Harry Dexta
New User
Hi everyone. I"m sure you must get a ton of these post, so sorry if this is against the etiquette of the site. I"m just looking for someone to point me in the right direction.
Here goes anyway. I have bought a 1963 Fordson Super Dexta with a 3-cylinder Perkins diesel engine two days ago. I spent a long time looking for a tractor that was in my price range (the low end of the market) We recently moved to a house that has approx 3 acres of grass/pasture and long term we want to run a smallholding. In the short term I need to have a topper to cut the grass (the tractor came with a topper).
The guy I bought it from showed me the tractor driving and used the topper to cut a little patch of grass, it didn"t seem to smoke much when he drove it, the hydraulics worked to raise the hitch so i figured how bad can it be, and I went ahead and bought it.
I"m excited by the idea of slowly renovating the tractor and bringing it back to life (it"s really rusty, and has some problems with the gear box I think) but the more I look the more i realise I just don"t know what I"m doing. I don"t want to try to use it and end up damaging the tractor because I haven"t figured out what needs fixing professionally and what I can ignore or fix myself at a later date.
I have a few specific questions:
1. the gear lever(s) have two bolts missing from the plate that holds the base of the levers onto the tractor - is this bad, or should I not worry? the levers wobble around a bit but it does seem to go into gear. I"ve not tried them all, (also as I was taking it away the guy said that actually he couldn"t get it to go into reverse)
2. When he engaged the PTO it made a very bad sounding grinding gears noise until he got the PTO going, I asked about that and he said that it did that but it was okay. the PTO does work but that seems bad, is it?
3. I tried to drive it in 1 and 2 in low gear and the throttle lever by the steering wheel kept slipping backwards (so that the engine slowed down) I had to hold the throttle forwards for it to drive - am I doing it wrong?
4. when I had a go at driving it I"m told that it produced lots of black smoke (by my wife), I was so busy trying to remember what knobs to pull and twist that I wasn"t looking.
5. there has actually been quite a bit of work done by an engineer I"m told, the top of the engine has had the gaskets replaced and the hoses are new, it does seem a bit oil spattered in side and the bottom of the engine has a bit of oil collected on it, but it"s not pouring out; how much oil leakages is normal, do I need to fix it straight away?
the back half is really rusty and the PTO looks really filthy, will dirt be getting into the shaft or should I just leave the old gunky oil there; will removing make it more likely to get dirt inside.
6. Should I look to get it serviced? just to put mu mind at ease that I"m not going to damage it by using it, bearing in mind that I don"t have a huge budget.
7. when I drove it; briefly, in a low gear, the engine temp went into the red (slightly) is that because I need to top up the water in radiator, or cause for more worry.
Sorry for all the questions.
Really appreciate anyone who can give me some advice.
Harry
Here goes anyway. I have bought a 1963 Fordson Super Dexta with a 3-cylinder Perkins diesel engine two days ago. I spent a long time looking for a tractor that was in my price range (the low end of the market) We recently moved to a house that has approx 3 acres of grass/pasture and long term we want to run a smallholding. In the short term I need to have a topper to cut the grass (the tractor came with a topper).
The guy I bought it from showed me the tractor driving and used the topper to cut a little patch of grass, it didn"t seem to smoke much when he drove it, the hydraulics worked to raise the hitch so i figured how bad can it be, and I went ahead and bought it.
I"m excited by the idea of slowly renovating the tractor and bringing it back to life (it"s really rusty, and has some problems with the gear box I think) but the more I look the more i realise I just don"t know what I"m doing. I don"t want to try to use it and end up damaging the tractor because I haven"t figured out what needs fixing professionally and what I can ignore or fix myself at a later date.
I have a few specific questions:
1. the gear lever(s) have two bolts missing from the plate that holds the base of the levers onto the tractor - is this bad, or should I not worry? the levers wobble around a bit but it does seem to go into gear. I"ve not tried them all, (also as I was taking it away the guy said that actually he couldn"t get it to go into reverse)
2. When he engaged the PTO it made a very bad sounding grinding gears noise until he got the PTO going, I asked about that and he said that it did that but it was okay. the PTO does work but that seems bad, is it?
3. I tried to drive it in 1 and 2 in low gear and the throttle lever by the steering wheel kept slipping backwards (so that the engine slowed down) I had to hold the throttle forwards for it to drive - am I doing it wrong?
4. when I had a go at driving it I"m told that it produced lots of black smoke (by my wife), I was so busy trying to remember what knobs to pull and twist that I wasn"t looking.
5. there has actually been quite a bit of work done by an engineer I"m told, the top of the engine has had the gaskets replaced and the hoses are new, it does seem a bit oil spattered in side and the bottom of the engine has a bit of oil collected on it, but it"s not pouring out; how much oil leakages is normal, do I need to fix it straight away?
the back half is really rusty and the PTO looks really filthy, will dirt be getting into the shaft or should I just leave the old gunky oil there; will removing make it more likely to get dirt inside.
6. Should I look to get it serviced? just to put mu mind at ease that I"m not going to damage it by using it, bearing in mind that I don"t have a huge budget.
7. when I drove it; briefly, in a low gear, the engine temp went into the red (slightly) is that because I need to top up the water in radiator, or cause for more worry.
Sorry for all the questions.
Really appreciate anyone who can give me some advice.
Harry