This weeks Blue Injection.

[Brian]

https://youtu.be/vzXWVpjy1xg

Can't remember if I have posted this before but it is worth a second look.

[oehrick]

I'd seen it before but can't remember how I got there - as you say well worth another half hour Brian

If there is a quick answer, what is this Force that later tractors are often refered to as pre or post ?

Anyone heading for Skeyton Trosh this Sunday ? I shall drop by if fine and will take the camera in case of interesting blueness on site........

[Brian]

The interesting part of that film was it was made before the 4000 was introduced to the range. The 5000 was supposed to be the "Medium" tractor and the 6000 was the big beast. Unfortunately the 6000 petrol truck engine "dieselised" was a load of rubbish, it was supplied with Select-O-Speed only, no manual boxes and the hydraulics and rear axle failed when put into hard work. History shows thta the 6000 was a lemon and had to be recalled and rebuilt at Ford's expense. It was never sold in the UK.

The 5000 had originally less torque than the NP Super and it showed.

On the insistence of Ford GB the 4000 was added to the range as an afterthought and proved to be the best tractor Ford built at that period.

Most of the early Ford range from 1964 to July 1968 had major problems and were loosing market share so Ford had to do something and make a big splash of it, so in July 1968 it was blazed across the media " The New Ford Force is Here", the look was changed with a new front grill and new decals. The bonnet line of the 2000 and 3000 was dropped to emphasise the smallness of these models (still much bigger than the Dexta) The 4000 was given a horse power boost to around 62 hp and the 5000 went up to 75 hp.

The early models were the "X" series and the Force tractors were the "Y" series.

[blackbob]

If, like me, you were an avid childhood reader of the 'Farmer and Stockbreeder' you would remember this ad:



(and everyone thinks mis-using apostrophes is a recent thing.. )

[blackbob]

..and while we're on the subject of ads, here is another one I had on my bedroom wall as a teenager (sad innit )

[Brian]

Another interesting point, the "X" Series was supposed to have been a "World" Range with the same tractors used in every market but the concept, whilst theoretically sound, does not work in reality.

Only a couple of days ago I was talking to a friend in Australia about the Super Major lift. The lift is hated over there with Ford dealers taking them off and replacing them with the FMD or Power Major ones. Now I know the lifts could give problems at times over here but these were usually caused by the TS82 and rough roads or tracks being driven over at high speed. A TS 82 bouncing hits the ram cylinder with over ten tons of force according to Ford technicians as that was what their gauges stuck at when they disintegrated on test.

In Australia the Super was used on trailed implements, the main problem was caused by hitching implements to the top link and pulling everything out through the hole in the top cover.

The "X" Series, in the US, is regarded as one of the best tractors ranges Ford ever produced with plenty of power and no major problems apart from the 6000. When I once mentioned the gutless 5000, clutch problems and hydraulic lift parts smashing the rear axle housing on YT Mag. things got very heated as this was Ford's perfect tractor range and gave no problems at all. Ford 3000s were the perfect tractor for the medium farmer and could handle up to four furrows according to the blurbs issued by Ford in the early days. 2000s would handle three furrows with ease so on the US market there was no need for a 4000.

If Fords had done all that testing as they claimed why did we have to sort the problems for them? In July 1968, as the new tractor was announced, the mechanics at J. J. Wright and Sons Ltd all got a letter of thanks for our help in correcting all the faults from Ford Tractor Operations, a Select-O-Speed plastic demonstration gear system and a Ford tie. I still have the tie but the letter is long gone and for some reason, I did not get the Select-O-Speed gear model.

The reason that the grease nipples were left off the front wheel bearings of the range was that they let water into the bearings when working in rice paddys according to Ford at the time. The fact that we were getting through sets of wheel bearings, front hubs and in the worst cases, stub axles in less than 100 hours passed them by until the cost of warranty claims started to bite.

In 1968 The Force Tractors were what the new range should have been at the start, they had all the faults ironed out and were a good solid tractor although in my opinion, the 5000 was still overated. The really excellent tractor of the range was the 7000 and of course, my all time favorite, the 4000.

So each market presents different problems and by the end of production, the Ford range had branched into many different variants to cover each market. We have a Ford 4200 locally for sale, now that is an interesting variant.

And Bob, thanks for reminding me of my age! A school boy reading the Farmer and Stockbreeder indeed!

[blackbob]

..and now on Channel Ford.. time for another commercial break

5000 over-rated??

[oehrick]

Thanks for that explanation (and the product critique) Brian, While you can ship a maintenance manual with a new product I reckon it takes a year plus of field feedback to even start on the service manual but sales departments appear to have a blind spot in this area. Sounds like Ford development may have made the mistake of beleiving their own marketing first time round

Thanks for the illustrations Bob - I had mainly steam covered wallpaper in my teens and still have a fair chunk of it in a couple of boxfiles here, where we have long run out of wallspace for books or pictures alike........

Weather not looking too good for tomorrow unfortunately, other than for marinated (or marinised ?) Fords

[Brian]

Yes Bob, compared to the 4000 which would lug like mad at low revs.

A 5000, even the Force model would tend to die. I said before that, when demonstrating, you had to rein in the 4000 if you were working with a 5000 to avoid showing it up. The Force 5000 was not a bad tractor at all but we expected a bit more.

They were good on big heavy implements like the TS84 but just needed that little more poke. In the middle '70s Ford slipped us a new engine without telling us. Brought the power up to 80hp and, boy, that made a difference. Then they stuck the bubble Quiet Cab on and tamed it back down with the extra weight We had been flying there for a while.

I had two brand new tractors, a 4600 and a 6600 prior to their announcement, before the cab came out, to work for a week prior to them being used as demonstrators. We took them to certain customers, one on a TS82 and one on a TS84 and we worked in heavy clay soil. In those conditions, on one farm, we had to go down to two furrows on the 6600 even with the new engine but, with Kleber Radial tyres we were still cutting the valves off the tubes due to tyres turning on the rims on both tractors.

The 6600 replaced the 5000 in the range, they did make a 5600 but that was a backward step as it used the original "X" series 5000 engine configuration and was only slightly more horsepower than the 4600. The idea was to bring Dual Power into a "small" tractor, according to Ford.

The 7000 on the other hand had power to burn and we loved demo-ing it against the MF 595 and 1080. It would outperform both on pulling jobs like ploughing but then you could take all the weight off and do top work without leaving damn great ruts, as they did.

[blackbob]

I guess I just prefer the relative smoothness of a 4-cylinder - whether a 165/185 or a Deere 2130 or a Leyland.
Don't think I ever ploughed with a 5000, I've probably already mentioned that the contractor I worked for in the 80's had one with a Farmhand loader permanently attached and it was a real joy to use, good balance between being lively but heavy enough for grip and stability, and that glorious gearbox!

Oh and don't mention your age, I am envious of you because I often think I was born 20-30 years too late, modern vario transmissions, auto steering and electronic controls leave me cold, i much prefer the hands-on experience of older machinery. You was out there in the field using these tractors while I could only come home from school, read these tractors mags and dream:

[Brian]

Be glad you are not my age for other reasons Bob. I have just spent the day in A&E with terrible knee pain, first visit ever, only to be told your joints are worn out.

Nice to see that Hammond Cradock re enforces what we always used to tell people time and time again, weight on the front not on the rear wheels. Still used to sell loads of rear wheel weights though.

Think that 5000 was the best one of the bunch but a bit noisy in the cab. Again we were discussing it the other day here and saying the 5000 would have been a super tractor if it had been fitted with the 2701E industrial engine, a lot smoother and quieter engine more in line with the Leyland and John Deere units.

[oehrick]

At least its better than being told its old age Brian (other than you can then point out the other one is the same age !)

Was water ballasting as common over here as it seems to have been in some parts of the US ?

Bob, in addition to an extensive archive you obviously have a very effective filing system, I did too, it was all in my head , now it isn't - whoops

No Skeyton photies as I didn't go, the weather looked as though it was getting darker and with a cool breeze I thought it an ideal day to rig the Tirfor and extract the elder trunk / stump which is impinging on the side of a shed I'm about to start 'conserving' - so it got out hot and sunny, the breeze dropped and as elders go despite severing 2 visible 5" roots it had plenty more and was in fairly deep, so I had a workout I was not intending !

[Brian]

One of my first jobs when I got my driving licence was to load up "Lopey Lil" an ex bus/large Commer van with a side valve Humber engine and no shock absorbers of any note, hence the name, with 11 x 36 tyres, tubes, hundred weight sacks of calcium chloride, a 40 gallon drum with one end cut out and a Villiers engined pump unit that sucked the ballast out of the tyre as well as pumping it back in.

Then off to Major Mills at Hillborough Hall for a week changing tyres on his Nuffield fleet. There were few restrictions on licences in those days and I really enjoyed driving that old van, it was like a young lorry and it was mine everytime there were ballasted tyres to change.

Yes ballast was fairly common but we did not seem to get the problems that they do in the US, think they use tubeless tyres which means the calcium is in contact with the metal rim all the time. Both Dotty's rear tyres were ballasted when I got her but I changed them over onto Fergy and loader fitting a s/hand set of Dexta wheels to her. No problem with rotting rims as far as I can see.

I had the first 9700 4 wheel drive at my depot for demonstration, before it was announced. We were trying to get Ford to tell us they were actually building one, then at a Ransomes demonstration in Cambridgeshire, the prototype appeared on a plough. My MD and I fell on the Ford team and got them to loan it to us for the weekend before it went back to Boreham, we had it in my depot and ballasted all the wheels with water/calcium mix then took it onto Wooton Marsh near Kings Lynn and let our customer play with a six furrow Dowdeswell plough. By Monday morning he had ploughed many acres of reclaimed land still running with small creeks and was delighted, we made a sale. Never did find out what Ford thought of their overweight tractor when they got it back.

[blackbob]

Thanks Rick - you mean the piles of old magazines and leaflets in various cupboards..

I like to see photos of other peoples' stuff, especially working rather than sitting polished at some show, and I hope others feel the same. And I like to look at old adverts, and share them here; having to go via photobucket is a bit of a fiddle, dodging the features about how to get rid of belly fat (go dig up an elder tree, you lazy townies!) but I think it's worth it.

I started going down to the newsagent in my school lunch-break for Power Farming in about '76, and have picked up a few older ones on ebay recently; also have a few Farmer & Stockbreeders and Dairy Farmers from my uncles. PF is a little too big for my scanner.. This is from 63:

[Brian]

Great post this!

Bob, if you were an avid of Power Farming in the early 1980's you would have seen some of my artwork back then. We ran a series of adverts for a device called "RiteHite" which raised and lowered the delivery elevator of a potato harvester, in the trailer to keep drops to a minimum. We worked with Grimme and Reekie fitting units OEM and as aftermarket units, The Society for the Prevention of Battered Potatoes and a series of cartoons appeared. I will see if I still have any of the art work.

Re. Photobucket, for about £25.00 per year you can get it advert free and a totally unlimited number of pictures stored.

[blackbob]

It's going a bit off-topic for this thread but I don't think I've ever seen a Doe in the flesh, and certainly not working, but they are often talked about in magazines and forums.. Until I saw that photo I didn't understand the need for 4 steering rams, but now I see that they had tremendous steering lock, and therefore need a similar system of pivots to, say, a digger bucket?
And the Super Major ones.. they had that massive Doe-built linkage, so presumably no draft control? When I got my Super in '83, the draft-control rocker was broken, and also one of the lift arms was loose on its splines, so neither of these components would presumably be strong enough for these massive Doe implements?

[ford5000y]

Some of the farmers in our area back then thought my grandfather is making a mistake when he bought his first tractor, a Ford 4000, in 1973(the codes on the tractor says it's made in Basildon in early 1973, though my grandfather now insist he bought the tractor in 1972)

He had the last laugh, though, because it became clear later on that the 4000 could finish jobs faster than the 5000.
I could still remember the tractor's appearance during my childhood. heavily weathered paint, three pillow weight on the front, two wheel weights each rear wheel, though my grandfather and father mentioned it once had front wheel weights but they had it removed once , only for those weights to be buried under flood deposits and they cant find them anymore.

Oh yeah, thanks to the reminisces, a question came up. My grandfather's 4000 used to have its original aluminium exhaust pipe. But I remember that it had the ford emblem engraved into it and that it's made in the U.S.A. Isn't the Ford tractors for export being made in Basildon? It is highly unlikely that my grandfather replaced the original exhaust pipe with another one because he's the sort of farmer who won't replace something until it's terminally broken.

[Pavel]

Those French Kleber radials were also tested by NIAE and found to be subject to tyre creep on the rims. Generally the answer was found that by increasing the tyre pressure by some 6 or 7 psi this was eliminated. However, this tended to greatly lessen the grip advantage of flexible side walls.
Here in Oz Kleber introduced tubeless radials for cars -- and these suffered from tread lamination due to low recommended pressures and hotter road surfaces; so much so that questions were asked in Parliament. All in all they couldn't match the performance and reliability of Michelin.

Pavel

[Brian]

5000Y
The tractor may have been a skid unit made in Basildon and finished in the US. The Ford range of world tractors had all the engines and hydraulics made in Basildon, transmissions and rear axles in Antwerp and Select-O-Speed gearboxes made at Highland Park in the US. The tractors were then assembled at Basildon, for UK and rest of world, Antwerp for Europe, Highland Park for the US, at least that was the plan. Many think the Japanese invented " Just In Time" parts deliveries but Ford were doing that in 1964 shifting parts of tractors worldwide to their factories.

Bob,
Some Does used the Doe Tool Carrier with its own hydraulic system to pull the really big ploughs but around here we used the Lemken or TS84 with twin assist rams. A number of the big chisel ploughs or cultivators had their own dept wheels so Draft control was not used. Even with the big stuff on the back there were few problems with pulling the top links and linkage apart. County and Roadless were using the same back ends too.
The Power Major Doe had no Draft control so it was not a problem.

I loved driving the Doe 130 Select-O-Speed, one of only two that they made although a member of Blue Force has put one together with parts. Jiggling the massive gear selector to make sure both tractors were in the same gear was a skill you quickly learned especialy on the road.



Here is another for the wall.

[blackbob]

What's a 1254 then? Same as a 1454, but based on an 8600 instead of a 9600?

I can't mention 8600 without remembering my student days, 2 summers spent in Berkshire:



..and I don't suppose this is 'your' 9700, at the '77 Highland Show?

[ford5000y]

5000Y
The tractor may have been a skid unit made in Basildon and finished in the US. The Ford range of world tractors had all the engines and hydraulics made in Basildon, transmissions and rear axles in Antwerp and Select-O-Speed gearboxes made at Highland Park in the US. The tractors were then assembled at Basildon, for UK and rest of world, Antwerp for Europe, Highland Park for the US, at least that was the plan. Many think the Japanese invented " Just In Time" parts deliveries but Ford were doing that in 1964 shifting parts of tractors worldwide to their factories.

Now, I have a thought that maybe the exhaust was fitted by the main distributor of ford tractors in the country. I mean, if they managed to even make their own copies of the rear wheel weights (looks the same as the ford weights only that the small Ford oval logo was replaced by a large "GAMI" scripted into them) and their own make of front pillow weights for the tractors, then I think it is possible to them to fit the exhaust pipe from another, probably U.S. made, Ford tractor.

[Brian]

Bob, that is highly likely.

Ransomes were introducing the "New Theme" ploughs and Ford lent them the tractors from the demonstration teams. The 9700 4WD was still on the "secret" list so why Ford lent it to Ransomes to use at a dealer demonstration in Cambridge I do not know. They were not too happy about letting us have it but my MD carried a lot of clout and the customer we wanted to show it to had just bought 15 new tractors from my depot. He had a 9600 which had been lots of trouble in the rear axle and was tearing the lugs off the rear tyres.Too much power going through two wheel drive.

[blackbob]

To take this, er, somewhat random thread back to the time period of its original post - PF, Jan '65, and I hope it's legible, I can make 2 scans of it if that would be better:



...and (ssshh, come closer, I daren't say this aloud here) as I have to admit to being a closet MF follower, I think I should use this opportunity to let you check out the 5000's opposition:

[oehrick]

Touching on the Doe Triple D's again (and if, like me, you should make the mistake of innocently failing to leave the 'Doe' off and just putting 'Triple D' into Google picture search, you will see a remarkable 'acreage' of an entirely different variety before ever seeing a tractor picture ) I must have had a sheltered updragging - anyhow, now I've wiped the steam off me specs I know the Triple D 'job' has been done on various Ford & Fordson models as well as Marshalls, LGFs and Chamberlains in the land downunderneath, has anyone come across this having been tried on the dear old worm driven Standard ??

While looking I found some rather nice pictures using a digital technique new to me, saw a few landscapes the other day in the same style, anhow the 3D and majors on this page appealled to me.
http://www.panoramio.com/user/6790473?c ... 3&show=all

Does anyone share my view that the Fritzmeier (sp?) Cab looks the canines wossnames compared to cabless ?

[blackbob]

now I've wiped the steam off me specs

Did you see where the steam was coming from? Had you blown a gasket, or was it coming from your overflow?