The Fordson Tractor Pages Forum

Hi,

I thought I would share my project. I will be asking for lots of help over the next few months.



I have had this little tractor in the family for many years and it was last used in 2005 for a BBC TV program called Green Green Grass. Too much oil and water mixing from a cracked block, it was put into retirement.



I have decided it was time it had a good clean, fix and paint to get it back up and running.

First registered 06/07/1954
Block : 1301657
July 1954
New Fordson Major Mark 1 (E1A)

I got a new engine nearly the same age:
Block : 1309900
September 1954

Current progress is stripped old tractor and engine down ready to be removed:



Checked new engine and all seems fine inside, so cleaned and gave some paint:



Fitted new oil and fuel filters... now for some lifting equipment.

Welcome to the board.

Looks good. Good luck. Keep us posted.

Lovely looking Major. If you give him a good clean he'll look much better!
Sandy

Busy day today, got the front axel off:


Then, got the old engine off:




Then got the new engine on, yay:

Looking good.
Sandy

Bit of advice from someone who has been there and almost done it, get some decent support for that tractor before you kill yourself. Dave

It's ok, wheel back on now.

This thing is going to look great when you're finished

Hi and welcome to the forum

Dave's concern was not the absence of wheel but the stack of building blocks supporting the weight, if you have not actually seen a stack of these under minimal load suddenly disintegrate without warning you will not appreciate the warning - timber or steel is safer

You did well to find a right period engine in such nice order.

I saw that episode of Green Green grass just the other evening - is your star doing back tyre autographs for fans to fund the restoration

Signing is a good idea, could do with a bit of extra cash to rebuild....

Looking good!
Sandy

Now got the injectors sorted. It starts easily. Can carry on with restoring the water and electric system.

https://youtu.be/SJsk4dY8IoU

Good to hear him going again, you might want to bleed the injectors when you next start him up.
Sandy

Good job Keep going.

Nice to hear it come back to life. Dandy Dave.

Yannp wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 31, 2020 2:25 pm

Now got the injectors sorted. It starts easily. Can carry on with restoring the water and electric system.

https://youtu.be/SJsk4dY8IoU

Yes it’s running, but misfiring badly. Sorry, somethings seriously wrong.

The misfire seems to be down to a loose injector union on number 2 injector - look at the fuel spurting out on the video! Simple fix hopefully.

Well spotted, hope that’s all it is.

It's not only loose but completely off. Put it on then slacken it a quarter turn to bleed it then tighten. Don't run like that for longer than you need to bleed the injectors as it overloads the next cylinder (no. 4) and squirts fuel at high pressure. A video would be nice after doing this and fitting the air filter and the radiator including hoses, oil and coolant. The engine will suffer from not having either of these working properly (at any time, not only doing hard dusty work).
Sandy

Billy26F5 wrote: ↑

Sat Nov 07, 2020 12:21 am

...Don't run like that for longer than you need to bleed the injectors as it overloads the next cylinder ...

Interesting theory, how does that work?

Yes Old Hywel, I agree with you, they are all independent pumping elements in an inline pump so the status of one cylinder cannot affect the others. The pressure developed in a particular element, pipe and injector is entirely down to the condition of that pumping element, the integrity of the pipe and unions and the condition and pressure setting of the injector concerned.

If one cylinder doesn't fire, the engine speed decreases, meaning the next cylinder has to fire at full fuel delivery to regain the lost speed. This is done by the governor, so it's not an injection overload. The overload is to the piston, con-rod, crankshaft, liner and cylinder head as they're not meant to have different cylinders doing different things (one doesn't fire, the next fires at full delivery, the other two fire more normally).
Sandy

No, the principle of governor operation will not cause that to happen. In the case of the vacuum governor, this works on the basis of maintaining a constant vacuum depression in the inlet manifold, the depression is dependant on the engine speed but the governor will select a setting that maintains a constant speed that keeps the vacuum depression constant and it will automatically average and allow for the fact that one cylinder might not be firing or firing fully, it will not speed up from one cylinder to the next and then speed down by increasing fuelling then reducing fuelling! It will take a setting that averages the 4 cylinders to keep the vacuum depression constant.
The same applies to a mechanical governor which seeks to maintain a constant speed of the governor shaft and a constant position of the governor weights. Again it will take an average setting to allow for discrepancies between individual cylinders and will not increase and decrease fuelling from one cylinder to the next. As engines wear the performance of one cylinder to the next varies, the governor automatically corrects and allows for these variations to maintain a constant engine speed, it will not do that by constantly increasing fuelling to one cylinder then reducing it to the next, it averages and allows for the cylinder differences by taking a particular average setting.

Nicely put Shepp. I can’t see the governor rack skipping to and fro several times a second.