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After many years of helping with tractor pulling, and after having driven The Ant of James Slater I decided the time had come to build a puller. In October 2004 i purchased this standard Fordson Major E1A to turn into a puller!
The first Job was the back end, which I made some larger rear wheels to fit, aswell as new mudguards, altered to fit over the wheels, also some larger front wheels were fitted on hubs to get rid of the heavy cast wheels
Also a roll bar, and a stronger higher hitch were made, aswell as a better seat fitted
The old 4 cylinder engine was removed, ready to find a new more powerful engine to use
A Ford Cargo 360T dover engine was found, which fits easily into a Major back end, the engine was taken out of a low mileage cargo that was used by the police as a incident unit.
The engine was fitted into the back end, using a single plate JCB paddle clutch with a uprated borg & beck pressure plate. Note the orginal cargo sump on the engine still
All the electrics were done and a new dashboard made, aswell as the throttle linkage made, the fuel system rigged up and the radiator fitted to see if the engine ran. It started easily and sounded well - couldnt wait for the season to start!
A new chassis was made up to tie together the back end with the original cast tombstone, the front cowl was fitted aswell as an exhaust pipe fitted
The chassis was then strengthened and a weight frame was added to the front, and a section was made across the centre of the tractor to allow weights to be added their. Also a torsion bar was made to stop the tractor splitting in half should anything go wrong.
The new sump and oil pick up pipe were fitted, and the steering arm lengthened
I then welded two bonnets together to make them the right length and finished off all the small bits - ready to see if it works!
I took the tractor to James Slater's farm in April to try it using his sledge and track, it easily pulled the sledge in 5th gear without fail, the balence felt right, and the engine and gearbox sounded well.
After a good day's pulling, it was back to the workshop to strip it back down for painting,
The tractor was stripped down, and taken for shotblasting, it was then primed and painted and all the components were fitted having been reconditioned. I was very happy with the finished result.
A week later my tractor was loaded with All The Way, after that had undergone the same paint job, ready for a trip to Landford, nr Salisbury for its first proper test. After burning the paint off the manifold, it perfomed very well with some good pulls, other than a problem with the fuel it all went well.
A week later was to a very wet Welland, with the tractor weighted up i managed some surprisingly good pulls, but by the end of the weekend it was very wet and had to double up. Very good fun - i definatly had the bug!!
The next trip out was to The Great Dorset Steam Fair, in which it was very hot and had 5 days of good pulling. other than having to fit a turbo on thursday it was great fun, i was starting to need more power and after having a go on C & O express i definatly found it more fun!!
The next trip out was stourpaine bushes, in which i broke the back end on saturday by smashing both ball gears to bits. Having broken it, and find out that Neil Beeze wanted to sell his tractor i was tempted so ended up dipping my hand in my pocket and buying what now if Dragon Power.
In October 2005 I took both tractors to James Slater's private event, in which both tractors went very well other than Dragon Power's turbos. Major Disaster was definatly going to be old faithful!!
Due to lack of space on the lorry, I only used Dragon Power for the first 4 events of 2006, and having space I took Major Disaster to Welland, in which the weather was the opposite of the year before and was hot and dry. My major still went well, but with Dragon Power improving i was getting bored.
With the nice weather and the two tractors I was really happy - i think im stuck with this tractor pulling now!!
By the sunday afternoon Dragon Power was starting to die and I didnt know whether it was going to last a week at Pickering. I had the chance of space on a lorry so I took up the offer and took the two to Yorkshire.
My gamble paid off seeing as how Dragon Power dropped a valve on Saturday. I had some good fun on the Major but dropped it a bit heavy on the sunday and broke the front tombstone
I repaired Dragon Power for Croeslan, but it broke again, I had really lost interest now so didnt take pullers to GDSF or Berwick St John. At the GDSF I spent much time with Steve Brown from Midland Sherpa Spares in which i decided i would like to build something similar as it would be a good advert for Bassaleg Hire.
After Berwick St John, I had a phone call off Pete at Midland Sherpa Spares in which he asked if i would be interested in buying it. Having been watching it pulling since 1997 i couldnt refuse, so that was it, the Major had to up for sale to get some money. It sold in September, and is now in Ireland. I have regretted selling it ever since!!
