The Fordson Tractor Pages Forum

It has been a long time since I have been on FTP and I have acquired at least one more Major and a Super Major since the last time I was here.
The Super runs great now that I have cleaned all of the pipe joint compound out of the fuel system and the rust out of the cooling system. It was built in March 1963 and has the Minimec pump. The governor is very slow to react and it sometimes doesn't react to an increased load at all. I'm thinking that it has a weak governor spring or sticking fly weights. I have never been into the mechanical governor on a Minimec. I'm going to take the pump off this weekend and pull the cover off of the governor housing. Does anyone here have any experience with these?

Don't forget!!!!!!!!!

I was hoping the someone had worked on their Minimec governor, but I guess not. Don't worry, Henk. I'll post some pictures when I do it!

SIMMS Rules

Not long back there was a discussion on the responsiveness of the pneumatic compared with mechanical governors and the latter were generally considered to be faster, not much help other than perhaps to confirm you may have a problem, I always found our Super quite harsh compared to the Mk2 and my suspicion is that this may be related to why the Super engines seemed to suffer proportionally more mechanical problems, the old bellows I liken to a horse, flick the reigns and it'll put its shoulders into the load in time but without that jolt that the Minimec's stick into the engine.

Oh, the 'youngster' died of a broken crankshaft having spent a fairly quiet life as a yard tractor in tyre depot before we had her for moving topsoil about, the old girl has cleared acres of stumps on a chain or steel rope over the years and still plods on, 61 last Sunday and not too far off being properly retired now.

I have always liked the way the vacuum governor worked, Rick. Of all the Majors (too many) that I have, this is the only "modern"one, with a Minimec I've ever owned. I know what you mean about the old ones plodding along. We have a Mk. 1 that we bought in 1966. The engine and injector pump were rebuilt in the '70s. The engine needed it, but the injector pump probably didn't. It doesn't get used as much now, but it will always do whatever you want it to, whenever you need it.

Here are some pictures for Henk (and everyone else).

Before I started.


Almost ready to come off, I just have to loosen the mounting bolts.


The inside of the governor.

Nothing looks bad and everything moves freely. I'll look into it a little more tomorrow. When I lined up the timing marks, before I removed the pump, I found that the timing was 29* BTDC instead of 21. That could be part of the problem.

This is what I drained out of the governor housing.
About a week ago, I filled it with kerosene and ATF. I figured that it would loosen up whatever was in there. It looks like it did. I flushed it with solvent two or three times, filled it with fresh oil and put it back on the tractor. When I started it, the governor was just the same as before. I shut it off and set the timing to 21* BTDC. It didn't run any better and it smoked. I set the timing back to 29* BTDC and the smoke went away. Maybe the injector pump itself was not timed right when it was rebuilt? I guess I'll have to refresh my memory on how to check that. This is the fun part of owning old tractors!