearing and let me set the height of the actuator arms which in fact had a difference of 6mm from the lowest to the highest, quite a big difference , OK yes i did try it just to see what it would do
it tipped the pressure plate over at an angle and jammed the clutch plate on the shaft quite funny for a new part , unless its you that's just payed your hard earned cash for the said new part and then find you have to pay someone else to fix it . then its not so funny , any way i took some more measurements and started to work out thrust bearing movements and so on and so forth , took the flywheel off and set it on the bench fitting the clutch plate and old pressure plate and back engineering it working out how much metal was missing off the adjuster bolt heads and measuring the head heights and stuff then i took off the old pressure plate and put the new one on and adjusted the heights of the actuator arms


then tested the travel of the arms compared to the thrust bearing travel ARE WE BOARD YET  i should not have to do this SH...T... so then after a small adjustment i got it down to a half a turn on the jack i was using just under 1mm got me a nice  2 thou  gap between the clutch plate and the pressure plate which i could measure with a feeler gauge that told me the pressure plate was moving squarely

 i know this sort of accuracy is a bit over the top but near enough is not good enough, its got to be right

have a look at this see it works  , click pic


I look at it this way the blokes out in the field dragging his plough and his clutch goes again not only has he got to drop the plough off and get the tractor out of the field hes then got to get it fixed again , enough said ,

Have a look at this radial arm .. tie bar what ever you want to call it end cap ha ha shim


its a bit of an old plastic oil can , I only found a couple of bits in the other side , it worked for a wile anyway
i fixed these to brass plate is a way forward in shims



and i also fitted a new rear crank shaft seal because the owner wanted it done , here is the other piston


modified to do a job 10 thou smaller than the seal seat on the crank shaft , fit new seals in there housings clamp them on to the piston top leaves you a nice bit for the crank to take up simple , and you can see that the seal is sitting propley in the seat , right ive got some work to do , later.

1,  DO NOT BRING PARTS HOPING TO HAVE THEM FITTED TO YOUR TRACTOR ,
 reason there are a lot of parts out there that I WILL NOT FIT because they are cheap and nasty ,

2. WHEN YOUR TRACTOR IS IN THIS WORKSHOP IT IS MINE,
 reason if i am working on it and one I'm not happy with quality of the part or parts supplied I WILL NOT FIT THEM
we know the parts we can trust for quality and durability I WILL NOT FIT CRAP
two when I AM HAPPY WITH IT SO WILL YOU BE.

3 SAFETY COMES FIRST, BRAKES IS BRAKES , any thing connected to the brakes  is fixed first , IE shoes , drums , half shafts + seals and
bearing ,
reason just in case you need this explaining , If your half shaft bearings are bad enough to trash the half shaft seal I will not
reline your brake shoes and fit them to your tractor in THIS WORK SHOP , If you bring shoes in for relining they will be relined properly,  but what you fit them to is on your head if your stupid enough to fit them to a tractor with leaking half shaft seal , .................. work that out for your self

yes you might think to your self, Jeff is not a happy teddy , NO I'M NOT A HAPPY TEDDY, I WILL NOT JUST BODGE THIS THAT OR THE OTHER. FOR YOU OR ANY ONE ELSE . IF YOU WANT IT ... FOR KIN.. BODGING.. FOR  COUGH.. SOMEWHERE ELSE WITH IT .. sorry we are not interested , thank you,  have a nice day.

Hello again, Its just a little blog today because Ive got quite a lot on ,
And I thought you just might like to see this little job I did on a TEF diesel throttle venturi it was very worn on the main shaft and the main body , It had a massive air leak which is no good when your trying to set the engine up, what I do is strip the unit out and line bore it in the lathe , then make inserts that I press in to the main body and ream out to fit the shaft this picture below shows one of the inserts


and a bit of a close up



then I give the body a bit of a clean out they can get a bit grubby



you can see the insert



then I put it all back together and set it up


all done and no air leaks , by the way if you have problems with setting up the tick over on the TEF 20  you will find the throttle body is worn you can check this by grabbing hold of the end of the shaft end on the right in the picture above and lifting it up and down if you can the throttle body is worn and as you can see we can help you



all done good as new

And this is Fred the TEF 20 Diesel running again with that very same throttle body on  , just click the little picture




And have a look at this to I dident do do
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=zXx6yNd_Yas&feature=related

SQUISH HEADS

Ive writen this quick blog just so people will know what one is and what it does . And besides I'm getting bored OF STANDING THERE SMILING TO MY SELF, KNOWING THAT A LOT OF PEOPLE  HAVEN'T GOT A CLUE AND I'M GETTING BORED with it all .

Ive been  listening to lots of different things on what a squish head on a tractor is, and what it is and where it is and all the boll------=s about it being this brass tube thing that goes in side the head and so on and so forth and so on ,

Right lets start with me and what i know and how i know . Any one who does know me will all ready know so sorry for boring you and hello to you all , Now I am an ENGINEER , don't take that lightly. I have built and tuned engines from old NSU quicklys to V10 SUPER CHARGED MONSTERS , Ive worked on steam engines , 2 strokes ,4 strokes, rotaries, diesels, Terra and marine , gas turbines, and jet engines, and of course electric , So I know a bit about stuff and things and you know i will put everything into what I'm doing as you can probley see by what I'm doing now on the blog . What the Hell is he doing this job for ? youre asking your self , BECAUSE I CAN ,and I am nearly 50 and these old tractors are puzzles. they are old and so many people have worked on them over the years, every single one is different and are someones history of their lives, their farms ,or what ever , I look at it as I'm doing my bit so they don't die and vanish . I will be totally honest with you ,I know nothing about tractors. I am an engineer I will find out what has caused the problem , and fix that, and then fix the damage it has done .
Right ,Squish heads .
squish refers to the shape of the inside of the head, the combustion chamber . anyone who has tuned the old 250 and 350 LC`s has had hours and hours of fun , tears and pounds spent, sorting these things out .have a look at the picture below ,

Its all to do with how the fuel mixes in the combustion chamber in the top of the head ,blar, blar,  blar AND AS FOR THE BRASS TUBE it has nothing what so ever to do with squish , Its to do with making the ENGINE HOTTER FASTER. it directs the water in the cooling system at the thin walls of the head around the exhaust valves so the engine warms up faster  DUE TO THE HEAT FROM THE HOT EXHAUST GASES.
So there you go , PS, and by the way if in doubt, RTFM, and if you want to know what that means Email, ha ha ha.

Sorry if you read the blog yesterday it dident make a lot of sense as i was trying to do 10 things at once.

Something else you might want to look at rear fenders simple to fit ,
harder to get them to look right , Ive seen a lot off center and on the wonk and big dents around the bolts
personally i think they look a mess with a bit of care you can get fenders to fit quite well, even the reproduction ones ,
just take your time and think about things before whacking the drill through them and slinging some bolts through the holes,
just before i get in to this il put a picture up so you can see what I'm on about there we go,



right the fender frames Ive heard story's about them having to pull the top part of the frames about to get them to go back on , yes i did laugh  the only time this happens is 1 when they are bent and in tension or you have the wrong top
on the right bottom . they are drilled to match the bottom so if you take them a part keep the two bits together .guess
how I know this .............. Charlies and Hubert's wings are originals and I TRYED TO SWAP THE BITS OVER TO SEE IF THEY FIT THE ANSWER WAS NO ... I had a close look at the way charlies where drilled  and the holes are not in uniformed positions as they would be if they where drilled on a jig . if the wings are originals the bottom 3 holes in the Grey V will be rivets, and the top center one on the top frame to



like this above( top middle rivet )

Right you will need your bolts dome head like this

 measure the square bit across the corners you need a drill the same size Plus a mill or so ,
then nip off the corners like this, Do not take all of the corner off,

the reason for doing this is that the taper will locate and lock into the frame easier by the way the bolts i used
are 23.5 mm wide domes 36mm long and M10 ,
ha ha sorry lads a request from tim at www.ploughmyfield.co.uk just for you tim ....... dome 15/16 .. 1 1/2 inch long
and 3/8
right start by centering the fender , then have a quick check and mark up the fender
remove the fender and drill out the holes with the size of drill you have gone for and bolt then bolt on the fender
its should look like this below


now mark up the other 5 holes remove the fender and drill them out  and refit it



still with me , now take the nuts off the top 4 bolts and fit the support, be careful to fit the right one



yes i know its the same picture as at the start , right this is where it gets a bit tricky new fender skins are a slightly
different shape to the originals along the top edge so be careful do the top middle hole first , you will notice the other 2 holes one either side they might be standing away from the frame make sure you mark the fender square to its own face not in line with the hole ,


the red lines are the hole in the frame , the green line is what your aiming for 90" degrees to the skin surface
remove the fender drill the hole , I do hope your not confused , you will see what I'm up to soon , bolt the fender back on , now look at the hole in put a bolt in the middle top hole now look at the ones either side the hole in the fender is bigger than the hole in the frame, yes ? , if you using M10 bolts get an 11mm drill and drill out the hole and tilt the drill to realign the holes...  anyone having a whinge yet ? get this, I DONT CARE This is the difference between bolting some rear fenders on your tractor, AND FITTING SOME ,Right on with the job , now you will need some big Pennie washers like these



get a bit of soft wood and a big socket put the washer on the wood turn the socket on its side and smack the socket with a hammer what your after is a slight bend ( Its bloody quicker to do it than write about it ) these are for inside the fenders between the skin and the frame, can you see what we are up to now ? look at the little gap that's where the fender skin sits and the washers take up the gap



that was the easy way of doing that bit , for you who want to do it them selves. And this is my way



Just because i can and there is another angled washer between the frame and skin
This is what you get for your well spent time


Lovely ,So people there you go
fun with Ferguson tractor fenders ,

PS. Try this out , on a standard original fender the skin has 3 rivets at the bottom, see below


yes , and the top has 1 rivet in the middle hole


so the fender will not come apart even if you undo all the bolts , Very strange , unless it is for a reason, Old man Ferguson was not daft , they could be for fitting lights and stuff or ................................Look what i dug up


can you see, look where the uprights are on the cab right on the 4 bolts on the top frames  , spot on idea from the bloke who designed the cab , like i said i might be totaly wrong , and its a SUN TRAC cab

And lastly, thank you for the Emails and pictures ,

Charlies starting to look good in his new coat of classic Ferguson grey ,



this is just its first base coat



looks good i think



Anyway first thing this morning before i got to the paint i had to take off some tyres its all good fun getting these
big babys off of there rusty rims they might as well have been  glued on



Right people , wiring looms ,a little thing but can be a pain in the back side
the picture below is from the Ferguson manual



have a look at the colour code then look at the piccture below



and now this one



not only are the colours wrong on the first one but most of the ends are wrong to



what are people thinking when they do this ..... ho well that will do



and now a look at the two full looms



yes i am having a winge the top one i would give to the cat to play with and the bottom one i would fit to a tractor,
if someones going to make something for a classic do it right or not a all , or at least mark it up sayin this is not right but will get you out of trouble if you can fit it ,