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!

Many of us have these badges but usually they’re attached proudly to the front of our tractors!  However, maybe you have a spare one in your shed that has come off a breaking tractor for example.  If you either have a badge for Adam or know where there is one then you can contact him on the email below.  Here is what Adam says…

Hello to all. My name is Adam Glenday. I’m the creative director for AGCO Corporation
headquarters, located in Duluth, GA, US. I am currently working on designing the displays
that will be exhibited within the new Intivity Center, which will be located in Jackson, MN.
One of the exhibits within the visitor center will feature a collection of Massey
Ferguson grill badges, as they appeared over the years of Massey Ferguson’s history.
We are in need of help to round up the different styles of badges, thus my reason for
posting here. Currently, we are looking for the following badges:

• Original “Ferguson” badge
• First “Massey Ferguson” badge
• Badge from a 100 Series tractor
• Badge from a 200 Series tractor

If anyone can help us acquire these badges, your assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Please feel free to email me directly at adam.glenday@agcocorp.com

Thank you,

Adam Glenday
Manager, Creative Services
AGCO Corporation

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.

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

THE FLOOD from Juicy Studios on Vimeo.