Memories Clutches

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I suppose the job that we did most often throughout my time with Ford dealers was fitting clutches. That is not to say that the clutch was a weak area on Majors and Dextas, just that it was a wearing part and could be abused by careless drivers.

From a young age, (I was driving tractors when I was ten years old) I was taught that one did not “ride” the clutch, While it was OK to ease the clutch up gently when drawing off, it was an “offence”, usually rewarded by a sugar beet in the back or a loud shout and a clipped ear, to slip the clutch when reversing or manoeuvring around the yard. The correct gear and engine revs had to be selected and skill was gained by constant practise. The walls and gateposts around the farm are still in place today, fifty-five years later so threats and sore ears do work.

My reversing skills are not as good today as they were a few years ago although I find that Rover is a great machine to use. One can get the speed down really slow with the low box and the power steering is a great asset. Not so on my Anglia van in the 1960’s.

My poor van suffered two ignominious happenings. First let me explain the layout inside. Normally in a van, one has the two front seats then the load area immediately behind. You can see straight over the load and out of the rear door windows. Not in our vans!

Our vans had the load area divided up with a Dexion frame to carry toolboxes of spanners along the sides over the wheel arches. At the front of this frame, directly behind the driver and passenger was a four-inch wide piece of three eighth plate, lodged behind the door pillars and bolted to the front of the frame. This was a safety feature we put in ourselves to stop metal crowbars and even engines joining us in the driving area. It was also put to good use when fitting engines back into tractors.

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(Thanks to Rick for the pictures)

In my vans I also had an upper area made of the slotted angle iron to store all the manuals and parts books that we carried for the equipment we serviced. The load area then of an Anglia van was a lot smaller when we had them kitted out. It was just wide enough to get the mounting plate on the front of a Major engine, between the racks on either side. This meant that when you had such an engine in place and you were in the drivers seat, you could not see out of the rear windows. When the Major engine was in the van and all your tools were back in their racks, and you managed to get the rear doors closed it was really snug. The engine was not tied in place, it could not move forward thanks to the plate and it could not roll sideways thanks to the toolboxes and their racks. When you got back to base, the overhead cranes lifted the engine out of the van with ease although all our vans had areas where the paint was chipped off on the roof in the centre of the rear doors where the lifting chains sometimes dragged.

If a Major engine was bulky, the little Dexta engines were far lighter and easier on the springs of the van, the main problem with them was that they were so much lower to the ground and slightly more difficult to reverse the van over. You had to get them just in the door, undo the last bolts with a block under the front of the sump, and then push them in. Because of its height on the tractor, a Major engine could be reversed over, right back to the clutch.

The really big 590E six-cylinder Ford engines and the Perkins 6.354’s from the Claas combines were another story. You could just about get the van doors shut with a basic engine in the back but this meant that your face, when sitting in the driving seat, was very close to the fan and if you went round a corner a bit sharply, you could get nudged in the ear by a blade. If, as in one case I remember, there was a problem getting the bell housing and main drive pulley off the back of the engine, one had to drive home many miles with the tail shaft out of the back doors and these held closed by red string.

Engines were not the only big things we got in these vans. I have had a 4m long front cutter bar auger from a Claas SF combine in my van! I also drove one hundred miles with four straw walkers from a Claas SF hanging out of the back doors and the shaker shoe on the roof, its sides lodged in the guttering and the whole lot tied on with the ubiquitous red string.

All this restricted your reward vision through the back of the van, added to that was the canvas curtain that most of us rigged behind the seats to enable the heater to warm a smaller space in winter. When this was in place there was no chance of seeing through the back windows. You had to learn to reverse on mirrors. Both mishaps that happened to my van could be blamed on the restricted rearwards vision caused by this canvas screen.

We were out about 10 miles to the south of Norwich one cold winters day. We had visited a number of farms carrying out services and brake repairs and our last job of the day, around 4 pm, was to refit a hydraulic lift from a Super Major, which we had taken off earlier in the week for repair. This was in the load space behind us. It was dark and getting foggy when we were still some miles from the farm. Roger and I decided to give up for the afternoon and come back with the lift the next day. We had about two hours work on the lift tractor then a further hour and a half journey home in good conditions let alone in the fog so it seemed the best thing to do. We found a gateway in the narrow lane and I turned into it. Even with the van in the gateway, it was still a matter of shunting backwards and forwards to get round so Roger and I opened our doors and looked out as we reversed. There was a deep ditch behind on my side but Roger said he had a firm verge on his side so I did not worry as the van bumped up onto the verge. The worry started as the van continued backwards at an ever-increasing angle and the front wheels stuck up in the air as the van grounded on the chassis. This stopped us dropping completely off the road. The deep ditch I had seen through the mist on my side had turned at 90 degrees to cross a field. Roger was right when he said there was a wide verge on his side but straight down the centre line of the van was a wide drainage channel, hidden by the fog, and we had just backed straight into it. It is too painful to remember how we tried to extradite ourselves or how we arranged our pulley lifting system across the road and round the gateposts opposite to try and get the van out. All to no avail. We ended up having to call out the heavy recovery unit from the car side of our business so we were not popular for some weeks afterwards. No damage was done to the van thank goodness only a large dent in our pride.

The second thing we did was so easily done that most of the mechanics had done it at some time or the other. The larger farmers we serviced had huge barns for storage of corn and fertiliser. These were also used as tractor sheds when the season allowed. If you knew the tractor you wanted was in the barn, to give good access to your tools you tended to reverse into the gloomy interior so you could get to your spanners. Problem was that sometimes you could not see the roof supports as you reversed. The van came to a sudden stop as the pillar hit dead centre of the rear doors. Luckily that was one time when I had disobeyed my training and was slipping the clutch to ease back towards the tractor.

Clutch fitting was a pretty simple job. On the Ford and Fordson range we had it down to a fine art, we could fit a Major clutch in around an hour if conditions were right and things went well. The same went for the Ford tractor range like the Ford 5000. When, in 1965 to 1968 there were problems with the clutches used in these tractors, Ford issued a number of campaign changes and fixes to try and get them right. We were fitting clutches in new tractors nearly every day. If we had been sent out on a job and got back to base at around 4pm Derek would send us out to a local tractor to put one in and we would be back again, finished by 5.30pm.

The only clutch that gave us any real difficulty was the dual clutch on the Major and Dexta. This was because of the two sets of splines had to be lined up with the shafts. Sometimes it took nearly an hour to get this done. Not always though.

We did not use the rail and trolley system for splitting tractors as other dealers did. To me, this system with the single jack on the cradle under the sump, looked fragile and unstable. It also did not allow for moving the engine to one side to get at the centre section with the gearbox and, if this had to be removed to get to the large gear and the pinion, it seemed to be in the way. We used trolleys, designed and manufactured by the mechanics that used them. They were cheap to make and so we had lots of them. They folded up so they fitted easily in our vans. If you had a Major, a 5000 and a Dexta clutch to fit in a day, this meant three different trolleys so their compact design was important in the limited load space in the Anglia. If you had to remove a Major gearbox housing there was also the trolley that fitted under that part and allowed you to move it away from the rear axle.

The clutch trolley was a frame that fitted under the sump, mounted on two wheels that were independently adjustable for height. This was braced to the side channels or front axle-mounting block by two arms. The whole thing was stable and allowed the engine to be wheeled clear of the gearbox and parked anywhere in the shed that the job was taking place. The gearbox housing splitting trolley was a frame that fitted around the clutch housing and the rear part of the gearbox. It was mounted on four wheels all on adjustable axles. Again this allowed that unit to be wheeled clear and parked anywhere. If you were working on the pinion and differential, this later trolley could be used to wheel engine and gearbox clear of the rear axle. The only problem with these trolleys was if the floor was uneven or soft.

I remember splitting a Major with a dual clutch one dark winters day, in a shed lit with one 100W bulb. The shed also had a brick floor, common in parts of Norfolk. These floors were always uneven and we expected problems in getting the two halves of the tractor back together. But on that occasion, with a slight shove, the whole lot ran back up to the dowels without trouble. We looked at each other in shock then checked that we had put the clutch onto the flywheel. Then it was get the bolts back in quickly because this luck could not hold for long!

It was not always as easy. I have had tractors that would not come apart. A tip when splitting a Major and it will not split is always checking that you have removed the two bolts that are hidden by the side channels and go in from the front of the sump. I have seen sumps broken after big bars have been used to wedge the tractor apart when these have not been removed. I have also had the pilot bearing seize on the gearbox input shaft and not allow the shaft to draw out of the clutch disc. This then involves working through a small gap to take the bolts holding the pressure plate to the flywheel out and then drawing the pilot bearing off when the tractor is parted.

One of the strangest clutches I ever saw was in a live clutch Super Major. The driver said that she came to a stop when ploughing. He had heard no strange noises other than the engine revving. They had towed the tractor into the shed and called us. When I split the tractor the whole clutch had disintegrated and the largest part of it left was one clutch release lever. All the plates and housings were a heap of scrap in the bottom of the clutch housing. And the driver had heard nothing!

The worst clutch for wear that Ford ever fitted was the short-lived Dana clutch used on the Ford Force range of 1968. It was a sintered bronze faced disc made up of pads of material on either a triangular or cross-shaped disc. It also featured a light to operate pressure plate that reduced strain on the drivers left leg. This style of lining material was in common use in the County and Roadless range of tractors with great success but in the Ford Force tractors it was a disaster.

I was down at Boreham House on a course soon after the clutch was first fitted to the range and I remember rudely rolling around the room in gales of laughter as the instructor extolled the virtues of this clutch, telling us of the extra long life that could be obtained. He was shocked to hear of the problems that we had and that one tractor had a clutch failure as it was driven down the ramps of the lorry, on delivery, and had to be winched back up to be returned to base. The wear on the flywheel was horrendous after a short period of operation causing these to have to be replaced as in nearly every case it was worn beyond the resurfacing limits. We had had more of the new clutches than any other dealer and so met with all the problems. Someone had got the design wrong and the clutch slipped under the slightest load taking out pressure plate and flywheel. Needless to say, the Dana clutch disappeared from Ford tractors in a few months.

Fitting clutches became slightly boring job to us young fitters, we could do it with our eyes closed. Occasionally, how ever, there would be a challenging one to keep us on our toes. Like the replacing of a clutch in a Major fitted with a Howard Drainage Pipe laying machine who’s clutch failed in the middle of a waterlogged field with the trench cutting wheel in full depth. No way were we going to move this onto a hard surface to split so the engine had to be removed in the field and a new clutch fitted before the machine could continue its snail-like crawl across the field.

County and Roadless crawlers were another problem. There was no way to split them normally as this would have meant removing both tracks. So we removed the radiator and front weight, removed the front mounting plate bolts and fitted a couple of rollers, made out of old water pump bearings, to the rear engine mounting positions. Then, with a couple of levers we would roll the engine forward using the existing side rails as a support until we had enough room to work on the clutch. Not easy but we got the job done.

Tractors were not the only things that required clutch repairs. Combine harvesters too had clutch failures and these usually meant it was to be completed in a fast time with a farmer and his men watching every move and quietly (or even on occasions, noisily) simmering in the background. A combine clutch brought its own little problems. Usually the grain tank on top would be full when the clutch failed.

On the Claas SF, Matador and Senator combines the clutch is behind one of the main drive wheels and although there is no engine to move out of the way, this wheel has to come off and one of the angle iron supports for the drivers platform removed. It can be rather a problem when the machine has an extra three tonnes of grain in the tank and the ground is a little soft. You need plenty of heavy wood blocks to rest the jack and the combine on once the wheel is off.

Then there is the massive coil spring that keeps the traction drive belt tight. This is held in place by twelve “Allen Key” headed screws of which three are about one hundred and twenty millimetres long. These are fully threaded to allow the pressure to be released from the traction tension spring. Once the spring and half the massive pulley are out of the way, the huge traction drive belt can be removed and the special nut that holds the clutch half of the pulley comes into view. This requires a special spanner to get it off. Once this nut is removed, the half pulley can be drawn off the gearbox input shaft and the clutch, which is mounted on the back of the pulley changed. The clutch replacement itself is a fairly easy job then the whole lot can be remounted and all the parts replaced.

One summers day back in 1966 I was sent to a combine at Babingley, a village on the Royal estate near Sandringham. It was late afternoon and the Claas SF was standing in the field with about 3 hectares left to cut. The weather was looking black and the farmer was a little nervous. “How long is it going to take?” he asked. Richard and I checked the situation. “About an hour” I replied.

“If you can do it in the hour I will give you £1.00 each but I will deduct 5p for every five minutes over the hour” This was a fair tip in 1966 so Richard and I set to work with a will. The wheel came off easily and so did the support frame. I had bought a set of special socket bar Allen Keys so I was able to use a speed brace to get out the spring retainers and soon the clutch was being refitted. The SF was back and combining in 55 minutes and we got our £1.00 each. Enough for a cup of “frothy coffee” and a bacon sandwich on the way home with change as well!

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