The Fordson Tractor Pages Forum

Hi guys. Thinking of making the major slightly more user friendly on the road. I see online people are selling a foot throttle kit. Are they any good? Pics would be handy!
Thanks

Billy,

you will find out that the kits will need some adjustment to get them working. Worth a try.
I personally don't miss the foot throttle, the hand throttle is like cruise control for me.

Foot throttle was worth it's weight in gold when using a loader. Left hand steering, right hand hydraulic lever, foot for throttle.

Left hand steering?? I already need three hands to steer mine with the loader on!

Interesting topic. I recently made up and installed a foot throttle on my 1956 Fordson Major using bits and pieces in my shop . . Works well & I,m happy with it. I have attempted to share pictures of the mechanism but after many attempts ,, I simply can,t figure out how to attach pictures on this forum. My apologies. I do have pictures posted on the Yesterdays Tractors Fordson discussion Forum.

For pics see this: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5024&p=53955#p53955.
Here's Billy's foot throttle.

Sandy

[url=https://postimages.org/][/url]. Thanks Billy for your help with up-loading a picture. A couple of photos of the foot throttle I installed on my Major. Doing this modification as I have done makes it necessary to install a return spring on the throttle rod. I installed my spring behind and towards the rear of the injector pump.

Looks good if only a bit difficult for a sterring brake turn where you don't want to move the lever. You seem to have the early primary gear lever, from what you say about the spring it looks like you have the throttle through the block.
Billy's spring is on the manifold, as it's a rare industrial (I think) intake manifold.

Always good to see a belt pulley!
Sandy

Yes , I have the throttle bell crank through the engine block. My photo is deceiving . The throttle pedal is situated in no man,s land on the foot plate.
I don,t think you could , if you wanted to ,, apply both the throttle pedal and left brake at the same time. Positioning of throttle pedal was critical during install. As a matter of fact , for that very reason I chose a small and short pedal.

You could do the throttle and LH brake but it's very difficult, if anyone does this later I recommend using a second lever as the crank for the pedal rod and main throttle rod, for use when you want to do it with your hand and don't want to disturb the position of the original lever (which sets the low revs as it has the friction disk).
Sandy

This is the linkage to the pump from a JCB3 with a Major engine, can't find the other bits. The lever on the pump had a strong return spring, and the ends from the hand and foot throttle had tubes on the end that slid over the 2 rods as far as the stops, so which ever throttle was operated its rod would push against the stop and push the lever forward, leaving the other to slide in the tube. Hope all that makes sense!
John

Thanks for the info and pics. John. Much appreciated.. Brian

Beat thing i found with this setup was the ability to override the hand throttle by pressing the pedal but without adjusting the the rev setting, so as soon as i took my foot off the pedal the revs would return to where i had them set with the hand throttle, like a modern tractor

Billy is like that too.
Sandy

Indeed, A very helpful bit of the design John . When releasing the foot pedal ,, RPM drops back to wherever the last position of the hand throttle setting was left . Mine operates in that manner as well. Brian