The Fordson Tractor Pages Forum

Seems there may be quite a disparity between what is written either in books or on the net on the Majors top speed. I have a 1964 New Performance Super Major, with Standard 12 x 36 tyres, which if it has the standard gearbox should be according to the net and all other references I can find pretty slow, so much so that back in the day farmers did not appreciate it and Ford started offering a high(er) speed box as an option.

I was curious, as my Major felt like it was going faster than all information said that it should, even if it did have the high(er) speed box fitted. So I checked it with GPS and sure enough top speed on the flat was 19mph. Now as it is the New Performance with the minimec pump,it has a maximum governed rpm of 1950. This basically means that in top gear if you divide the rpm by 100 you get the road speed in mph. Now I suppose it is possible that the tacho could be under reading, and that someone in the past set the max rpm according to the tacho and therefore the engine is revving higher than it should, but the engine does not feel like it is running too fast, and if the published maximum speeds were correct then it would be running noticeably too fast.

So is there any definitive answer?

To me this top speed makes sense as I believe at the time the legal maximum speed for an agricultural tractor was 20mph.

What you have must be the high speed version. I have 2 low speed new performance, . They go like 23 - 24km/h, which is like maximum 15mph

Standard tyres are 11-36, and the speeds are measured at the rated speed. Never exceed the rated speed, with the only exception to set the no load speed. Sounds to me like you have the 3.5 ratio (identifiable if you look for the stamping in the pic of Superr Billy, yours will have 33).

Sandy