1952 Ferguson

For the experts.

The casting on the transmission housing says 4-11-2 (4 November 1952)

The plate in front of the steering wheel says TEA 299250 which from the Ferguson site also confirms 1952

My mystery is the Ferguson site says the Kero tractors had prefix TED (I always thought this was for diesel). I believe this tractor was kero from new with dual tank, two way fuel tap/filter, carby quick drain etc. There is no sign of replacement, after market piping or any modification - all looks completely factory with jig bent lines etc.

There is quite a bit of discussion on the site of the Australian production doing their own thing and everything was just branded TEA for about 10 years in the early days

Lang wrote:

This is what it looked like last week with 14 year old grandson earning his $10 an hour cutting the back 10 acres.

If junior is getting paid by the hour he would be happy to be on the Fergy rather than the Fiat, I know I would be in low first for as long as it takes.

Terry

Lang, most of the early ones had the engine casting date cast into the block behind the generator. It reads the same as the transmission dating system. It can be seen easily enough, particularly now you have done such a great job of cleaning and painting the old dear. Good for another 70 years.

TED = TVO not diesel, makes sense.

Wee-Allis

I will go and see what is on the engine.

lang

Well I looked at the engine as suggested and the casting date is 21-9-2 only a few weeks before the transmission casting date so I would put money on it being a complete original tractor.

Found out that in the early 50's Reekie in Scotland were the main Ferguson dealer. They converted some te20's to narrow track and sold quite a few. Ferguson found out about it and would not approve the design so rather than lose their distributorship Reekie stopped making them.

Surprise, surprise, very shortly after this Ferguson came out with their narrow "vineyard" model almost identical to the Reekie model.

Point is all the Reekie tractors had the blue stripe. You can see how they shortened the axle and turned the mudguards to fit.



Also according to the British Farm site a number of tractors were exported to New Zealand and the Ferguson factory produced them with the blue stripe

Many of the narrow models were used in hop farming, orchids and vineyards of course. They built many in France for the vineyards too.