Andrew (who incidently has a quaint little holliday cottage in Whitby) has sent us a video of his grey and red FE35 starting up from cold in winter time…

Andrew thought the video may help people decide if it would be worth spending all the time, effort and expense on reconditioning their engine.  I’ll let you decide the answer to that one (but Vintage Tractor Engineer is certain the answer is yes!).

VTE knows that Andrew had a bit of trouble getting the injection pump timing correct and had to go back and make some adjustments, but perserverence eventually paid off and that starting performance is a credit to Andrew, his hard work and attention to detail.

Gunter’s FE35

Gunter has also been hard at work restoring his grey and gold FE35 and has uploaded some photos. Impressive stuff!

Hi,

Having completed a full strip down and rebuild of the engine according to the dvd I have now bought the Hydraulics dvd and am about to start looking at that end of the tractor.

I noticed that Ian mentions using multigrade oil in the gearbox/hydraulics. Having Googled this and looking at a few forums I am now confused. Should I be using 32 grade hydraulic oil or multigrade engine oil?

Also what about my log splitter which I use on my Ford 4000 with 32 grade hydraulic oil in it. If I use it on the Fergy with different oil then the oil will surely get mixed?

Thanks

Andrew

Hi Andrew,

In the Fe35, the recommended oil is SAE50 in our climate (or SAE 40 in colder climates). However, these days you would just use 15w/30 farm universal oil (or possibly even a dedicated premium transmission oil such as 10w/40). Definately not 32 grade hydraulic oil – that would be used in specific hydraulic systems (ie. without a tractor gearbox running off the same reservoir). Also definately not dedicated engine oil or any dedicated gear oils.

As for the mixing of the oil when you swap the log splitter between the two tractors?? Well that’s one reason why the oil should be changed at regular intervals – so that the correct oil in the tractor doesn’t get too diluted/contaminated with incorrect oil from other systems.

Hope that helps.

Kind Regards,

Ian

Richard has sent in these photos of his tractor, along with a few details.

Further relevant information is available on decals and badges or a more general article on the MF35 tractor.

Hi VTE.

I have followed the whole rebuild process acording to the fantastic DVD I bought (I also bought the Workshop Manual for the MF 35).

I have recently started up the engine for the very first time.  It was running absolutely fantastic.  But after approx 4-5 minutes the engine slowly stalls and decreases in revs and then completely stalls – almost at the same time the radiator starts “leaking” because of the boiling water in the block.

Everything inside is new – pistons, rings, liners, crankshaft is balanced with new bearings – the WHOLE lot.  What I am afraid of is that the tolerance between the piston through the rings to the liner is to narrow.  I have removed the head now and looked at the pistons and the inside of the liners and they look as they were new – no scratches no ressidue of any kind!  All the spare parts I have bought in the UK – also the Engine Overhaul Kit – 23C.

What would You recommend I do next?

Kind regards from Denmark
Mr Lau Jakobsen

I would think you have a cooling problem.

What will be happening (I suspect) is that the cooling system isn’t working
for some reason.  The aluminium pistons will be overheating and expanding
(more quickly than the iron block) and hence the expanded pistons will
become difficult to move along the bores.   This will create more friction
and even more heat making the engine even hotter and the problem even worse.

What could be wrong?

Either one of the pipes is blocked up or the thermostat is not allowing the
water to circulate or the water pump is not circulating the water or the
radiator blocked.  Other things to look for are gaskets fitted incorrectly
and blocking coolant pathways, or temporary covers (e.g. cloths or tape used to cover coolant pathways during the rebuild) that haven’t been removed. I would take a careful look at all the cooling system components.

The thermostat should begin to open at between 68 and 74 degrees C. It
should be fully open at 85 degrees C – which can be checked by placing in a
pan of water and heating up the water.

Will this have damaged anything?

Hopefully not. If the engine was just running at idling speed in the
workshop then I would suspect that nothing will have got damaged. Things tolook for are damaged piston rings and cylinder head (although you have been in and inspected these).

Hope that helps.

Let us know how you get on.

If anyone has any other theories or suggestions for Lau then please let us know in the comments below.

The Vintage Tractor Engineer.

How To Fit Core Plugs

There are different designs of core plug for different engines.  The task is quite straight forward on the Perkins engines, as the plugs are simply hammered into position with a suitable drift and light hammering.

23C Engine

The design of the core plug and fitting method for the Standard 23C engine is somewhat different.

Here are the core plug fitting instructions…

On these engines the new core plugs are a convex shape (like a dish shape). You clean the hole out and put some sealant around the edge of the hole (something like ‘Instant Gasket’ or ‘Loctite Flange Sealant’).  The sealant isn’t technically necessary (as eventually any leak would seal with rust), but it is better for an immediate seal.

Next get the new core plug and place the lip of the plug into the hole (so if you imagine something such as a breakfast bowl, the bottom of the bowl needs to be facing towards you to the outside of the engine block) and then using a suitably shaped wide punch you hit the centre of the core plug until it starts to flatten out.  This expands the outer rim of the plug and makes a water tight seal.  The plug needs to be nearly flat, but NOT flat.  If you  get it to the point of been flat then it will loose its grip and it will just fall out.

It is sometimes possible to re-use an old core plug if you are able to re-form the dish shape prior to fitting the plug.