Tuesday Tractor

[Majorman]

Turner

Turner "Yeoman of England". You may never have heard of this tractor or the company but you will have come across it's products if you have ever had a Ford tractor. Turner's were an engineering company and back in the 1950's they decided to go into tractor production to compete with the Fordson Major. The tractor they designed was originally powered by a V4 Diesel designed by Freeman-Sanders. The eventual tractor turned out to have reliability problems with the engine, poor starting and breaking crankshafts, eventually these problems were solved but the tractor's reputation was ruined. In the late 1950's a prototype was built and is still in existence, fitted with a Perkins L4, but then came the Ford involvement. The rumour says, (and this comes from a Turner employee at the time) that Ford told Turner that, if they stopped tractor production, Ford would pass all there engineering work on gears to the company. Turners agreed and so all Ford tractors have Turner timing gears and other parts in the engines. Turner also expanded into the manufacture of gearboxes and their units were used in many Leyland and Ford Trucks. The company was still in existence making gears up until the early 2000's when it was taken over.
The tractor in the picture has been fitted with a Gardner Diesel, possibly another prototype to replace the V4.

 

[cdmn]

Fordson Major had several modifications to the timing gears. One of mine had the hub cracked out of the driven gear. The rest of the driveline was quite tough. I don't understand why that wasn't caught and fixed early. They used the same engine in trucks before tractors. I know that
in the War time, engineers were just beginning to understand fatigue. But it was still the practice to make sure, by testing until failure. Then improve and test again. Incidentally, Ford used fibre timing gear for the flathead V8 for many years, apparently to dampen vibration as well as
cut noise. Later GM used plastic teeth on their timing chain sprockets, with not so good results.

 

[Majorman]

Fordson Major had several modifications to the timing gears. One of mine had the hub cracked out of the driven gear. The rest of the driveline was quite tough. I don't understand why that wasn't caught and fixed early. They used the same engine in trucks before tractors. I know that
in the War time, engineers were just beginning to understand fatigue. But it was still the practice to make sure, by testing until failure. Then improve and test again. Incidentally, Ford used fibre timing gear for the flathead V8 for many years, apparently to dampen vibration as well as
cut noise. Later GM used plastic teeth on their timing chain sprockets, with not so good results.

The timing gear on the cam shaft were the weak point on the Major with their three bolt fixing and dowel, The modification was the single bolt fitting cam shaft and wider gears that sorted all the problems. Did away with the horse shoe spacer too. The old camshaft was fine until they started pushing the horse power up and putting stronger springs on the valves. My Major still has the camshaft it was fitted with in 1952.