Project Super Major With Emphasis On Super

SummaryThis one will be the ongoing story about my first own tractor, I chose a Fordson Super Major that started life in Dagenham Essex in September 1961, it was first registered in Sweden on April 1962, it still has the original engine which even though being a tad slow to start when it's awfully cold outside seem to be in good working order, no "bleeding" of oil here and there, no water in the oil and after a bit of work which can be seen on the pictures later on it no longer thins the oil with diesel

Anyway, here we go:

This is what the old man looked like when I got 'im, on November the 1st 2009

This is not far from home, during the "bring him home" tour(which was 90km and took the best part of the 1st and 2 hours of the 2nd november)

New home, sweet home... In the old barn at my father's farm

Christmas gifts anyone? Since I'm relatively poor my father bought me some goodies(all except the truck starter which I got from dad's cousin)

Ford world series Force exhaust.

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My neighbor works as a laser operator, so after some measuring and drawing in solidworks I ended up sending him drawings of these things, to the right are the parts for an alternator mount, utilizing the alternator found in a Volvo 240

This is the 3D-model of my drawbar and upper 3pt lift reinforcement

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Amongst all the other things that got stripped off

December 8th 2009, a bit naked...

Paint really makes a difference

This replaced the original Temp/oil/gen clock, the orange indicator is my turn signal indicator.

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If all you have is two wrecked front cowls and a MIG-welder, sure you could make one that's acceptable?

Twisting, bending, welding and forming sheet metal is one of my favorites... The "bulge" is where my turn signal switch will reside.

Painted, "grill"'ed and lit up, since I would never put a loader on this tractor I placed the headlights wide apart, high up...

A severe case of "frost bite" perhaps?

Dis-assembly of the hydraulic system... or part of it, getting the flow control valve, spring and the "plug" out using a piece of wire loom through one of the bores inside.

The original spindles looked like this, no wonder I thought it was hard to steer straight...

Dad bought me this, the "universal fits all majors hydraulics kit", it lacked a few parts but those weren't that hard to get(and I got lots of O-rings leftover that actually came to use a little here and there)

The hydraulic pump with new seals, waiting to be re-assembled

Drilled and tapped a 3/8 pipe thread for my return pipe

Assembled and painted stuff

Raised PTO in place

The pump and the plumbing is back where it belongs

If you don't have a gasket set, you make them

Re-assembly of better looking parts

"New" old spindles, in much better condition and picked from a power major that had led a much better life(with an owner that knew to maintain his machinery properly)

I got myself the proper SPE4A75S model pump and gave it a little love

Proper hydraulics, at last...

And with good tools the work is a breeze

Changing the pedal shaft seals since they weren't weeping but rather "bleeding", no obvious play in the bushings tho

Changed the PTO seal before filling the rear up with oil

The original seat had seen it's share of action and I had another seat in mind and constructed this

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The parts for it

Welded up and testing the fit out

Regardless of how battered and bruised this seat looks, it's very comfortable and also has electrical heater elements in both the seat and the back rest

Quite some possibilities... and it came off an old golf-course lawn-mower, got it for free, me like lots :D

Drawings of new knobs for the valve chest(for those that wonder what "hitta på en bra radie här" means, in english it would be something similar to "figure out a good radius here")

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And about a week later, machined by one of dad's old work mates

Sometimes buying these connectors can be a royal pain, if you find one that fits the cable you can be sure the screw-hole is abnormally large and the head of your screw will fall through it, that's why I made my own ones from brass and soldered the cables to it

I did off with the broken pipes and replaced them with hard and reinforced rubber hoses instead

3D-model of the trailer outlet bracket

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Laser-cut, bent, welded up and painted

Part of the electrical system's innards

Upper connection for my engine heater

And the lower one

A sensible start button, turn the key on and the button lights up, press it to start the engine and once the alternator starts charging it will dim indicating "Do not press me"

The view from the seat

Paint and a bit of sanding later

The circlips didn't want to stay put and the throttle shaft moved up and down rather than increasing or decreasing the engine speed, so I fixed that up with split pins instead, now it won't budge

Also took the time to fix my leaking return line up, one of the brass banjos was entirely loose and all were leaking, number four injector was also leaking between the "foot"(lower that is bolted to the head) and the "head"(upper hexagon bit) part, so while having all of the pipes and connectors off anyway I torqued it down and it seems to have worked just fine

Reinforcements to withstand forest (ab)use

CNC-machined bolts for the upper part of the 3pt lift...

The heart of the electrical system completed, relays and everything is fused off

Corrected what I regarded a design flaw in the stop control, now it is firm and exact rather than "flimsy"

After being taken for a little trip I shot this photo outside, engine idling, my dog badly wanted to ride with me

Hard-to-melt-candy, we took a good look of the original stabilizer chains and dad and I ordered these instead

Well, steering wheel knob and a "flamethrower", I am equipping my major with thermostart

The rear end is beginning to look like something

A small handmade fuel valve instead of the outlet bleed screw on the filter(previous owner had wrecked the threads anyway), the outlet from this one will be used to fill up the heater tank if necessary

And here's the heater tank as well, two pipes at the top; one from the valve on the filter and one from the fuel return, pipe on the side goes to fuel tank and the long pipe going out the bottom goes to the heater plug

Now we're getting somewhere...

Well, this wednesday(march 31st 2010) dad picked me up these

The very same morning my friend Martin had dropped this package off in my post box

A local firm called Industry Service let me use one of their mills, for as long as it took me to mill the inward facing surface on the inlet manifold flat

This is what it looked like after I drilled the holes and mounted the flange

I also just happened to have another cracked inlet manifold to salvage a less worn throttle plate and shaft which were quickly transplanted into my inlet manifold, the picture of my old throttle plate is the second one here and I think you all can spot the wear quite easily

This is what the thermostart system looks like on my tractor now...

Thursday the 1st of April I went to dad's cousins farm and picked up my pair of less rusted rear wings from a power major, they have a few bulges more than the current ones but they haven't rusted off near the rear axle

Today, thursday the 1st of April I went to dad's cousins farm and picked up my pair of less rusted rear wings from a power major, they have a few bulges more than the current ones but they haven't rusted off near the rear axle

Friday the 2nd was my dad's birthday so we all went there to celebrate and enjoy ourselves, got a bit bored after dinner when everyone watched TV so I went out and fiddled for a few minutes, this thing is going to be a linkage for the raised pto lever, hack about three fours of it off, weld the small "ear" onto it and then place the actuator on the floorboard next to the lift lever.

For convenience I'll post all movies here below all the picures

This clip is shot when I picked the tractor up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGurQL16jEk

First test drive on the road: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2SIXZhmY-Q

Trying out the hydraulics and the re-designed stop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pan_9IuR9c

A first test of the newly built thermostart: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9r3wiHJIhQ

Starting him up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nwj3tuhQZv0