The Fordson Tractor Pages Forum

I was assured by the seller that my Dexta had been completely serviced with all oils changed. After having found that the gearbox oil was a light brown colour I decided to check all other oils.
To my horror I found the air cleaner had no oil in it whatsoever - and the metal gauze was extremely dirty.
I have used the tractor for about 4 hours with a log splitter in this state - what sort of damage could have resulted from this and what would the symptoms be?

Best Regards
Andy

Hello Nevis,

Having no oil in the air cleaner is not funny, but I wouldn't worry about 4 hour log splitting. Worrying wouldn't help you any further.

When your tractor runs quite well, I would only clean the cleaner and fill her up to the correct level and just use her.

When you are drilling under dusty conditions it is far more likely to do damage to your engine then with stationary work on your yard.

Best regards

Emiel

Hello Andy

I used a industial steam cleaner to clean the metal gauze off my Dexta, it did a fairly good job. Some years ago one of the members posted a proceedure on the forum that he followed and that was to boil the gauze filter in a pot on the stove. Whether he is still married is another question . You may have to ask your wife very nicely if you can use one of her pots.

Good luck
Mervyn

I had to remove the South Island of New Zealand from Dotty's air cleaner It was water and mud! I cleaned the filter with kerosene leaving it to soak overnight, then blew it out with the airline and repeated the whole process over a couple of days.

Its nice and clean now.

Got my missing draw bar bracket today. Called in on M. Hipperson as I passed his stores, picked up a two sets of brake discs for Nuffy. Its the muck carting season so though I had better sort her brakes for road work after the swimming episode.

As we were totaling up the cost I just asked if he had the bracket. He went to check his stores and lo and behold he came back with the bracket plus all new pins. And at a very reasonable price too!

He advertises on E-Bay but he has a lot of stock for Fergusons, Nuffields, Majors and Dextas as well as David Browns. He is one dealer I would recommend very highly. He stocks Vapormatic and other makes of replacement parts.

Brian,
After the soaking you gave Nuffy, I'd think you should put some "May West's" on her this year for a precautionary measure against drowning. Growing up with your Dad and him being in WWII you surely will know what these are.

I asked my wife if I could boil my tractor air cleaner in one of her pots - the reply is unprintable on a family website!
I cleaned the wire mesh and canister and blew it out with compressed air - all nice & clean now.
From doing some searching it looks as though there should be another gauze in the pipe before the wire mesh. Obviously my tractor does not have this - how important is this? - I assume it is to reduce contamination of the oil bath to reduce the frequency of oil changes?

Andy

Hi Andy,

There should be a removable gauze that slots into the bottom oil bath that detaches from the main air filter body. There is also gauze in the main air filter body. I assume that you are missing the removable gauze

Mine was missing when I bought my Dexta, I bought an old air filter on ebay to get a replacement. I am not aware of a new replacement version being available I am afraid.

Chris

Glad you got the bracket Brian, no, I did not have one. I should have got back to you, but have been a bit busy recently

Neil

Thanks for looking Neil.

My pot on the stove was a plastic bucket setting on top of my house air conditioning outdoor condensor unit. The bucket was heated by the hot air from the condensor fan; and also vibrating too from the compressor and condensor fan. It was amazing all the crud that would settle to the bottom of my bucket.

This was a few months ago during some 100 degree F days though. I actually cleaned quite a lot of parts from the Dexta using this method.

I am thankful that the first time I tried to crank my Dexta that the starter would not work because I found the oil bath filter to be full of water; I don't think she would have been too happy ingesting water.

Mine has a previous history of being started by the father-in-law with Ether. I will be finding out today or tomorrow if she will start properly with the heater and fuel primer (both are working now).

Bob