I have been watching this great thread with interest, it has brought up thoughts for improvement from all ages of Massey Harris through Ferguson and Massey Ferguson, both from an operator and engineers point of view. I am sure this applies to all manufacturers, not just Massey.
A lot of this is down to the practical way the operator works with his machine, and the design engineer never really thinks the entire process through as to how the operator or mechanic in the field will be able to work on or maintain the machine after it is all assembled together.
Whilst writing this I am thinking of my younger days of driving the M-F 500 series tractors with Multi Power, models 575, 590 and 595, that Multi Power was marvellous just flick the lever from low to high and away you go at speed without changing gear or using the clutch, as some of you know we have some hills around here and I clearly remember coming down hill with a 595 and trailer loaded behind, being young a daft not listening to what I was told about starting at the top of the hill in the correct gear etc as I knew best, half way down I flicked the Multi Power from High to Low to reduce the speed and gues what happened, the tractor went even faster and faster with me hanging on until I got to the bottom of the hill, I have never done that since and what a "design fault" for Massey Ferguson that was, we had Fords at that time as well and I am sorry to say this but the Dual Power on them was far better not disengaging the drive when changing down from high to low.
Malcolm