New Fordson Super Major Owner

[Werries]

Good day Fordson Forum,

My name is Werner Alberts from Pretoria South Africa. As we grew up we always visited my uncle's farm. He had two Fordson Super Majors & he "gave" one to me and one to my brother. When we were on the farm I was always on the tractor. I am now a grown man of 50 and whilst mountain biking two years ago I saw a Super Major in the country side. This ignited the fire & I decided I want to buy one and restore it. Two years later I am the proud owner of a Super Major in serious need of love & care.

I would love to be part of a community of like minded passionate people & learn from the experienced guys.

[markr1001]

Welcome. Ibtoo am fairly new here! Alot of great knowledge here!

[henk]

Welcome Werries, Its been a while since we had a Fordson lover from South Africa.
Mind you, it's not a fire but a virus that makes one crazy about these tractors

[blackbob]

You may be a 'grown man of 50' but you can still enjoy playing with tractors, and the childhood memories they bring back.. Like you some of my happiest memories are from my holidays spent on my uncles' dairy farm in the 1970s, and using their Major to scrape slurry, buckrake silage, and cart muck, often driving it standing-up across rock-hard cow-poached pasture. As I now do with mine!

Welcome to the forum, I hope you enjoy playing with your Super. There is probably a lot of truth in the saying - 'The bigger the boys, the bigger their toys!'

[Werries]

Thank you guys for your kind words, yes it is a virus, and its is getting hold of me in a serious way. Am looking for a farm so that the Major has got a place of it's own

[mathias1]

Werner,

Welcome to the board. Any question you have, you can always ask it here.
And to keep it short:

[blackbob]

Yes, we need to see photos of this tractor 'in serious need of love and care'. Quickly.

[Mervyn Spencer]

Hello Henk, I notice you have forgotten me from South Africa, been a member since like 2005. I have a ASP Dexta
Have a good day

[henk]

Ahh! What a mistaka to maka.

Glad your still around on the forum.

[Werries]

Hi guys,

Please be patient, have never done the picture or youtube thing, so lets try.

Picking up the lady from a farm in Hofmeyr, South Africa.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbQBM_7vpnM

[Werries]

Delivering her to her new home in Pretoria.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyeOkiFCSyA

Now we must start, but I don't know where. My workload at the office is pretty hectic at the moment. I am still trying to find a workshop to rent close to where I stay. So no timeline as yet on the restoration. Currently standing a friend's yard in the open.

[blackbob]

Wow that looks great as it is.. although I am not a paint-and-polish person, I like to see machines in their working clothes.

There is certainly nothing wrong with its brakes, they held it easily when you stopped half-way on to the truck

Big wheels + wheel weights (+ diff-lock of course), it must have pull-a-house-down traction Do you have the rest of the dozer blade for the front?

And what size are the front tyres? They look bigger than standard?

Very impressive

[Werries]

Blackbob, thanx

Brakes work like a charm. Yes I have the blade. I took it off for transporting. It really is nice, but I am contemplating restoring it without it. Maybe I could use the hydraulic piston on something else that I can attach to the back.

The tyres both back & front has serious age/sun damage & I would like to replace them if I can. I am not sure what the tyre size is to the front, but I will do a report on everything when I get the chance. Thanx for pointing that out. You can see there was a lot of farmer modifications done & the farmer's son told me that they ave changed something & the low range is opposite of what it used to be.

Regards
Werrries

[blackbob]

Hmmm, I hope that implies that they have changed the transmission from single-clutch to live-drive (see our conversations on this subject in other threads here in recent weeks), so that the high-low lever's positions have changed, from 'up' to select low ratio, to 'down'?
This must be a serious bit of surgery, the outer casing may still be the same but a lot of the gearbox internals would have to be changed; perhaps using parts from a post-1957 donor tractor.

I'm just guessing; and I hope they haven't changed it the other way..

And maybe the front wheels are some home-made adaptation of truck wheels. Or maybe they are just standard - it's difficult to tell from here

[Mervyn Spencer]

Dis n regte Blou Bul trekker Werries. Welcome from another South African looking forward to your restoration story.
(Sharks territory)

[Werries]

Ja, kom ons praat nie oor die Blou Bulle nie Sharkie! Dankie Mervyn, where are you based? Regards
Werries

[Mervyn Spencer]

Hello Werries, I'm in Pietermaritzburg, and your self?

[henk]

Ahh!! Thats almoost Dutch.

[Mervyn Spencer]

Hi Henk, you are right. I will let Werries give you a history lesson on how the Afrikaans language was developed those long years back. I hope you don't mind Werries?

[henk]

Interesting. I think I know how that happend.

Maybe it's better to make a topic about this under Miscellaneous.

[Werries]

Mervyn, hi

Pretoria based.

@ Henk, yes afrikaans is an interesting language having developed out of Dutch mostly but affected by french german etc over the last 400 years. Now here is the interesting part. I did some business in Brussels and realised that flemish & afrikaans is basically the same. We could understand each other perfectly. So I was thinking, could flemish have developed from dutch just as afrikaans developed from dutch once they settled in South Africa?

Regards
Werries

[henk]

You are right. Belgium's was part of the Netherlands. The langues Changes at the River Westerschelde. Later It became a sepperated country.
Mathias is from the South side of the River and I am from the north and we can understand each other perfectly.

[Werries]

Blackbob wrote

And what size are the front tyres? They look bigger than standard?

I managed to take some pictures over the weekend and specifically of the front wheel. It appears wheel was made in South Africa

[Werries]

It is with a very sore heart that I have to report due to unforeseen circumstances I had to sell the Supermajor before I could start the restoration project. There were about 15 guys that were interested, but I sold it to a gentleman that bought it for the same reason I bought it. So it will be restored. I told him about the website and asked him to get involved and take pictures as he progresses.

So when the time is right, I will source another one to hopefully be able to restore my own tractor.

[oehrick]

Sorry to hear that Werries, hope things improve for you soon and you can find another blue one to take on