The Fordson Tractor Pages Forum

I'd just like to say thanks to the forum. I have the dubious luck of looking after my Grandad's Super Major as I am normally the one that uses it, my Grandad is 91 and can't do everything that he used too.

My Grandad had been using the tractor a while ago and when he stopped it it flat out refused to restart. I managed to look at it over the weekend and it would start with a little sniff of the dreaded easy start, but was sounding as if it had a missfire and was emitting an unusually large amount of white smoke. Having looked through previous threads on here we (my uncle and I) decided to check the timing. We set the timing marks as per the manual and it all looked good, until we noticed that the injector pump coupling on the drive end was loose. We pulled the pump off and found that the drive end coupling woodruff key had snapped at the bottom and had become loose in the shaft. This allowed the coupling to move by almost an inch rotationally. My uncle turned up a new slightly oversize woodruff key which we fitted and then set the timing to where it should be. When we restarted it I couldn't believe how smooth it sounded. I have never ever heard it sound so good.

So with the steering sorted (my uncle replaced the kingpins and bearings last year) we used it in anger for pretty much the whole day on Sunday and it ran pretty much faultlessly including using a flail mower which was probably a bit oversized for the power of the tractor. But it ran it none the less.

So thanks for all your most helpful advice, it has kept a Super Major going and prevented it going to the great big scrap yard in the sky.

Very good, Paul!

It sounds like that key had been loose and rattling around for some time. Very pleased it's all smoothed out. What does Granddad think?

My Grandad is very happy that his pride and joy lives to fight another day. I'm not so happy as where we use it is quite tight on access and the tractor is really a bit to big to use in that area, we where looking at replacing it with something a smaller overall size but larger engine with a loader with hydraulic tip and hydraulic up and down action, plus power steering which would be a lot more usable for what we need, but it looks like shes staying for the foreseeable future. This will no doubt mean that there will be more repairs to be carried out at some point as the clutch really could do with some attention plus it needs new gearbox and back axle oil as well so that will be on the list of things to do plus getting the money to do it.