powerrabbit

A few weeks ago a 'new' neighbour 'farmer' got his brand new JD stuck in a wet patch with a ballast roller. He struggled and struggled for about 3 hours before he gave up and went in to get out his small digger to dig it out but to no avail so he sent word to a mate of mine just out the road to come with his Renault 103.54 and assist. My mate looked in on his way back home and said that this chap was so stuck that he could'nt lower the hitch enough to un-hitch the roller, my mate asked him if when he started getting stuck if he put the JD in 4wd? The chap said that he thought the tractor was permenantly in 4wd and wondered why the front wheels were not turning when he was stuck (numpty). My mate told me later that the chaps wife spent the next three days on her back under the tractor cleaning it! I have not yet met this neighbour, but somehow I don't think he is a farmer, he seems to have cut himself off as he has errected an electric intercom entry gated system to the farm entrance on the road and fenced himself in. Should also post this up in 'what made you laugh'.

Farm and Site, dead and buried. RIP. Model Tractor, very much alive and kicking, so all us tractor collectors should support it as it is supporting our hobby and will undoubtedly offer us all a valuable resource to our hobby with information on the past, present and the future (to a point) and aids us in widening our knowledge of the subject which we can then pass on and share (on the Forum). If there are any persons connected with the magazine that happen to visit the Forum or anyone here that knows any of them, I would like to wish them all the success they deserve and say 'long live MT'

The 1490 was rated at 83 engine hp. None of them were fitted with an oil cooler, that was the 15 and 1690. Battery was moved from the front to underneath the right-hand cab steps to aid cooling. the reason some had overheating problems were because a certain number of them were fitted with a 'pusher' fan blade, this drew air around and past the engine and was too hot by the time it passed throuh the radiator, this method was ok but it was found that hedgetrimming finer chips blocked the radiator, this is what caused the main overheating problem. Most of these 'pusher' fans were replaced by the conventional 'puller' type as the grille screen stopped the radiator blocking as per normal but David Brown supplied a pair of special engine side-screens as a kit for self fitment for those that could not be bothered to change the fan. The early 15 and 1690 suffered an overheating problem due to the cylinder head originally being cast as a single unit. It was found that the rear of the head would get hotter than the front and the tractor would overheat. also the head would expand at a different rate throughout it's length for the same reason and would slightly wharp, this lead also to head gasket problems. When they changed the design and fitted a double cylinder head (basically 2 3 cylinder units) both problems were solved at once and made servicing and repair cheaper and easier and also made the engine more fuel efficient. It also helps if you put water in the radiator mixed with a corrosion inhibitor.

The crank problem was initially 'cured' on the 1212 VQ cabbed models around '79 but a few of the 1490 ones failed as they were using up old stock parts left over. There were problems with the 1690 as well, there was a strike on in the steel industry and D.B (Case) used another company to supply the engine oil pumps which were of inferior quality (gear drives made from softer steel, not hardened enough) and when the tractors had done about 1,000 hours they would fail and the engine would seize, cost them a bit as all pumps had to be replaced under warrantee between engine number so-and-so and so-and-so.

With regard to the faults on the Ford 7000 or any of the Britain's stuff for that matter, would it not be a good idea to inform the shops and dealers of these faults as well, as they have them in quantity and so many of them carry faults that if they were returned to Britain's en mass perhaps they would tighten up their quality control. We should play our part in informing stockists of the faults so that they could check every one. I wonder how many stockists actually do take time to check models, if we returned every faulty model from where it was purchased, the message would get through I'm sure. I bought a recent Britain's MF model from a shop that was offering a free Marston (boxed)trailer with the tractor. On opening the tractor box I found that it had the black plastic rear mudguard trim missing so I returned it. I was presented with a replacement, after the member of staff checked this second one, he also gave me another trailer as the offer was still running. Me thinks me had a good deal!

It is a 1490. I have one of these, 83hp turbo, Hydrashift,same engine as the 1210 and 1212 but with the addition of the turbo. There were problems with the very early ones breaking cranks as they used the series 2 1200 engine but found that the strain on the crank at low torque would make it 'whip' and it would snap, this was modified by beefing up the journals which cured the problem. Good hedgetrimming tractor.

Strange but true, but that sickly green D.B. 1410 tractor and trailer is now quite desirable as not many were sold as no-one liked it. When released it retailed for around ?10, as time went on you could pick them up from toy shops for ?2 as they were glad to get rid. The actual trade price was ?6. The green colour was actually based on a batch of real D.B tractors that were supplied to the Irish Councils and marketed by David Brown as 'The Green Line'. Perhaps because of the low volume of sales of these green ones, Corgi did not follow through and produce yellow ones as supplied to the English Councils which were maketed by David Brown as 'The Yellow Line'. Were any of you D.B. enthusiasts aware that there were real ones in green livery? Perhaps some of our Irish members like James could tell us if there are any still surviving over there.

Corgi are a bit funny with their 'limited' stuff. What they do is have a certificated release of a certain number and any that are unsold they remove the certificates and sell them off at the regular price as 'de-certified' models. When you think back though, Corgi only produced a few farm tractors but in loads of variants and gift sets. Be interesting to see what will be coming.

Picked up a couple of copies in W.H. Smiths at Newton Abbot on Wednesday, this branch sell all the tractor mags and all the other related mags as well, practically every sort of mag you can think of on the shelves, hell of a range. Going back to the new one, I found it very interesting and agree with everyone else, good varied content, good quality pics and paper and nice reveiws. Look forward to the number of pages increasing in the future and hope that the price won't get hiked. Nice that the model collector of tractors and plant/construction are being catered for specificaly, long may it continue. (For ever).

The way that I have done it is to back up another tractor to the back of it and connect a PTO shaft from a dungspreader between both tractors and put the D.B. PTO in gear (tractor not running) and put the other tractor PTO in gear and slowly slowly ease up the clutch and let it 'bite', don't ****** it. do this a few times and it will probably do the trick if it aint stuck too much. If that do'nt work you'll have to split the tractor I'm afraid. Hope this helps.

All the older models up to the late 1980's that are without boxes are in the cabinet in sort of order of make. The rest are neatly stacked or packed in big boxes in a spare room. The only real order I have them in is a list by manufacturer on the computer, this way I can open the list to see what Iv'e already got when veiwing the likes of Ebay to make sure that I don't 'double up' too much, trouble is, when you got so much, you can soon loose track!

Anyone in the area should go, should be very interesting. Lots of stuff going on as Scamp has said.

Been sorting out hydraulic lift problem on a mates D.B. 995 this morning, valve in the valve chest was stuck. Also got out the 780 and hitched up the plough and cleaned it up and put 3 new shares on ready to go down and mark out the plots tomorrow for the ploughing competition part of the rally/working weekend on Saturday and Sunday,. The Bridford Vintage Rally on the B3195 Teign Valley road, Chudleigh to Dunsford Village. Should be a good weekend.

These 4wd conversion units were fitted to th T20 and also earlier Dexta tractors in the mid to late 1950's using an American Willies Jeep axle and propshaft that were Army surplus from the Second World War. The gearbox drive was made in Trento, Italy. This tranfer box was 'sandwiched' between the bell-housing and tractor gearbox and gave drive to the front axle by means of a lever that basically, when moved, engaged a gear on the end of the propshaft/splitter box to another gear on the main shaft. That's as much as I know about it but I am sure others on the Forum will be able to offer more details.

Knew someone would know the ins and outs. Thanks for this info.

Speaking of U.H McCormick tractor models, Has anyone managed to come across one of these. The Cornish County Council liveried MC 115. Don't think there are many of these about and can't remember how many were said to have been produced. Rumour has it that there was no license granted for this model and they now seem to have dissapeared,. I suspect someone here will know the details and post it up. The Balfour Beatty blue ones seem to have dissapeared as well but I've got both of them. This one looks realy good in the yellow livery. Got it at the last local toyfair from a dealer/stallholder that does all the McCormicks for a very reasonable ?20. Wonder how many more variants there will be in the future!

I have said this in another post somewhere but these models, the 1:43 ones that is, should come with a magazine. The mag is in French and were 11.95 Euros including the model which was stuck to the mag with that clear rubbery peel-off glue. The model was housed in thin perspex/plastic cover and screwed to a black plastic plinth with the name/type of the tractor and date of first manufacture in silver or white printed on it like the Siku 'Farmer' series models and there was a greeny card packaging wrapped around the base.

When these Challengers were first released my Nephew got one from the Claas factory shop on a visit there for ?85. I found one at a local toy fair for ?75. This was around 3 years ago. There are two versions, one is Claas, which of course is green, the other is Cat, which of course is yellow. These Challengers in real life were made by Cat but some were liveried as Claas under license. The majority of the very few models in the 1:16 scale that I have seen are in the Claas livery. The model that I have is unusual as it came in a yellow Cat box and not the Claas box. All the models are numbered on the bottom and the boxes have a corresponding number on them, (same number on model and box) The number on my Claas model is the same number as on the Cat box it came in which makes it the correct box for the model, this is what makes it more unusual.

Anyone going to post up some pics of these? Several more have come out since the last post. Up to now I've got about 14 of them, terrific detail for the scale, only to be expected seeing that they are made by UH.

I've got the exact same model, posted a pic of it quite some time back, forget what the topic was, perhaps someone will find it and link. Reckon a nice big combo cultivator or gang rolls would look the bizz, on the other hand a 12 furrow semi mounted plough would look just as good seeing the model has pretty good linkage.

I have the manual book here infront of me and apart from the photo of it on the front cover it has two line drawings inside, both these drawings are the same but one is numbered for parts and the other shows the lubrication points. Here is one of the line drawings if it will help anyone who wishes to attempt a build.

I've just listed an operators instruction manual for the Howard Bigbaler on Ebay just this morning if you're interested. I will post up the link in a mo so's you can look at it. Here it is. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=320151695796&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=011

I used one of these years ago, in fact, only scrapped it last week as it was rusted out. The model being constructed here is pretty well spot on, terrific. If I can be so bold, there were two wheels just behind the second upright, the ones forward of the rear gate that fitted on for transport, hard rubber tyred with a fixed shaft in each wheel that slid into a tube on the sledge frame and held on by means of a linch-pin through the wheel shaft. The tail-gate released the bales when it was full automaticly when the last bale went into it, the way this worked was by means of a rod that pivoted on the top rail bar above the tail-gate and was held forward by a spring atached to the side of the frame. the bar was pushed back when the back top bale was pushed against it by the last one of the six that came out the baler, can't remember how it was linked but this release rod lifted two latches each side at the bottom rear and the tailgate raised, or was it hinged one side and there was only one latch? Can't recall but worked something in that fashion. As regards re-stacking for the 'Perry Loader', Cooks had a loader to go with the sledge as part of the set of equipment, this loader picked up the bales the way the sledge left them, similar principal to the Perry but seem to remember there were some sort of spring tine arrangement that opened upwards and held the bales to take to the trailer.

O.K. So if we create a topic on prices I would suggest that the main title topic should be 'Model Prices' and then sub-topics with manufacturer, 'Britain's. Siku. U.H. Corgi. Dinky and so on. Then we can all enter under the manufacturer, the item, catalogue number or model number, price, date and where purchased.

Values are very dificult to put on these things. It it always best to start a little on the high side as you can always negotiate and come down, you can never go up. It may be coming to the time, especially where Britain's stuff is concerned, for someone to collate some average prices made of items and publish a guide. Could be a good idea to open a dedicated topic, call it say, 'Model Prices', to post achieved prices with sub topic for all the brands, Britain's, Siku, UH, Dinky, Corgi etc. We could all also post what we have paid for items as well which would give others a good idea of values even for the new models as prices do vary between dealers/shops/outlets/auction/Ebay. Does anyone agree?