britainswomble

I was pleased today to receive my 1/32, 35X and Power Major. Had the Power Major out of the box, and it's a lovely model apart from the steering being loose on one side. Obviously didn't have a proper P.D.I.. before it was dispatched. I was glad I waited to get them from Farmmodels; bearing in mind what people paid for them from E Bay. As regards for Mandy's request for photo's...............well .......if you read my reports on the cameras I own, in "What camera are you using"; then you will know the answer to that one.

Fitted a new Power Take Off gearbox to one of our Fodens after the old one lost a tooth off of the gears, and been out in it to collect 7000 litres of Bio Diesel which we will mix with ordinary diesel 50/50, and sell it on our forecourts. At the moment our bio diesel mix is 5p cheaper than normal diesel. We are using it in our trucks and experiencing no noticable loss of power. The only noticable difference with the 50/50 mix is that the exhaust gas smells rather strange to what we are used to. It's a bit like a hot exhaust smell when the paint has virtually been burnt off of it. The bio diesel we are selling is recycled cooking oil. The only thing we are a little concerned about is its "Waxing" temperature, but I believe that shouldn't be too much of a problem as it depends on the diesel it's mixed with. ie, whether it has "Winter addatives in it. We're told it should be ok down to about -10 in normal diesel. We shall see what happens if we get a really cold spell.

Receiving my UH Banner Lane MF 135 from Farmmodels. What a fantastic model it is too. Shame about the silly seat, and the hand throttle being in the "Fully open" position, but the rest makes up for it. Unbelievable detail.

Well, a little while ago I was watching the Gadget Show on TV. Well actually I was watching Suzi Perry.............. what a scrummy lady she is. * * Spect I'll be getting in a fight with Marky F soon. You know what he's like. I expect he'll say he saw her first, an' he'll bash me up for fancying her............typical innit. \

OH..................MYYYYYYY................GOOOOOOOD.............Ladyfarmer.................stockings..............this is too much. Must go and take one of my blood pressure pills.....................now. [ * :P :D

Maybe Father Tritmas was scared to come down your "Chimbly" cos he heard you'd put out some stockings for him. I mean............think about it from his perspective............would you come down a chimbly backwards into the room of a laddo who's waiting for him with some stockings. Bu**ered if I would. Praps you should send him a letter this year clarifying the situation, and hopefully re kindle your relationship with him. Tell him there'll be a Scotch, a minge meat.........sorry mincemeat pie waiting for him, oh and a carrot for Rudolph.

It's all very well having all thes little "Gizmos" on commercials, but they don't seem to last very long and cost an arm and a leg to put right. At least, as they say, trouble comes in threes, so hopefully that will be all for the moment. You don't need all the hassle. Trying to make a living is hard enough as it is. Keep smiling ol' kiddy, it'll soon be time for Father Tritmas (What my nephew calls him ) and you'll have lots of new toys to play with to make you happy again. (Er........assumin' you haven't got all of them already )

Chuffin tankers.......... > Get to work at 2:30 am this morning hoping to be finished by about midday, as I worked on Saturday from 3:30 in the morning till 7pm in the evening as my artic suffered a bad loss of power when our Adrian went to Theale in it. Bl**dy speed limiter cable had partially siezed and jammed, so I had to free it off as you can't get parts on a Saturday evening. On my way back from Essex I get a phone call from Jose (Hosay) also known as El Gringo because he looks like a Mexican Bandit. Jose, he say the PTO is clonking on this truck, and held his phone next to it so I could hear the noise. GREAT I thought. Now both of our six wheelers are off the road. Jose's Foden is waiting for airline couplings and an M.O.T. retest, and Adrian's sounds like it's lost a tooth off the PTO gears. and has an air leak from a quick release valve on the drive axle. Chuffin trucks, really pee me off sometimes. :( >\

When the pumps were new or in good condition there wasn't a problem. Many people either didn't look after oil levels as they should have done, and often put the wrong grade of oil in the back end. The farm where I used to live had several of these model 3000's from 1965 to 1974. During that time we had two of them which were replaced every three years, usually with about 1200 hours on the clock by the time they were traded in. We only had one out of about six of them that ever gave problems with the pump, and that was replaced under warranty. That tractor was fitted with a loader and spent a lot of time on a Mc Connell ditcher that had tractor powered hydraulics The later tractors had gear type hydraulic pumps and no problems whatsoever. The pump capacity was increased too which improved things further still. 3600 hydraulics were faultless, again the only difference between the early 3000's and the 3-6 being the pump itself. Some of the early 3000's had the later pumps fitted, but that could only be done by changing the pipes to the rear axle. Incidentally, I've just looked at the picture again, and this tractor does have the original pump fitted. Can't be a lot wrong with that one if it can handle a 2F reversible.

Lovely little ploughing tractor. Ballast up those rear wheels and put a Ransomes 3F TS 90 (UCN Mouldboards, discs and SN skims ) on the back and it'll snort its way up and down a field all day long. Brilliant hydraulics too; very responsive draft control which is the secret of its good traction. Ford top link sensing works exceptionally well, and I can never understand why most of the "Classic" tractor press always give them a poor report. I've ploughed many acres under a variety of conditions and can't fault them.

A good choice painting it blue. It looks almost exactly like the one Marstons made in the mid eighties. Just needs some Marston decals and it would be perfect.

Judging the value of a tractor like yours is a bit difficult, mainly because when they are advertised they don't seem to have prices on them. Usually the advert says P.O.A. As it's an unusual spec tractor, in very good condition with low hours and the original cylinder block for its age; I would put a value of around four thousand pounds on it. Fully restored, in the case of this one; a repaint; it would probably fetch around five to five and a half at a good auction. Anyone else like to pass their opinion on this little peach.

Thats the one. I know that's what Ford called them but couldn't remember what it stood for. Cheers buddy! What a gorgeous tractor though.

That is an unusual tractor in as much as it has dual power and load monitor. Load monitor was a very unusual option on 5000's and more often found on 7000's. It was Ford's version of lower link sensing and intended for use with semi mounted ploughs etc, where a top link wasn't used. The rear wheels aren't that unusual, they are just optional 14 x 30's which around here were used to improve pulling power due to the smaller diameter and reduced the height of the tractor to improve stability on hillsides. It is an export version, as headlamps were always mounted in the grille for the UK, and the wing/seat frame wasn't available in this country. I'm not sure which market it would have been intended for; but about the time the 5000 was coming to an end we (Sussex Tractors) took delivery of part of a cancelled export order in the form of 12 crated (CKD) 5000's which all turned up on the same day. We fitted them with Lambourne weather /safety cabs and sold them to local farms. No doubt the order was larger than what we took, so it may well have been part of the same order.

If you mean what I think you mean; the steering axle was on quite a narrow track, and offset like the old MF 780. Thinking about it.......they probably offset the axle to the left (Viewed from the rear) as most combine headers were designed to cut with the uncut crop on the right hand side of the machine, and offsetting the axle to the right would prevent the risk of 'running down' the uncut crop when turning sharp left, away from it. Wacha fink.........does that sound feasible.

Now there's a real tractor, none of yer fancy lectronics, great to drive and listen to in 1:1 Gorgeous model of a real classic, and probably way out of my price range.

Shame about the drawbar.............or lack of one. Wonder why neither the 1/16th or 1/32nd haven't got them. ???Spose it wouldn't be too difficult to make a clevis drawbar, after all it is a fairly easy shape to copy.

East Sussex. Very cold start to the day, minus 2-4 and a white frost. In shaded areas the frost stayed the ground all day. I was rather surprised to find our cats water bowl (In the shed) was frozen solid this morning. This winter so far reminds me of the winters we had when I was child. Leaves staying on the trees till the end of October, daily frosts in early November followed by bright sunny days. The frost causing the leaves on the trees to wither and drop in the space of a few days. All of a sudden we have seen the colours of autumn change and disappear, the bare branches of the trees reminding us that winter has arrived, and wondering if we will see any snow this winter. I'm looking forward to some substantial snow this winter, and seeing the faces of our grandchildren, now they are old enough to understand the spectacle of snow, and the look on their faces when they see it falling. I love looking at the countryside after snowfall; especially looking across valleys into woodland. Snowfall reveals many features of the terrain that wouldn't be seen under normal conditions. Maybe winter isn't all bad, and the shortest day is only five weeks away. We are reminded of that too in Uckfield, as they are putting up Christmas decorations in the High Street.............Scary

The look on a welders face at Coryton Commercials, when I asked him if he wanted to see my crack. Spose I'd better explain..........My tanker has a crack in the trailer chassis, a hairline one; and he would have had some difficulty finding it had I not shown him where it was. Er.........am I allowed to say the 'C' word...........it isn't too rude; is it?

Ref the white seat on the International...................try sitting on a black vinyl one when it's been standing in the mid summer sun for an hour or two. :o and then stand up and peel your skin off of it before you go to the hospital for treatment for your burns. :o

I think you will find that you already have the pick up hook (Pic 1) on the tractor. At the moment you have a bolt through it to hold it up when not in use. That should be replaced with the 'L' shaped pin in the drawbar you've found. The next hole back towards the hook may use the same pin to join the flat lifting bars that join on to the part in picture 2. You will also need the long pin that went through the mounting for the post hole borer to go through the yoke of the 'T' bar, and a couple of lynch pins for the ends of the 'T' bar.

Taking my tanker to Bracknell for a tank test and safe loading pass. Sat around getting cold waiting for the tank test to be done and correcting one or two minor faults to make sure it passed, waiting for the safe loading pass to be done after I had checked everything I could think of; only to be told that everything was fine electrically, but there was a crack in the suspension.......Doooh Now it can't be used until the repair has been done. It has to go to Essex on Monday to be de-gassed and welded, and then taken back to Bracknell to have the repair checked before I can get an S.L.P. In between getting that done, I have to do a pre M.O.T. inspection on our Foden and get it ready for the test by next Wednesday. This year has been total crap. Everything has been planned so that one job should follow on from the other. This year, everything that could go wrong, has gone wrong, and something else has gone wrong at the same time..........if you catch my drift. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR >

Kids will never concentrate or get work done all the time they are sitting in groups working together. When they bring back the individual or paired desks (Flip lid type), and have all the children facing the front of the class sitting in silence and actually being taught by teachers; rather than given worksheets to fill in; then you will get children to concentrate and learn things properly.......Gaaasp. pass me the oxygen.

Will we see the pictures of Mike Cushing's SF 80 soon then Nigel. I bet there aren't many people on here who have ever seen one. With the shape of it; it shouldn't be too difficult to scratch build one, and wouldn't that look great in a seventies diorama. I would love to find a leaflet on one, as there couldn't have been that many made. No doubt a header from a later model would overcome the hardest part of a scratch build. The rest of the machine was very angular and easy to reproduce; assuming you have the skills necessary

Har har har...............snort.....(Me posh laugh). There's always one, isn't there., and today it's your turn. ;D SMARTASS