John,

I am sure Tom would love to be able to step back in time and drive to the factory in Weston with his Wallis truck and pick up two of those crates with brand new Buda engines in for him to bolt them right onto the new frames of his two tractors.

Almost like looking for the needle in the haystack or the fieldmouse with his guitar!!!


Malcolm.

It's a long time since we aired this No. 2 thread.  I am prompted to do so as I have at last got round to removing the offending tyre threads from the rear wheels on my No. 2..  They are just so gruesome I think when fitted to old steel wheel tractors - there should be international laws against it!

Anyway a blacksmith friend made me a set of strakes for it which I collected before Xmas.  Then I started to undo the bolts holding the tyres on but this was by and large impossible with the very rounded heads that couldn't be gripped and bashed up threads.  So I bought myself a big disc cutter to attack the problem.  It has really worked.  Often you have to cut through the tread itself and this is quite hard work on the cutter.  Anyway today I finished getting the tread on the left hand side wheel off and got round to fitting the strakes.  Needles to say a complete new set of nuts and bolts required which over here cost about 1 $ each with nut and a spring washer.  I went for a 16 mm metric size as this was a nice snug fit (no doubt the purists will be enraged by this but I can always grind the metric marks on the head off!  The nuts and head fit a 15/16 AF spanner perfectly and they are coarse thread so look the part.

I am very pleased with the trasformation of the tractor away from its cissy state and back to its correct rugged image.  Once the strakes get a bit of rust on they will look very original.  The patterns of the old ones were still to be seen when I removed that offending tyre.  Tomorow I'll start on the right hand side.

This tractor has a lot of history - it won MF's worldwide hunt and prize for being the oldest working Massey tractor in the world in 1984.  The previous owner had had the tyres fitted for convenience of taking the tractor on the road up in Canada.

Many say that you can't load a tractor on to a trailer with lugs or strakes but with some good timber planks (or rubber conveyor belt) you can - and how much more lifelike and original they look.

John

Well today was a reasonable day of weather so I managed to get the other wheel of my No. 2 stripped of its rubber and re-fitted with cleats.  Here it is both sides done and I am very pleased to see it looking so original again

John

I can see you have had a busy weekend John,

The addition of the cleats has made the tractor look so much better, especially with the provenance that tractor holds. I personally am pleased to see you have got that modern rubber tyre tread off the wheels, for me that is something which spoils the character of the tractor, I understand why it is often put on steel wheeled tractors for ease of moving around, but the looks is something else.

Malcolm.

Here is a photograph of the No 3 with the smaller cones fitted to the wheels, these were supplied via the Western UK Massey Division and originally from a M-H dealer in Scotland.
Someone told me these are "grass studs" is this correct??

Malcolm.

A friend of mine sent me this picture tonight. I guess it's going to be on its way back to MN soon.

It's amazing what keeps turning up out of the weeds Tom,

Is it a Parrett or M-H? looking at the hub centre I wondered if it is Parrett?

How are your new chassis frames progressing in Albany for your No 2 projects?.

Malcolm.

Hi Malcolm, I'm not sure yet if it's a Parrett or massey. The top of the rear axle casting is busted off so that's where the part number is.

also my #2 projects have been slowed down by snowmobiles and my snow bike this winter. But Ervin has spent weeks on the new fenders and I hope to go pick them up a few weeks into May. Here's a few pictures for you to look over that Ervin sent me a couple weeks ago.

I'm making slow progress on the tractors. I spent all weekend getting the wheels ready to sandblast. The bull gears have three bolts that hold their position on the rim and most of them were pretty rusty but after a few hours of messing around all the wheels and bull gears were separated. After these get blasted I'm going to have some spokes to replace.
the next project was to melt the Babbitt out of the rear axle. Massey originally babbitted the rear axle bolts after the location was finalized just to ensure a tight fit and  prevent it from sliding around. The rear axle casting will be blasted also. Hopefully in a month or so I will have enough parts fixed up to get one on wheels with the steering hooked up.

The first picture shows the "wrench" I had to make to remove the 4" nut on the rear axle
The last picture shows one of the wheels with the axle rusted in place. that took a couple hours, the largest sledge hammer I had, and a 25 ton jack to use as a press.  

Heres a few more pics that Ervin has been sending me of the fender work. The two pictures of the whole fenders are for another tractor that came from the Kentucky auction last year.