Cundey wheels for your N model

[Eric Schulz]

These wheels are not seen in Australia to my knowledge, but could be common in the British Isles.
From Farm Implement and Machinery Review, July, 1945:

After an interval of some 12 months waiting for a licence to manufacture, Messrs. Isaac Cundey & Sons, engineers, Alfreton, Derby, announce they are in production with a new "Cundey" patent all-purpose tractor wheel. This wheel, while basically unaltered from the original one introduced to readers of THE REVIEW in May, 1943, is yet of improved construction, so it is pertinent to point out that "hundreds of pairs of these wheels are now in use in different parts of England, and," we are informed, “are giving every satisfaction,"
It may be remembered that the wheel was declared to be unique in that it can be used on hard roads without doing any damage to the surface and yet go straight into operation on cultivated land without adjustment or alteration in any way, thus eliminating the bugbear of roadband removal. The tread is claimed to be self-cleaning whatever the ground conditions, soil passing through the tread spacings and falling away to leave the good continuous grip of the crossbars quite unimpaired.
Twelve retractable spuds can be fitted to each wheeI to give maximum possible adhesion under extremely bad conditions, but all ordinary ploughing and discing can be done without such assistance. In fact, it is said that two 8in. deep furrows can be turned in this way in old grassland on heavy clay soil. When the wheel is used for harvesting, it runs over hay swaths and other crops without pinning them to the ground.
The new wheel, which like the original one is interchangeable with the standard "Fordson" rear wheel and is removed and replaced in the same way, differs mainly in spoke design, angle section material now being used instead of " I " section. This allows the spokes to lie right up against the inside ring of the rim and makes for better soil clearance. These angle section spokes are also stronger sideways than the " I " section ones. Furthermore, on the new type wheel the rims and the square tread bars have been increased in section, thereby giving greater strength and durability. The wheel is also now much heavier, and is of miid steel throughout, with full use made of electric welded fabrication; no rivets are used and the only bolts are those for attaching the retractable spuds.



Their theories sound good. How about in practice? They look to be larger than the Fordson wheel.
Any owners wish to report?

Eric

[David in Wales]

Hi Eric;
Having seen thousands of tractors in England at work, in preservation, and in books Ive never seen these wheels at all.
David

[Arthur Cundey]

Hi. Eric.

I have only just found The Fordson Tractor Pages Forum, and had to join the correspondence concerning Cundey Tractor Wheels, these were designed by my Father and made by the family firm.

I was a very small boy at the time, but can remember going out with him to fit the wheels onto tractors in place of spade lug wheels, I have no idea how many sets were made, but when I actually started work in the 1950s, as I recall production had stopped as rubber tyres were more readily available. I would suggest that the report in the Farm Implement And Machinery Review overstated the number made, "journalistic licence I think"
I still have a copy of the original leaflet about the wheels and would suggest that all the claims made about the wheels were correct.

A variation was a set of 4 segmantal wheels that fitted round the
original spade lug wheels.
They certainly worked as I have photos. of them in use on a tractor pulling a M.M. combine, the main disadvantage was that they were not legal on public roads.

I have never seen any of the wheels still fitted to tractors in all the years that I have been attending tractor shows. however we also made Vee bars for four wheeled trailers and a range of drawbar brackets for Fordson Standard, Fordson Major, and the later Major, and dare I say it Ferguson 20 and 35. these are sometimes seen at tractor shows now.

This is my first message to the group, but if i can work out how to add a photo. I will try.

Regards Arthur Cundey

[Mike Kuscher]

Hi Arthur,

Welcome to the site as the 200th member and what a wonderful contact... Mr Cundeys' son, you're "wheely" welcome

For instructions how to post pictures, which we will all look forward to, please click on this link...

http://www.fordsontractorpages.nl/phpbb ... hlight=img

... it is very fitting that it is my reply to Eric, who bought up the subject of Cundey wheels in the first place.

Regards,
Mike

[Meanderer]

G'day Arthur,

Not only welcome to the board but 'thanks' for joining us.

In addition to the above advice from Mike......

You can find everything you need to know about ALL the coding required to post images or manipulate text etc by following this path > >
> click on the Post A Reply button (as you did to create your original post).
>When that page opens, look at the very left hand side of the page and where it says Options you will see BBCode highlighted in blue.
>Click that and it will take you to the page that has ALL the coding and instructions on it.
Posting Images is at the bottom of that page. I'll paste the link here directly to the page but it is better to actually do it so you will remember in future where to look.
http://www.fordsontractorpages.nl/phpbb ... ode=bbcode

Some hosting services are better than others. I personally find Photobucket simple to use and they make it very easy to put an image into your post. Whereas a couple I see people use here are a real pain in the rear end.
Who Hosts Images/photos???: You can Use Google to search OR simply look at a number of images already posted on this site and "right click" on the image and select "properties" which will show the address of the image and that will also indicate the Hosting site!

One really big tip I'd like to give to you and to EVERYbody about hosting photos on another site. Start out by having a structured album(s) on your host site so you never have to move the images around if you get a collection up there. It's a free service so NEVER remove the image from the site, move it to another album or do anything that changes it's address. If you do, it will no longer show in the posts here on the board. It is bloody frustrating when you look back at old threads and the images are no longer visible! Mind you, the author of a post can always use the EDIT button at any time in the future to change the content of a post including the address of an image that has been moved.

I too am keen to see your historical photos!

Regards,
Rick

[Oscar]

Welcome to the forum, Arthur! Good to have you on board!

Regards,
Oscar

[Arthur Cundey]

Message from Mike. - Arthur, your attempt to show the picture was exactly correct, you just had a tick against disabling BBcode in your edit window, I've corrected this for you.



Hello All.
Hopefully there is an image attached to this e-mail so please let me know if you recieve it OK. It shows a Fordson tractor fitted with the early type if wheel, (note that the spokes are I section) pulling a M.M. Combine. It seems to be a posed photo as they seem to be more interested in the photographer than the job in hand. I do not have a date for the photo. or a location, but it is most likely to be Nottinghamshire rather than Derbyshire as Derbyshire is mainly a dairy farming area.

I do not have any photos. of ploughing using the wheels which is a pity as that is probably the most difficult job, but I will post other photos. in due course.

Thank you all for the welcome, it's good to be on board.

Regards Arthur.

[Arthur Cundey]

Hello Again All.

Attached is a photo of the Fordson that we owned back in the middle1940s, it was unlicenced when we had it so the registration number JNU594 was from the date when we first owned it. It is fitted with Cundey wheels, but also the prototype of the multijaw drawbar bracket that we also made, these were still made during the time that I started work in the early 1950s.up to the middle 1950s.

There may not be any tractors still around with the wheels fitted but there are a few tractors still around with the drawbar bracket fitted, the production ones were slightly different in detail, so I wonder if any of the tractors owned by forum members still has one fitted, and used. I would be most interested to hear if there are. When we sold the tractor, an Uncle of mine who was a farmer bought it and used it for many years before it went for scrap, Ahhhh, I have wished many times that I could have had it from my Uncle.

Regards Arthur.

[Aussie Frank]

Hi Arthur,

It is great to have sombody with your history with Fordsons on the board and oh how I wish I could find our old model N too. Not much chance of that either. My father being the great breaker of all things mechanical, broke it. It had a knock for years and a mechanic friend of ours offered to tighten up the big ends for us for a very nominal fee. My father being the man he was said it's not broken yet so it doesn't need fixing. Not too long after that I got to see what the insides of a Fordson engine looked like. (Through the hole in the engine block which the con rod went through.) I was very young at the time, only six or seven. That poor old tractor went to the scrap yard a few year later. I got lucky later though, I managed to get the E27N that replaced it purely by accident. It came back to me after nearly 30 years in other hands. Probably a good thing it was elsewhere otherwise it would have been broken too. As it was it was just worn out and neglected.

Regards, Frank.

[Eric Schulz]

I found a picture of the four-piece Cundy clamp-on wheel that Arthur Cundy mentioned in his post. It is from a Nov. 1942 Farm Implement & Machinery Review.

Eric

[Arthur Cundey]

Hello Frank and Eric.

Attached is a photo of wheel segments actually fitted to a tractor, but I am not sure of the identity of the tractor, The photo was taken approaching the farm where my uncles brother farmed, it is his tractor on the first photo in this forum, notice that that one has an underslung exhaust, but the tractor in this photo has a vertical exhaust, it might even be our own tractor JNU594, but I cannot see a registration number on the rear offside mudguard. the diameter of the wheel segments is a bit larger than the ordinary wheels as they had to fit over the spadelugs, the wheel treads were made from 1 inch square steel bar. It is my uncle sat on the tractor, I can recognize his battered old trilby anywhere, his milking hat was even more battered. It is obviously a posed photo as there has been a bit of sweeping up done behind the tractor.

We never had a E27 N Major, but several local farmers did and so we would borrow one of theirs if we needed too. I will look out more photos eventually.

I think that all of us can look back at missed oportunities, and wished we had done something different. The last tractor that we had was a Fordson Super Major, We used that to run and demonstrate forestry machinery that we made latterly, Saws, Debarking Machines, Chipping Machines, Winches Etc. I drove it quite a lot and have fond memories of it, I wish that I had it now.

Regards Arthur.

[Arthur Cundey]

Hello Again.

I ought to have said in my pevious post that the drawbar bracket on the back of the tractor was a very early type that we also made, we used to refer to them as "Spiders" they were intended to pull 4 wheeled trailere as the height was on the axle certre line.

They were replaced with the multijaw type as they were much more adaptable.

Arthur.