Before restoration.  Somewhere between £900 and £2,250.  The lower price would be for a tractor that had rusted or bent panels and needed full engine rebuild with further mechanical work.  The higher price would be for a tractor that was original, had been looked after and was reasonably mechanically good – basically coud go to work and looked OK as well.

After Restoration.  Absolute top price would be no more than £3,500 and there are quite a lot of restored tractors in the £2,500 to £2,800 price bracket.  The only thing with the so-called restored tractors is you never quite know how good a job has been done of the mechanical restoration.

Restoring a tractor is expensive.  Yes you can get an engine rebuild kit for around £160 – £300 (depending on brand), but that is often the cheapest part of an engine rebuild.  Getting the crank reground, head and block skimmed, fit valve guides, recut and grind the valve seats etc. is a big cost.  An engine may not need all that doing, but that work would cost £450 – £600.  Then if injectors need servicing they are £22 each and injection pump refurb would be approximately £250 – £300.  So the total engine rebuild cost coud be towards £1,200 – and that’s if you do the job yourself.

Hydraulic system refurbishment is usually much less expensive, with a pump repair kit in the region of £100.

It is easy to see how a full restoration may cost as much as (or even more) than the restored tractor would be worth if there is a lot of work to do.

Hope that has given you some idea on values and costs – obviously it is all based on UK costs an values.

THE FLOOD from Juicy Studios on Vimeo.

My father Fred Seaton owned a Fordson Dexta which was sold when he retired in the late 1980`s. I am trying to trace this tractor and the only thing I can remember about this tractor was the registration number OFL 941. I am also trying to trace his Fordson County Crawler which had the registration number KJL 81. I think both of these tractors were originally purchased in the Spalding or Stamford area in Lincolnshire. If anyone can help me to trace these tractors would they please make contact.

I’m rebuilding my Fordson Dexta engine (diesel) and need some info on the cylinder liners. I’ve just removed 3 seized pistons and pressed out the cylinder liners. The question is should I use high temp loctite 620 on the new liners when pressing them in. The older liners presumably didnt use it and are a simple press fit. There liner are not flanged.
Cheers,
Peter.

Hi Peter,

To be honest we have never fitted Dexta liners ourselves. Last time we had one done the engine shop pressed in unfinnished liners and then bored and honed them to size (as they distort slightly during the pressing process).
This makes me think that the pre-finnished ones will not be quite as tight-a-fit, so as to minimise distortion. If this is the case then some loctite may be advantageous, particulary if they are not flanged. I cannot see any harm in using the loctite.

PS. If you keep the liners cool it will help minimise distortion when fitting. Also if you have any means of keeping the block warm such as filling the water jacket, or our engine shop put the block in the steam cleaning cabinet to warm it up.

Hi Steve,
Thanks for the advice. I managed to get the new liners in today. I stuck them in the freezer for several hours and let the block sit in the sun for the same. I used the loctite as the liners are unflanged but I can tell you they were a very tight fit in the block. The top end of the liner was so tight it took some extra effort to press them all the way home. This resulted in about 5thou distortion over half an inch from the top so that the pistons wouldn’t fit. I then honed each cylinder liner back until the new piston slid in. Next job is to refit the crank shaft.

I mistakenly took the gear off the camshaft so now I’m worried that I have lost the timing positions. Would you have any advice on how to re-establish the timing positon for the camshaft?

Cheers,
Peter.

Hi Peter,

The Dexta workshop manual is available to download from a website….

http://www.fordson-dexta.de./501255938c0048c14/index.html

Hopefully all the info should be in there.
Sounds like you had some fun with those liners!

Regards,

Steve.

Hi Steve,
Thanks for the link to the manual I’ve downloaded it. Those liners did prove difficult. We actually cracked one about 1/4″ from the top on closer inspection. It runs aroung the circumference for about 1.5″. These liners have a grove milled around the outside, I don’t know what purpose that serves as the old liners don’t have this. This is where the crack emminates.
Looks like I’m going to have to press that one out and try again. I’ll lap out the top of the bore to make things easier on the second try.

Cheers,
Peter.

Fordson dexta ford dexter engine cylinder liners replacing

Casting Codes

From 1957 until 1963, the casting codes would be in the format of C17A (for example). The first letter refers to the month (i.e. C refers to March), the number refers to the date (i.e.17 would be the 17th of March in this case), the last letter refers to the year (A refering to 1957).

From 1963 onwards the code consisted of a year number, letter indicating the month and a number for the date. So 4D18 would be the 18th April 1964. It would seem that there are some anomalies though – see the table below.

Month                             Until 1963                     1963 and after
Jan                                       A                                            A
Feb                                       B                                             B
March                                 C                                             C
April                                    D                                            D
May                                      F                                            E
June                                     H                                           F
July                                      J                                            G
Aug                                      K                                            H
Sept                                      L                                            K
Oct                                        M                                           L
Nov                                      N                                            M
Dec                                       P                                             N

Year                          Code
1957                            A
1958                             B
1959                             C
1960                             D
1961                              F
1962                             H
1963 (Jan-May)       J
1963 (Jun-Dec)        3
1964                             4

Serial Numbers

Year                                     Prefix                           Number
1957                                     957E                                1 to..
1958                                      957E                          144 to..
1959                                      957E                     22558 to..
1960                                      957E                     44432 to..
1961 (Jan-Oct)                  957E                      71921 to..
1961 (Nov-Dec)                   09A                   312001 to..
1962                                          09B                  702592 to..
1963 (Jan)                              09C                   732031 to..
1963 (Feb-May)                   09C                   900001 to..
1963 (Jun-Dec)                     09C                    916550 to..
1964 (Jan-Sept)                    09D                   907332 to..

Other sources do differ slightly from the above numbers, so please only use these as a good guide.

Comments…..
1
Lee says:

March 31st, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Could you tell me when or if the orange wheels on the fordson dexta were red.

Cheers Lee.

2
The Vintage Tractor Engineer says:

March 31st, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Hi Lee,

As far as I know the wheels were orange and not red. The orange wheels
changed at serial number 09C 913383 (June ‘63) to the grey/cream coloured
wheels.

This Fordson tractor website gives you lots of detailed information

Steve

3
ENDA says:

August 4th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
RECENTLY OBTAINED A FORD 3000 .ON THE BONNET IT WAS MARKED SUPER DEXTA. IT ALSO HASA FIN BONNET . WERE TRYING TO FIND INFO ON THIS .THE SERIAL NUM IS B226 OR B STAR 82162 COULD YOU PLEAS HELP ME ON THIS

THANKS

4
Roger Jacques says:

December 5th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
To whom,
I have purchased a fordson dexta,diesel 3cyl T3. The serial # is 1492597 which is on the engin and another number on the transmittion area which is # 957E – 7005 L5F. I am wanting to rebuild this tractor but don’t know the year it is to order parts. Can anyone help me to determ the year or where else on the tractor I can find a number to help determin the year. Thanks in advance

5
Paul Johnson says:

December 11th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Roger,

From the transmission casting it looks like your castings were made on 5th September 1961. So I would think that your tractor was manufactured late in 1961.

Paul