britainswomble

Look her up on Youtube............. that should answer your question!!!!!! Careful you might go blind.

Getting my dear old Foden through the MOT test without any real problems. (The one in my avatar). We have a new operators license that we would like to add more vehicles to; so it's important that all of our trucks pass the test first time. I'm responsible for the maintenance and do the repairs myself; which is why I'm particularly pleased.

My Peugeot pleased me today! After it started running on its own oil when the turbo failed; it stopped with a nasty clatter. I removed the back cam cover and couldn't find any damage. After fitting a new cam belt, replacement turbo and water pump; I started it up and it had a bad misfire. I was very depressed about it as I thought I'd have to take off both camshafts to replace broken rockers on the inlet valves. I started it up today to decide what I was going to do next and wondered when I'd have time to get on with it. Just out of curiosity I decided to rev it up as the misfire seemed to get better the faster it went. All of a sudden the misfire disappeared and it ran as sweet as a nut. Now that really pleased me!

My most recent purchase was a Vgate Scan VS600, fault code reader. It is an engine diagnostics reader giving information of engine fault codes and their definitions. I bought one to check the engine on my Peugeot. It can also cancel engine code faults once they've been repaired. A bargain at £31.00 (New). A few years ago they cost about six times that.

Waking up to yet more RAIN. I have a car in pieces on my front lawn which I need to get under to refit the drive shaft to move it somewhere a bit drier to work on it. ie solid ground! I bought it as a non runner in August and had visions of having it on the road before the MOT expired in September. I don't have much free time and every week I hope to get it done. Every day I have off; I look out of the window and IT'S BL**DY RAINING AGAIN!!!!!!! >

Pixie Lott.........on the set of Mama Do! ..I might be old, but I aint dead yet! ......Or Lisa Kelly...... Ice Road Truckers!

This is a difficult question to answer. I have many tractors that have made a lasting impression on me. There were a lot of very memorable tractors in my early days at Sussex Tractors and from my teenage years too. I have driven all of the tractors listed and these are the ones I'd like to own. John Deere 4020. The first 100+ horsepower with powershift; that I drove briefly as a teenager. Ford 7000. In its day a powerful and versatile tractor that sounded nice and performed well. County 1164. Noisy and cumbersome with loads of character. Brought out the yob in me! Muir Hill 161. A real snorter of a tractor. Twin exhausts, a V8 Perkins and a 9(?) speed non synchro Eaton gearbox. Ford 7810. The best Ford I ever drove. At its best with a plough behind it. A well balanced tractor that Ford's said there was no demand for. Ford's were asked for a six cylinder tractor about ten years before they made one. At the time we lost loads of sales of 7600's to John Deere with their 3130-3140's. The 7-6 was a great tractor, but the drivers preferred the quieter and smoother six cylinder engine. Can I have another five favourites?.............. I s'pose not! So I can't mention the New Performance Super Major, the David Brown 990 Selectamatic, the Ford TW35, the Ford 8830 Powershift or the International 956............ can I?

I was quite fascinated by the list of Lewes trades people. Do you know where it would be possible to find the remainder of the list. There are names in there that even I remember as a child. Brown and Crosskeys rings a bell although I couldn't tell you where in the town they were. Curtis's of 22 Cliffe High Street probably later became Curtis and Co who were agricultural dealers. They sold Fordsons and Track Marshalls up until the mid sixties. Fords had a re-shuffle of dealerships so they moved on to David Browns. Lewes was a very busy town and a hive of industry of a quite specialised nature. No doubt the coming of the railways had a lot to do with the manufacturing side of things. Lewes railway was, and to a certain extent still is, a very important station, with lines coming from Brighton, Newhaven port in particular, Eastbourne, Haywards Heath / London, and before the Beeching axe the line went to my home town of Uckfield, then on to the London line entering on the East of London. Lewes had a Cement works and a very busy goods yard. As a child we used to watch the wagons being shunted and could often hear them some distance away on a quiet night. I would be fascinated to find out where these businesses were located in Southover as I remember some small workshops, the main ones being the blacksmiths and a carpentry workshop near the church. There was also a coal merchants tucked away in one of the side streets. Southover had several schools and the rest as I remember was residential. They also had a busy cattle market held on Mondays. How things have changed. Next to no manufacturing, loads of banks, offices and small shops struggling to survive and very few people capable of manufacturing anything.

The advert always makes me smile. It brings back many memories of my childhood days. Days when our lack of experience made us the laughing stock of the other farm workers when we got it wrong...... and how proud we felt when we got it right. The lad in the advert would only have got sprayed once by the Land Rover wheel! It's part of the learning process. For us oldies..... do you remember the first wheelbarrow load you took up the planks on to the dung lump. How many times did you get laughed at when the wheelbarrow ran off the side, followed by you; and you ended up with one welly full of runny cow doo doo's. Mum never thought it was funny! I remember feeding some bullocks in a field in the mid winter. It was very wet around the barn so we decided to feed them where it wasn't so muddy. I came out of the barn carrying a small square bale on my back, only to be spotted by some hungry bullocks who couldn't wait to be fed. I started to run with the bale still on my back and they caught up with me, gave me a shove from behind and by this time I was moving faster tan I could run. Down I went, face first into the mud, some of the bullocks jumping around, tails in the air, bellowing manically, and others eating the hay bale still on my back. I never did live that one down. Riding on the tailgate of the farm pick up, legs dangling confidently over the back being really cool, and being left sitting on the ground after going through a bumpy gateway, when the baler twine holding the tailgate decided it had had enough. The incident with the stuck Landy in the advert.......... I'll bet that has happened to many a young lad in some form or another. How many incidents can you remember when you were young. Happy days!

This is an intriguing post. I suppose you already know that Drake and Fletcher were a Kent based company, specialising in the fruit section of machinery.. I'm not sure if they still exist. The name still exists, but it appears they are now car dealers. As for the cake crusher, I used to live in Southover in Lewes and never knew machinery was made there. There was a company called J. Every, Phoenix Iron Foundry, Lewes; who were iron founders and probably cast the parts for them. Every's were famous for drain covers and gratings. No boubt there are still many around Lewes. There used to be a small blacksmiths workshop in Southover so perhaps there was a connection with that too. Both machines originate from this area, so perhaps they were taken to your area together by a migrating farmer. P.S. If you want to impress your friends, tell them Lewes is pronounced "Loo-wiss" not Lews or Loos. On the subject of old iron, I'm still driving the Foden in the picture, and in my garage I have a couple of Teagle hedge cutters. A bit like a strimmer with a 24" cutter bar! I think these date from the late fifties. Fitted with a Jap two stroke engine.

My most recent buy was from E Bay. I found a Universal Hobbies Krone Optimat spreader. I've been wanting one since they came out, but I was also very disappointed that it was made with a "Continental" drawbar. I had hoped to display it on one of my UH Super Majors or The Ford 5000 as both are from the same era. Vicon used to make one identical to the Krone back in the 1960's. We had a Vicon one known as a Buffalo. It didn't have a stone guard on the front, so there was little fear of falling asleep while you were spreading with it. Being pelted with the odd stone made sure of that. The Vicon we bought was marketed as a dual purpose machine. It came with hay ladders, lades or whatever you call them, and a rear floor extension. It was quite narrow for use as a trailer and if you look at the pictures you will see some side supports with the ends turned outwards. They were made that way so they could be removed and turned round so they supported the sides to make a width ways floor extension. The sides were then angled upwards to support the load. The beaters were held on by "Over centre" clamps making them easy to remove. It was a good idea at the time and but they never really caught on. Ours was traded in for a Howard 100 Rotaspreader, towed by a Ford 3000. Before the Vicon we had a Bamfords FY4? wheel driven spreader. Sorry, I'm drifting off into the past again. Happy days! The other most recent acquisition was bought for me by my brother. A Universal Hobbies County 1474 in 1/32. Luvverly bit of kit!

Looks like that crop was a bit of a disappointment. Strange how some years the weather combination works out just right and you get a fantastic crop. Great Video too. The soil looks very loose and sandy more than wet. Where abouts in the country is that?

Great tractor! I demonstrated an 8630 when they first came out and particularly liked the gearbox. It was easy to use, easy to alter the forward / reverse speed match, and you could engage reverse gear at full forward speed and full throttle. The last feature was great for scaring the crap out of prospective buyers, who had never been in one before. I can't remember what the model name of the plough was that I used; but it was made by Opico, or imported by them. It was a high speed one pass plough with square mouldboards which had a teflon face. Not sure if it was called a Square Plough. Anyone else remember it?

http://www.simplytrak.co.uk/about-simplytrak.asp This is their website. The tracker works constantly and doesn't have to be activated like some tracking systems. Just turn on your computer and it will tell you where your vehicles are. Fit them yourself, hide it and its transmitter / receiver anywhere it wont easily be found and sleep soundly at night. We have been using them for about 5 years now.

I don't know if this has already been mentioned; but bearing in mind the value of modern farm machinery; wouldn't it be a good idea to fit trackers to farm machinery. We have trackers fitted to our tankers so that our office can see exactly where they are at any time. We recently had a Daf 85 stolen after our forecourt closed at around 9:30pm. The theft was discovered at around 11pm. I was contacted about the theft and contacted my employers, who immediately fired up their computer and its location pinpointed in minutes. It was back in our yard by 4 am We bought them from a company called Simply Trak and they are very easy to fit. All they need is a supply and earth from the battery and a connection to the ignition. You can even tell on the computer in the office, whether the engine is running. The downfall of this system is if the battery is disconnected it will only show the last location of the machine when the battery was disconnected. However, there is a away round that too. You can fit a small motorcycle backup battery supplied from the main one via diodes. This will stop the main circuits from trying to backfeed off the backup battery. This will keep your tracker working even when the main battery is disconnected; leading you straight to the thieves. The truck we had stolen was recovered with the dash badly damaged in an attempt to find out whether a tracker was fitted. It was actually fitted behind the panel they didn't remove. The unit is small enough to hide in the roof casing of a machine and has an aerial the size of a dessert spoon which has to be hidden either behind glass or fibreglass to allow the antenna to see the four+ sattelites it uses to get a fix. Who knows, you could get your machine back and catch the thieves too!

Just out of interest............ it is possible to get ULS gas oil, or ultra low sulphur gas oil if you should want it. There is also another product called "Greenflame" but I'm not sure of its intended use or composition. I will try to find out. There is some other "Gas Oil" around at the moment, known as product 35 according to HM Customs. Quite legally produced. Inside a glass jar it appears red. Look at it from the top, ie shine a light into it and it looks either grey or a greenish grey. HMC say it contains Bio fuels and other re-cycled oils, whatever that means?? \

The TX 34 was the first new combine I ever drove. I had one doing a tour in my patch when I was a rep for ST's. I took it to a farm for a demo and set it off working. Shortly after I started the farmer got called away for a "Couple of hours" and left me working with it. He came back about five hours later... cheeky bu**er. I got caught like that with a tractor and a baler demo, half a day on each on seperate occasions. Still......... I did get paid......... a lot cheaper than contractors for them.

What a fantastic topic..........I've just read all eight pages of it. With the exception of the hills; the type of farming and the machinery used, is exactly my lottery dream. As for using an 1164 (74?) carting two bales at a time........ what's the problem with that? Fer gawds sake.......... anyone who's driven a cabless 1164 on 14 x 30's will know that you don't want to rush a job like that. You try and make it last as long as possible. Fantastic pictures and a very well detailed account of your farming year. Some of the very old pictures brought back some memories for me. I can just about remember the arrival of the threshing machine as a five year old on the farm where I lived. (Er....... 1957 ) Well done, greatly appreciated. (Shame my stepdaughter doesn't still live in Dartmouth as I could have paid you a visit. )

Shows evidence of being a stockmans tractor....... . I bet there's a pile of baler twine in the cab somewhere.

Just testing out my memory on Vicon mowers. Didn't they do an Olympus trailed mower with a roller conditioner, and the Doublet with a spiked nylon fingered conditioner. Four drum Krone mower conditioners were also very popular at the time too.

Nice to see all these old machines working. The pheasant does a very good job at tedding, and looks well looked after. If you have the time or staff; using thes old machines makes sense all the time spares are available. They do a very good job of "Teasing" out windrows, especially behind an Acrobat, which had a tendency to "Rope" the grass if it was long and heavy. It used to be annoying when you ease up to let the baler "Catch up" and watch the row disappear from beside the tractor, followed by a bang as the PTO shearbolt went. The Fan Ted's were good on ground that tended to be stony. They had belting mounted tines and as the name says, they used a fan action to lift the crop which did the job well. Oh to have the money to buy a smallish farm, and do the jobs with sixties kit. Ok, it took longer, but was very satisfying when it was all completed.

That probably happened as Fords were such pig headed sods and if marketing said that's what the farmers want, then that's what they sold. No doubt the person that designed the SOS gearbox had all the ideas to make it what the farmers really wanted, but as usual Ford's never listened, so he went to work for JD. I would imagine the SOS box worked well in the U.S. where they spend a lot of time in very large fields, but the UK market calls for much tougher machinery than many world markets require, as we found out over the years. The actual gearbox of the SOS was virtually indestructible, the fault was with the control system. Had it been developed further before it acquired a crap reputation in this country; the story could have been very different. The box on the 30 series Fords (TW 86-87-8830) was a standard four pack epicyclic gearbox, similar in many ways to the old SOS box. What made it better was the electronic control system and better hydraulic control. Finally Fords other big disaster was the synchro boxes they bought out on the "10" series in the early eighties. UK farmers wanted a snchro box to compete with JD's superb gearboxes. They proudly announced their new offering, the details of which we were told would make it a market leader. What did the silly ar*es do. They bring out a column gearchange that was a total embarrassment. Our sales staff couldn't believe their eyes. It was horrendous to use unless someone taught you the easy tecnique of changing from 6th to 7th gear. The reverse gear was on another lever lower down the column, and was absolutely useless for loader work as traditionally 5th or 6th gear was used for going forward on the old constant mesh box, with reverse directly opposite which was great. "Shuttle" loader work on the wonderful synchro box could only use 4th gear and reverse (4th) meaning that the forward speed was too slow. The option being changing gears on two gear levers, using 4th in reverse and "high" 2nd forwards. The first demo 6610 I had, I took to a ploughing match. Prospective customers said it was crap and wanted to know what on earth Fords were thinking of when they designed it, and I slunk off home at the end of the day with Ford's wonderful tractor obstinately stuck in gear. Piece of sh*t. The only good thing about it was that I helped sell quite a few to selected farmers who we knew would benefit from the synchro box. Ford's eventually got the message and did away with the "Rubic's Cube" gearlevers and brought out the 'H' pattern change in place of it. Still no good for loader work. Just as well we still had the option of the constant mesh box. (Also known as the "Crash box" by muppets who couldn't double de-clutch) I much preferred the old constant mesh gearbox. Very easy to use, great for loader work, easy to change on the move, very strong and easy to work on if repairs were needed.

Eeee........ when I were a lad.......... our grass was cut wi' a five foot drum mower and picked up with a flail forager. There was a Ford 3000 on the buckrake, and two of us on the clamp forking it out by hand. (A 4000 on the forager and a Fordson Major and another 3000 running two Wheatley three ton trailers. ) I'm not sure if it's true; but I was always told that long chop grass held its nutrients better than precision chop grass.

Nice looking grease gun and a great idea. BUT....... you still have to fill it up. I hate it at work if someone else has filled up my grease gun...... it's usually half full of air. The technique for filling a gun from a bucket is to hold the plunger still and push the barrel down into the grease. When you lift it to complete the fill.........DO NOT lift it out of the grease....... just slide it across and do the same again. When you have SECURELY locked the plunger into the holding slot; make sure the grease is air free at the end and slightly domed. Screw it on to the pump loosely and release the plunger lock. This will force out any air from the gap in between both halves. Then tighten it securely. You should be able to use the gun without any air locks. I don't like cartridges as they are expensive and dont hold as much grease as a fill from a bucket. I had a cheapie "Pro-Am" air powered gun and that was a pile of sh*te. I worked well until grease started spraying out of the vent on the power cylinder. Badly made junk. A good quality one would be an investment.