E27N restoration questions

[hemiorange]

I am redoing an E27N and will have many questions but here are some for a start.
I never saw an E27N in the field but have been around the Majors that came later. I took wheel weights off today and the unbleached paint looks to be more orange than I remember. There is no info here on E27Ns is the paint the same as the later Majors? If not what are the codes?
I am also to the wireing stage. What remains of the wire seems to be plastic covered rather than cloth, correct? Some of those tracer combinations will be hard to find here.
It seems there are no decals, just raised letters painted the same orange as the wheels?
I have been told the grill and headlight standards are being reproduced in England, is this so?
As an aside the tractors are nicknamed "Longhorns" here in Canada, I assumed that was because the of the headlight standards but someone told me it was because of the plant they came from. Who is right?

[Brian]

Welcome to the board.

I am no expert on the E27N however many, like Barry M and Steve have lots of experience.

The orange colour should be the same as the E1A Majors as that is where they got it from. The lineing out of the letters was the only thing I remember on the tractor. This was the era before decals were invented!

[BarryM]

Hi,
I can't comment on the wheel colors, as the E27N in Australia used three different colors over the life of this tractor. Colors used were yellow, orange and red. Australian tractors did have Decals, but once again this was for local use only.

With regards to your Wiring Loom, late tractors used plastic covered wire, then wound with insulation tape. Earlier tractors used braided cotton over rubber covering the wires. If your tractor is fitted with a generator and lights then there are two separate looms involved.

What year is your tractor and is it Kerosene or Diesel?

Grille and Headlight Arms are reproduced in Australia as well as England, but are quite expensive.

[henk]

Hello hemiorange,

[quote="hemiorange"]
As an aside the tractors are nicknamed "Longhorns" here in Canada [quote]

Over here in the Netherlands the nickname was Bleu Heron (or as you would say Grey Heron)
Still haven’t found a proper explanation for that nickname other than it's bleu and high on it's wheels.
I'll put the Canadian nick name on the page about the Major story on my site.

[Stevo]

Hi hemiorange,
E27N's are a great tractor to restore, virtually everything on it is rebuildable and are still relatively inexpensive for engine componantes, and very simple to work on. Some things like Barry say's are very hard to get as an original and reproduction bits are rediculously priced. But patience is the key, go to meets watch ebay and try to meet other enthusiasts. Main thing is never to throw anything away no matter how bad you think it is, you may not be able to replace it. There is a wiring diagrame on this site. I've just finished the electric on my P6 (E27N fitted with perkins 6 cylinder Diesal). They also come in Petrol/kero, Petrol and four cylinder Diesal. I have done a full rewire including instrument box and aux power/tail light. Original wire colors will be a problem for you but its probably not important because as Barry says they are rubber sheathed and cloth finished, so you cant't see much anyway. I used two layers of black insulation tape and finished off with cloth tape(courtisy of Aussie Frank). You can date your machine from info many of us have. If you need any manuals or printed info on your tractor let me know your email address and I'll send them to you. Probaly the best source of info is this site as apart from myself, Barry, Aussie Frank, TK (who's doing a full rebuild as we speak) and emiel can probably awnser most questions as we've all battled with almost anything you can think off in restoring these beasties.
Kind Regards,
Steve

[hemiorange]

I am making one tractor out of #'s 1146317 and 1146299. Very close numbers, perhaps came over on the boat together. I have a photo to post of the bleached/unbleached parts of the wheel. This forum is not idiotproof enough for me. Can anyone tell me how to post a pic? When I hit "img" it asked for a http address for the photo instead of going inside my machine to get it.

[Meanderer]

This forum is not idiotproof enough for me. Can anyone tell me how to post a pic? When I hit "img" it asked for a http address for the photo instead of going inside my machine to get it.

G'day Hemi'
To post an image here you need to join/subscribe (FREE) to one of the thousands of sites that will host your photos /images. I use http://photobucket.com/ and everyone here probably uses a different one.
You upload your photos there and it will give you the option of copying/pasting code address to paste into your Post Here. You must leave the image in the same place on the host and never rename or move it to another folder etc., otherwise it will no longer be found by this Fordson Forum.
Hope that is helpful enough. If not, PM me.
Rick

[Miles]

Hey hemiorange....We live on the same side of the world...

The March 2008 of Tractor Magazine (http://tractorheritage.co.uk/) has a nice E27 restoration article in it with lots of color pictures. This is one of the best magazines I read and usually has lots of Fordson related material.

Strangley, I just purchased this issue today and I see they have May issue featured on website? The April and May issues must still be on that slow boat to Canada:-) You should be able to purchase at McNally Robinson or Chapters.

Regards

[hemiorange]

I am not from a Ford background so I am not sure which tractor is the E1A. Since they are all called Fordson Majors to me an E27N would be unstyled and the later ones styled.
I saw photos of a County crawler. The sheet metal is styled but there is a shot from the rear and the differential housing and rear drive sproket centers are clearly E27N. Did early styled Majors have the E27N rear with a newer engine and sheetmetal? I remember my uncles Major as being the first tractor I saw with an over/under transmission.
To go back to colour should my E27N (which no parts man in this country remembers) be the same as the first styled Majors?
By my Nebraska tests book it seems the E27N was sold in the US in the 30's as an Allround.
From my smattering of knowledge about Ford parts from the 50's it seems to me that the term should mean:
E = English build Ford product
27= first designed in 1927
N=agricultural product. The only part that gives me trouble is the 27, were they really around that long?
Hi Miles. Our tractor club here in Rosetown is featuring Ford this year on June 14. As the only Ford in my collection is this one I thought I would do it up for the show. It turns out that my pistons were loose but only 1/2 the valves were. You are all invited but I confess it will not be a large enough show to justify flying from the other side of the world. There will be cars, trucks and tractors plus an all makes tractor parts swap meet.
My tractors had cloth covered rubber coated wires. All that is left outside the conduits is bare wire. Would they have had cloth backed tape wrapped around all the wires from the conduit to the fixture to make one cable or would it have been individual wires going from the conduit to the fixture? Did they do like IH and paint after the wire was installed so that the tracers didn't help anyway?
Until I work on another piece, thanks for now.

[Brian]

The 27 comes from 27HP which was the power of the petrol/paraffin. The back end is similar to the E1A Major range but the brakes are on short shafts on the E27N and long ones on the E1A.

Ford did not design "new" tractors from scratch, they used a lot of the ideas from the previous models. The E27N can be traced back to the Model N. The change between those two was the new rear axle.

[Aussie Frank]

Hello Hemi,

The color of your tractor should be a dark navy blue. This is not the same color as the later E1A (or styled Fordsons) as they were a much lighter shade of blue. I believe that Sparex stock the paint but I am not sure as I have never used it. They have S.84393 listed as Fordson Blue as distinct from empire blue which is the later color so it should be the right color. As a guide to what the color should look like go to your nearest auto store that sells VHT engine enamell and take a look at paint number SP.125 Ford Dark Blue, it is a very close match. The only other color on the tractor is the orange wheels and the orange raised lettering on the radiator. Howard rotovator Orange is the correct color. Sparex list a Fordson/Allis Chalmers Orange too S.84394.

As far as I can tell everything was painted wiring included, as the only small piece of original loom that I have on a headlight has paint on it. That may have happened later in the tractors life. The later model E1A Fordsons had everything painted so I would suspect that the earlier ones did too. All my tractors had wires all over the place with no tape on them, but I bought a headlight and it had a cloth covering like the early power cords over the individual wires to make up a loom. Early cars also had wiring looms made the same way so the harnesses were probably made the same way. Cloth tape would be a close approximation. Lighting was an option so there were two separate harnesses one for electrics, charging starting etc. and the other for lighting. Old 20 in England sell looms if you can stomach the price. http://www.old20.com/ If you have no lights on your tractor you will find them very hard to get and be prepared to pay far more than the price of the tractor to buy them. They were a crazy size of 6 1/2 inches and nothing but Fordson E27N tractors and a ford prefect van used them. Headlight arms are available and come up on eBay in England as reproductions. I have found them in the past by just doing a search for Fordson. I have never actually found the manufacturer though.

As for the nick name, they call them longhorns in Texas too because of the headlights. It has nothing to do with the plant that they were made in.

Good luck with the restoration

Regards, Frank.

[Jerry Coles]

Hi guys
When my E27n headlightd were well and truly rotted I found that motorcyle headlights fitted. Remove the glass from inside the rims by removing the clips and then replace with the motor cycle assembly.
This also gave me dipped headlights as a bonus. I believe that although perfect restorations are an aspiration sometimes complying with current requirements is a better thing especially if you take them on the road. I rewired my L4 perkins E27N to give me indicators and stop lights - just didn't want someone running into my Lainchbury winch on the back 'cos that was some solid steel! Also fitted an orange beacon. Take a look at
http://s307.photobucket.com/albums/nn28 ... 0Pictures/

Regards Jerry Coles