The Fordson Tractor Pages Forum

Put quickly, not a right lot as it turns out she’s turning into a bit of a project!

As I’ve read quite a lot of the tech info on here, I thought I’d tell my story so far.

Father in law was a farmer since birth I guess, 72 now so pottering more than out else now. He happened across a Dexta in a shed and bought them both. We dragged said machine back to the farm and made a start on trying to get her going. It’s been laid up for 10-15 years at least.

This is 7 months or so ago and we were living much further away, so my involvement from then on was nil.

We’ve recently bought something much closer to both sets of parents as we wanted our little one to be able to see them more often. Anyway as the Dexta has now been sitting for another 3 or 4 months unchanged I offer to buy it. Offer accepted! Oh bu££er! I will mention that I knew a guy in my mid teens that bought and sold a lot of these era machines and I have some fond memories, as for farming my days knocking about on the farm meant a JD 2650.

So the work starts (bear in mind I have jobs for this) and the old fuel is drained, new filter added and after a bit of persuasion it bursts back into life. Good, check coolant, add, puddle appears, new radiator please. Also at that time found the water pump bearings were shot, new pump, thermostat and hoses.

So we now have an engine that won’t cook in a couple of mins, time for a little run. Hop on, push clutch, select gears....or try. Clutch seized to flywheel. We’ve tried pretty much every trick in the book to free this but nothing worked. My next step to avoid splitting it was to get something PTO powered and give it some graft to do to try and free up the clutch. We had an old post auger lying about so thought that might be the ticket.

Next problem, no hydraulics! Ok so looking at the near side wheel bearing seal has failed, maybe it’s low on oil so I’ll change that and top it up. So I strip it, bearing and seals ordered, stuff arrives, wrong bearings, order some more, right bearings. Follow a YouTube vid on getting the shrink collar off, lots of nackered drill bits and bashed fingers but collar won’t break. Warm it up with the gas, fell right off. Bearing not playing, cut through the cage, knocked the rollers out, separated the shaft from the bearing housing and knocked the shells out. New bearings and seals fitted and time to refit. Started doing up the nuts for the bearing assembly to the trumpet housing and seared 3 studs off (with a 5” spanner, not a breaker bar and 6ft of pole). Could not get the remaining bit of studs out whatever I tried, despite ordering all available studs from CNH . Saw some complete assemblies on eBay, bought, fitted, job done. Drained and filled rear end with new oil but no lift.

Time to get serious. I order all the clutch components (single on mine), split it, change all of it and put it back together, wasn’t all that bad, wouldn’t want to do it every month but nothing was seized solid, it just took some time (entire weekend).

So now I now something that I can drive about, change gear and bring to a halt if I want, happy days!

Next, hydraulics (this weekend)

After determining that the pump was running the next step was to pull the top off and go through it. Top comes off ok but in an awkward position means I can’t lid it off on my own. Linkages etc look pretty good, doesn’t appear to be the drill bit fix issue present here. Unloading valve is the primary check, plug come out very easily and that’s initially a concern, valve seems a bit gummed up, removed and cleaned, a lot better now and O ring dunped. Rightly or wrongly I’m not so concerned about the plug, it should be a tight fit but can’t move forward due to the forward bushing and can’t move back due to the plate, so can’t block the oil that runs around it’s groove. Given that its supposed to run at around 11psi and you can’t get a replacement anyway, it’ll either work or not.

So whilst in there I’ve decided to change the exhaust filter and clean the inlet filter, but I can’t find the latter initially. I do find it laying on its side a bit mangled up. So much so there’s a hole ground into it from other moving parts that gone through the outer casing to the gauze filter. I decide to clean up, weld a patch on, put a new o ring on and find that there’s no way it’ll go into the inlet of the pump with the pump in situ. So all of the oil has to come out again and the pump removed to refit. As I’ve spotted a complete inlet filter about, I’ll purchase and that’s a job for next weekend.

Sorry for the long post, that’s where I am as of today.

I can see this is turning into one of those never ending "JUST" jobs! Persevere like you sound you are and you will add another 50 years onto it's life. Are the tyres OK? Next job to check is the trunnion bush for the front axle and I would suggest replacing the bolts which tie the radius rods to the front axle. They are the same as the wing mounting bolts. It does improve handling when out on the road.
All the best
Jerry

Hi Jerry,

It has turned into a little more work that I’d hoped, still it’ll get there.

Good news is, the tyres are excellent, lots of tread left and as it’s been in it’s shed, not much UV to deteriorate them.

Engine seems to run quite sweetly too.

I’m hoping to get it operational as I have some small jobs for it. But yes moving forward I would think smaller jobs like track rods, wheel bearings etc as well probably some additional lighting (maybe I should some at this point) can be picked off over the summer.

Hi Dysan
If you wan to modernise your electrics then look at the top of the Dexta pages and go to the section starting with wiki and you'll see my contribution on Dexta electrics.
BTW where are you located?
Cheers

Hi Jerry,

I’d seen that some time ago, didn’t match the name originally, looks good thanks. Even though it’s not a requirement, if it’s going to be on the road much, then sympathetic modernisation has to be done I think. I also like your change of the filler nut to allow a hydraulic return, so I think I’ll be doing that and going with quick release.

Mine clearly had a loader on previously and for some reason all the aux piping is now long gone so it’ll have to be a fresh start in that respect.

Replacement inlet filter has arrived from procock and there’s pump gasket waiting at the local cnh dealer down the road so once I’ve had the check valve out hopefully all the backend can be put back this weekend and hopefully I can go and lift the brand new link box that’s been sat around for 3 months I got as a milestone birthday present.

Had my eyes on a nice 3 ton trailer too, but the Mrs car has just gone and killed itself so that’s now on hold

Lee

Well the story continues....

Any hoo, having some (unnecessary) issues with parts in particular the pump gasket which I ordered from the local CNH dealer and was incorrect, they only other place I could find one at the time was the netherlands, but they didn’t take any payment method I could understand. Only to find the day before the weekend of assembly Agriline have them. Couldn’t wait or drive the 4 hour round trip to get one, so it was a liquid gasket job.

Top cover all reassembled with new o rings and reinstalled and I now have working hydraulics. It’s not perfect as I couldn’t find the measurements for the special tool to make the internal adjustments but it’ll do for now and I can always pull it off again when there’s a bit more time.

Well the poor thing has had a major shakedown this week. Bought a baker at a local machinery sale and she was tasked with the 30 miles round trip of bringing it home. It did remarkably well, although not without further issues coming to light. It appears one to the rear most bolts for the swinging drawbar had failed a long time since and was left unnoticed. The baker soon found this weak spot and destroyed the remaining one and bent the top plate of the assembly. So now I’m scratching my head on how to deal with that one.

All the parts (of those available) to sort the steering box out have arrived but that’s on the back burner for now whilst I sort the garden out with her. Not that we did too much of that this weekend after it died due to fuel starvation caused by all the sediment in the tank getting in the strainer probably due to the amount of recent use. All cleaned and fresh diesel so hopefully that’ll sort that.

A 3 ton trailer turned up that I now can’t use due to the drawbar issue, still it’ll keep it looking pretty for a bit.

Last weekend I also replaced the tacho drive cable and she’s now clocking hours again, 6 hours this week.