# 1957 Ferguson FE 35 Semi Industrial Tractor



## R S Atter (Nov 10, 2018)

1957 Ferguson FE 35
This tractor I bought at an auction in 1988 from a local nursery sale, for £120 or 162 usd, not sure what I bought as this was the first tractor I bought although I have been driving tractors before I left school
I drove it home but leaving a line of oil on the road all the way home! This turned out to be coming from the loaders hydraulic rams, but a quick phone call found a firm that would replace the seals
After getting it home and giving it a good power wash I started to investigate what I had bought
All the farms I worked on as a teenager were Ferguson or Massey Ferguson farms so I knew I had a 35 but what model?
Looking up the serial number which was JDM39455 it turned out to be an industrial version of the FE35 built in 1957, delving into the serial number I found they only made 500 of these tractors, and being known as a bad starter not many are left
On restoring it for the first time (yes I have done it twice) I found out the main differences of the Agricultural version, firstly the brakes, it has twin brakes which was a requirement for use on the road, inside the rear brake drums are two sets of brake shoes, one set connected to the hand brake and the independent brakes by linkage and the second set controlled by the foot brake which was oil
The brakes were the first thing I had to tackle as neither worked so jacking the tractor up I found that the rear wheels had internal cast iron weights bolted inside them also the tyres were filled with water, this I found out when I took the first one off and it pined me up against the workshop wall!
It turned out both the master oil cylinder and the two slave cylinders needed replacing also both sets of brake shoes needed relining. After a lot of searching I finally managed to get them replace but at a cost of £500-00 or 675 usd so this tractor was now getting expensive.
Now with the brakes and the loader working all I had to do was give it a respray, the FE 35 had its own Ferguson grey and copper bronze paint which once completed really looked good
One other thing it needed was to replace the batteries, now on the earlier FE 35 they had two 6 volt batteries one on the rear axle and the other under the bonnet, to keep it original I replaced these like for like, but later changed to one 12v battery
This tractor had a under slung exhaust which I changed later to a vertical exhaust as anyone riding on a trailer or link box behind couldn’t breath
At the time I was renovating an old farm house and when I say old it was built in 1480 to 1520 in the reign of King Henry V111
When I had to rebuild the end gable I took down the wall, and all the stone went in the loader bucket and when I rebuilt it I could put 28 concrete blocks (3/4 ton) and lift them up to scaffold height then lay them directly out of the bucket, this made all the work and costs worth it as I didn’t need a labourer. I have since converted an old barn and this tractor lifted all the oak beams and RSJs in place
I do have the history of the 23C engine that was fitted, in another post so if you search my post you should find it
Regards
BOBUK
A lot of useful knowledge can be found here; heritagemachines.com/guides/ferguson-35-buyers-guide/

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## pogobill (Jan 31, 2012)

Thanks for sharing your story Bob.


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