Through the grapevine I heard that an old Massey Ferguson tractor might be for sale. Always interested, at a friend's workshop I ended up being passed the phone and talking to someone who knew about the tractor. Slowly it became clear that I actually knew the farm and the tractor that might be for sale. So now there is a new friend in the family.
Meet Peter, my little red Massey Ferguson. He's a 1974 MF135 with under 6000 hours on the clock and one very careful owner. In fact he's spotless and it will be a challenge for me to keep him in the same condition.
So this afternoon the deal was done, although it felt more like an interview. But it seems that I passed the test and I was allowed to take him away with me After much discussion of the niceties of the model and an introduction to the controls (which I needed as I've mainly been driving monster modern tractors with air con and surround sound recently) I drove Peter triumphantly back through 4 fields from his old home to his new home. We don't get out much around here.
So Peter will continue to be seen working on the same fields, and now on the commons as well. After all he's been working around here much longer than I have so it feels good to be entrusted with him and I'm looking forward to working with him.
Don't forget to wave if you see me passing by!
5 comments:
What a fantastic addition to the collection. The number plate is P for Peter and J for?
Hope you have many many happy and productive hours tractoring around the commons.
P.S. I'm sure there are an endless array of attachments too!!
Nice tractor. Now you'll have something to get around in when the Land Rovers aren't working.
Great news! Looks like you finally managed what you first tried when I was a year old. Looks like I may just finally have to say the words "Massey Ferguson"!
Looking forward to seeing him out and about.
Bravo! Welcome to the old tractor world. (I own a 1947 International Farmall H. Still starts right up and runs beautifully.) It will be much esasier to find implements for a '74 than a '47 (curious numerical coincidence, that). Hauling logs out of the forest is much easier with a tractor than with a Landie.
I hope ypu got a set of manuals for it; if you didn't check out ATIS (Antique Tractor Information Service) at
http://www.ytmag.com/
This is a great site; they have forums (organized by manufacturer) where you can post questions and actually get answers. They are USA-oriented but Massey (used to be Canadian Massey-Harris, but Ferguson bought into it) was sold in the US so they probably list it. You can get the shop manuals -- expensive but worth it when you have to do something big, like a valve job. I'd check but would have to navigate away from this page.
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