dicko
Guru
- Location
- Derbyshire
The Tractor and machinery thread
- Thread starter PeteXXX
- Start date
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FrothNinja
Veteran
When we were kids there used to little Fordsons, Fergies, Nuffields, Internationals etc pinging round moving feed etc around on trays front & back to keep balanced
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It wouldn't be unusual to fit a tray on the front to fill with cement blocks or something to weigh it down (although the 148 was one of the long wheelbase MFs and much better balanced than most tractors of their size and weight) but that has a hydraulic ram fitted. It was presumably made for raising and lowering an implement.
In my teens, I remember working with a 165 with 5 x56lb weights on the front pluss two lorry wheels tied to the crash bar to keep it from lifting on steep ground. There is no need to go to the gym to lift weights after a day steering something like that without PAS.
FrothNinja
Veteran
But I thought it was a rocket centre
newts
Veteran
- Location
- Isca Dumnoniorum
DB 880 selectematic was the first tractor I drove back in the late 70s on the A361 in Devon amongst the holiday traffic towing a trailer of bales🙄
Driving a tractor is never nice on a busy road. DBs are painfully slow too in my experience, even by the standard at the time.
I don't think I'd like to have to regularly drive a tractor on the road any more. So much impatience and aggression and people overtaking in crazy places.
Slick
Guru
Driving a tractor is never nice on a busy road. DBs are painfully slow too in my experience, even by the standard at the time.
I don't think I'd like to have to regularly drive a tractor on the road any more. So much impatience and aggression and people overtaking in crazy places.
Whilst that is all true, there are some of the coolest old boys in amongst your collection of pictures and I reckon I could put up with a few road hogs to get another blast on a couple of them.
Jameshow
Veteran
Poor things, really hard life!😢
And still chugging away!
Slick
Guru
I was getting some trees removed earlier this year and the farmer asked if he could have the wood. He arrived down in a wee 135 and I was drooling over it. He told me his father bought it brand new in 1965 and that it wasn't a toy, it was still doing a days graft. It really was a cracking little tractor.
I don't know what it was about the MF range but they were indestructible. Other manufacturers may have come up with more modern designs whereas MF kept evolving their product range rather than come up with something new, but they are still out there working.
I go to to shows and see restored Ford/ Fordsons/Internationals/Leyland/Nuffield/David Browns but generally speaking, it is only old MFs I see still working when out and about.
A 135, a 35x, a 290 and a 399 all regularly pass my window when I am working.
Definitely. I own a Fordson Super Dexta and an MF165. I don't have any farm work to do any more but I do enjoy taking the Dexta out around local, minor roads for arun out and attending a few local shows. I am tempted to buy a two furrow plough for the Dexta and take part in days like yesterday, although my ploughing skills are rusty to say the least. I also think the depth control on my Dexta isn't quite right but they're simple machines to sort out.
I'd do the same with the 165 but I don't have insurance on it so can't drive it on the road at present.
