The Fordson Tractor Pages Forum

We've just done Billy's 150th engine oil and filter change and 50th gearbox oil change, with some dirt in the gearbox which we shifted easily. And looking through the hole in the sump we saw the main bearing bolts, and saw that they were held with locking wire! Not the usual thickness wire, but heavy 1/8" wire, as left by the factory.
Getting all reved up for the change.

Old oil bottles awaiting old oil.






All the filters off and all but a few drops to drain.






The air filter has suffered neglect in the past as can be seen from the rust.


Empty engine.

Dirt in gearbox.

View through the sump at the main bearing bolts and the large locking wire (there won't be a better pic until the next change).

Clean gearbox ready for new SAE 90 oil.

All done and running again.

Sandy

Nice to see a Major that is looked after, the poor old things usually have had more owners than oil changes! Not sure if modern lock wire is stronger than the old stuff but they certainly did use some serious wire on the old Fordsons

And back to work again!



I don't know of any change in locking wire, but there might well have been some.
Sandy

Billy,
you’ve posted over twenty photos above, only a handful of which are of reasonable quality. They are mostly out of focus or poorly lit, leaving us to guess at the content.
Can I ask that you review your shots before posting, and weed out any that are not up to standard, improving our appreciation of your generous contributions.

Hi Sandy, slightly off topic, what type of rear tyre is that? We used to have semi industrial rears on our diggers with a 'J' lug on them but I've not seen a 'T' lug like that before.

I have to say our camera is very bad for focus and you often spend ages trying to get a good one. Any pic in the barn is likely to be on the dark side as the lighting in the barn is pretty bad even for just doing things, and when you try to light up something you end up with a worse pic (one patch far too bright and the rest still too dark). I should also say that I'm not very good at photography anyway, so I should probably try to improve a bit too.

The T lug is a Firestone type that was very common here, but these particular tyres are actually retreads of General tyres with this tread, we got these nearly 20 years ago very cheap as the guy we got them from was trying to get rid of them and they've been really good as they show very little wear for the use they've had.
Sandy