8 ms·

Up until a year ago I was regularly using a Massy Fergusson 135 [0] (Perkins Diesel version), made sometime in the 1970s. It was wonderful! So amazing to drive

Up until a year ago I was regularly using a Massy Fergusson 135 [0] (Perkins Diesel version), made sometime in the 1970s. It was wonderful! So amazing to drive and use. Clunky and heavy, but you really really felt like you were using a machine. In low gears, if you put you foot down on the accelerator the engine would roar, and your speed would barely change! And there was no fancy technology in it at all. If I was in the forest and had forgotten the key, I'd just reach behind the dashboard and hot-wire it. The air filter was basically a shisha-pipe that bubbled the incoming air through wire wool and engine oil. Its fuel gauge didn't work either. You just had to take a look in the tank, or quickly react as soon as the revs started dropping. I ran it dry a few times and had to sit there with a spanner in one hand and YouTube into the other, while trying to bleed all the fuel lines. But they were all on the outside of the vehicle, which made it comparatively easy I imagine. I've never actually driven a modern tractor, so don't know how it compares. I imagine the clutch is easier on the knees these days! Anyway, this just felt like the place to share this. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massey_Ferguson_135 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massey_Ferguson_135

mrexroad 5mo ago
While I love wrenching on cars, I imagine a tractor like this would scratch a different itch—something more latent, leftover from childhood. Do you still have the Massy?
- adamcharnock 5mo ago
  I do, but a friend is taking care of the farm now. I moved back to the big city lights (Munich, as fate would have it).
pavel_lishin 5mo ago
My dad had one of these, to support his farming hobby. (He used to joke that we ate fifty dollar cucumbers, and a hundred-dollar ear of corn.) It came in handy living in the country, when occasionally someone would get bogged down on a dirt road, and this thing would come to the rescue.
- andrew_lettuce 5mo ago
  My grandpa was a high school principal to support his love of farming, not because he wasn't dedicated, but because they wanted to survive
- modo_mario 5mo ago
  Did your dad grow up with subsistence farmers? I also encountered plenty of hobby farmers who joke about the cost of their hobby which used to get me confused a bit since it was very much a food on the table thing for my grandparents and at least a small financial bonus to me. Then again I don't buy much new other than seed. Everything feels like a ripoff nowadays.
malfist 5mo ago
> no fancy technology in it at all It's amazing we can use huge machinery with internal combustion engines and declare it "no fancy technology"
- efskap 5mo ago
  Any sufficiently mundane technology is indistinguishable from... furniture?
  - contingencies 5mo ago
    Nice one. Added to https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup
- MrMetric 5mo ago
  An internal combustion engine may be complex, but it's not fancy. I can see and touch and understand every part of it. I can maintain and modify and repair it. This is not true for fancy electronics and certainly not locked-down proprietary firmware.
  - WarmWash 5mo ago
    The magic of an engine is less in how it operates, and more in how it was built. At least around the time they started showing up, manufacturing lots of precision metal parts was not trivial. Although modern electronics take this further, with both operation and construction being utterly complex.
    - organsnyder 5mo ago
      One of my vehicles is a 2009 Civic. It continues to amaze me that with minimal maintenance, that 17-year-old vehicle will fire right up with the turn of a key, with hundreds (thousands?) of parts moving in a specific way, many of them with tolerances in tiny fractions of an inch.
      - 5mo ago
uticus 5mo ago
> The air filter was basically a shisha-pipe that bubbled the incoming air through wire wool and engine oil. What is a shisha-pipe?
- ozonhulliet 5mo ago
  Basically a fancy bong.
- Mraedis 5mo ago
  Also known as hookah or just waterpipe.
- numpad0 5mo ago
  Class of Middle Eastern tabletop usually-tobacco smoking devices with water based filtering 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hookah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hookah
- hypercube33 5mo ago
  The other name for these filters are "oil bath filters" basically it snorkles the intake air through oil and that sticks to any dust and dirt.
mothballed 5mo ago
The smaller tractors now mostly use a hydrostatic transmission instead of a clutch[]. You just move a plate that changes the mechanical advantage of the engine powered hydraulic drive. It's basically another set of hydraulics but for driving the tractor. [] https://youtu.be/TunlPGZ3UOg?t=69 https://youtu.be/TunlPGZ3UOg?t=69
Loughla 5mo ago
Did yours have a foot feed for the accelerator? I've never seen one without a hand feed for the rpm's on the steering column.
- beAbU 5mo ago
  The fancy ones had an accelerator pedal, but most just had the lever on the steering column.
  - Loughla 5mo ago
    Wild. We ran a 175 and 1100 for our daily tractors before Grandpa died and I quit farming (big ass John Deere machines for the real work at planting and harvest though). They're phenomenal little machines that can do 99% of what you need. It blows my mind that for years, Grandpa farmed with a little Ford smaller than the 175. I can't imagine planting with that thing. The ww2 generation really were tough as nails.
  - Tor3 5mo ago
    The one I drove (and a much older MF as well) had both. A lever on the steering column, as well as a foot pedal. I've never seen anyone without one elsewhere either, maybe they were only sold that way in my country.
- adamcharnock 5mo ago
  Mine and a pedal and steering column lever, so I guess I got one of the fancy ones!
  - Loughla 5mo ago
    So our main small tractors were a 175 and an 1100. The 1100 had a bucket but I would've killed for a bucket on that little 175. Man that thing was handy. You could drive it through the yard without leaving tire tracks.
- userbinator 5mo ago
  "Mash the foot feed" is a phrase you'll hear mostly in the southern US, and rarely elsewhere, including HN.
mitchell_h 5mo ago
> I imagine the clutch is easier on the knees these days! Modern tractors don't really have a clutch. I mean they sorta do, but it's electronic. Even on sizable consumer positioned tractors(I have a JD 5055, but it applies to almost all the JD models), there's just a lever for forward, N, and reverse. Gear shifters work MUCH MUCH better now.
- awesome_dude 5mo ago
  When I was younger I absolutely HATED changing gear on the tractor - it was a matter of dropping the revs which caused a dive, then a clunk finding the gear, then a jolt as the gear took hold and the revs came back up I never felt in control of that old beast
  - isolli 5mo ago
    Ha ha, that's such a wonderful description, that's exactly how it feels!
  - rypskar 5mo ago
    Changing gears while driving? Are you sure you where supposed to? Many old tractors are without synced drives, so you are supposed to select gear before you start driving. Of course you can change when driving, but then you have to match revs to not get the drop betwen
    - benj111 5mo ago
      You have to match revs anyway. Without Synchromesh the trick is to double declutch.
ThaDood 5mo ago
I shamefully have some Facebook Marketplace notifications for some Massy tractors. I'd love one. I don't even have land to use them, I just think they are neat.
- bartvk 5mo ago
  I wonder if it's legal to just park your tractor in a regular parking spot across your apartment. I'm European so we have small parking spots. But would a small tractor fit in the parking spot of the biggest Ford truck?
  - grosswait 5mo ago
    Definitely
  - stavros 5mo ago
    Tractors are tall but generally not that much wider or longer than a car. Small ones, especially, are pretty manageable.
beAbU 5mo ago
I learnt to drive on one of those. I'm a city kid but my grandfather was a wool farmer. Every school holiday we'd visit and I's spend my days literally puttering around the farm, which was pretty huge (~2000ha). When I started out, 13ish or so, I had to stand on the clutch to get it down. If you gave it enough beans and dropped the clutch it'll pop a wheelie! (Don't tell my grandpa)
- adamcharnock 5mo ago
  Honestly, I still had to practically stand on the clutch with mine! I'd teach someone to drive it and say, "now push down on the clutch". They they would heave and struggle, then eventually succeed and look victorious. I'd say, "well done, it is now half way down! But that's all you need for now!" EDIT: To fully explain: It has a two-stage clutch. You half-press it and it disconnects the wheels from the engine. If you fully depress it all the way to the floor, it additionally disconnects the power-take-off shaft (PTO) from the engine. The PTO shaft is a spindle on the back of the tractor which drives things like your flail mower, wood chipper, etc. EDIT 2: Edit 1 was for the general audience, not the parent commenter ;-)
  - npongratz 5mo ago
    > The PTO shaft is a spindle on the back of the tractor which drives things like your flail mower, wood chipper, etc. ... and kills/maims anyone with lose clothing trying to step over it!
    - EvanAnderson 5mo ago
      Oh, god yes. I mowed using a Farmall H on a family farm when I was about 12 y/o. I don't remember ever having deadly serious conversations with family members up to that point in my life. All four grandparents, aunts and uncles-- it seemed like everybody-- sat me down, looked me dead in the eye, and told me sternly and bluntly "you turn off the PTO and see the shaft isn't turning before you get off the tractor. Every. Time." All of them knew somebody who lost an arm or leg or got killed when they got pulled into a PTO. That was probably the first time I'd ever been given the opportunity to operate a machine that would fucking kill me if I shirked on respecting it. I will never forget the tone of that communication.
userbinator 5mo ago
with a spanner in one hand and YouTube into the other There are so many useful videos on this stuff, but unfortunately the majority of the population still seems reluctant to learn.
- m463 5mo ago
  I think this kind of thing is much more commonplace than you think. Never underestimate a young person and their phone. They not only use youtube or chatgpt to solve daily problems, but date, pay bills, and communicate with their friends using mostly videos/photos/emojis (and occasionally english).
- stronglikedan 5mo ago
  I'm not sure the majority of the population will ever need, or even want, to learn to bleed fuel lines, so I wouldn't consider it reluctance. And I would wager that the majority of the (internet) population does engage in learning activities on the regular.
- lachlan_gray 5mo ago
  Tangential, but made me think of this YouTube channel I like. I have no plans to own a tractor but for some reason many others and I enjoy videos like this one: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pQO-pVxvKvA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pQO-pVxvKvA
  - defrost 5mo ago
    New Zealand tree farmer Marty T has been posting detailed "back from the dead" tractor / bulldozer / grader / etc. restoration project videos for some time. * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVvO1tKKjRQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVvO1tKKjRQ * https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrCvcRxFfyzt3vJmctRaN58_-07eQMfGr https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrCvcRxFfyzt3vJmctRaN... etc. Also hydropower from old washing machine parts and other associated stuff you do on the land videos.
  - suttontom 5mo ago
    Possibly a result of a high Systemising Quotient (SQ)? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathising%E2%80%93systemising_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathising%E2%80%93systemisin...
bombcar 5mo ago
You'll likely appreciate this then: https://farmboymusic.bandcamp.com/track/we-couldnt-start-the-tractor https://farmboymusic.bandcamp.com/track/we-couldnt-start-the...
ErroneousBosh 5mo ago
I loved the MF 135 my neighbour had. It was great. The injector pump had failed and we'd swapped it with one off a marine version of the Perkins AD3, which had a reasonably "opened up" governor on it. Flat it out could do a whopping 20mph!
m463 5mo ago
I remember when I was young seeing a combine that had a radio and television in the cab. wow! Now things have wrapped back around, and nobody would want that, they want less tech and to use their phone, lol.
woods42 5mo ago
My grandfather had one of these, though gas powered. It may have been the Ford model, cannot remember, though his was built I believe in the late 40s / early 50s. One story that still makes me laugh, he couldn't start it one day, and asked my grandmother to give him a pulling start w/ their ford diesel pickup. One look and my about 12 year old self just knew she wanted to be anywhere else but there (some foreshadowing, she had a reputation for a lead foot). Grandpa had already tied a rope from the tractor to the truck, and I believe he was in maybe one of the lower gears ready to pop the clutch after he got up to speed. Grandma tore (yes, tore) out of the yard shifting gears, and she was accelerating down their long driveway headed for the main road as Grandpa started frantically waving his hat trying to get her to stop. I'm pretty sure he never asked her again to help start the tractor. And yeah, the tractor was started, probably in the first 50 feet of that episode.
- drfloyd51 5mo ago
  Never do a job well if you never want to do it again.
all2 5mo ago
My father still has one of these in orange and white. I remember when I was a little child and he would start it up, I could feel the concussion of the exhaust in my chest. An awesome memory. Lovely things, these.
temp03030 5mo ago
Those are so cool. First motorized thing I ever drove was some 1950s Ford tractor, as a little kid. My uncle showed me how to use it. I almost had to stand with both feet on the clutch and pull myself up to release it, while my brother manned the wheel and throttle separately.
yesbabyyes 5mo ago
We used to have a really old Massey Ferguson, I think TE-20, at the family (moonshine) farm. It was finally retired around 15 years ago and replaced with a MF 165. I hear you about the clutch--sometimes I feel I can't even push it down far enough. I also love driving it, apart from the fact the hydraulics are somewhat off, so the front/rear lift won't ever stay in position.
c0decracker 5mo ago
One of my early memories was driving a tractor like this hauling potato harvest with my late grandfather when his "big" tractor wouldn't start. Feels like a 1000 years ago...
aucisson_masque 5mo ago
Still rocking one over here. The thing had not been maintained for 20 years while still being used, ran several times with almost no oil in the engine, drank gasoil full of water. And it still works. Things were made different back then. I looked up the manual, you got everything you need to repair it. Maintenance is extremely easy. Even have electric schema. Now my BMW, I looked into the manual how to change a light. It said to go to the dealer lol. Fuck the modern car / tractor / tools. I blame the people for that, we went from customer that demanded to be able to repair their stuff to people who are now mechanically illiterate. I'm not sure they would even know how to replace a tire on their Tesla :) That's why manufacturer have all the latitude to do what they do. And that's why it didn't go very far with farmers.
- mikestorrent 5mo ago
  > It said to go to the dealer lol. It's amazing we let it slip this far. Even cars from a decade or so ago feel much more repairable. I bought an EV and I haven't even seen the motor yet, because I'm going to have to dismantle a bunch of plastic-clipped stuff to remove the frunk, and I've broken enough brittle tabs for one lifetime. God forbid they'd just use actual metal fasteners for this stuff.
  - aucisson_masque 5mo ago
    Yeah that also. It's even worst tho, one day I layed a little bit against the front of the car and it made a reverse bump in the bodywork right on my ass. Got a 2000 Suzuki that is full metal. I think the trend of plastic went around 2000 to 2010 because of regulation on crash, plastic absorbs better the kinetic energy so we don't get our head smashed. But yeah, no excuse to not make it easy to dismantle. It's the equivalent of Volkswagen using all kind of different screws to hold the plastic protection under the car, so that the average Joe who has standards screw drivers can't bleed his oil himself or change the gasoline filter. This is maddening but you don't know it when you buy the car. It's only later.
  - b112 5mo ago
    And example, in the US, is how much the population makeup has changed over time: https://dailyyonder.com/census-report-unusually-informative-about-rural/2016/12/08/ https://dailyyonder.com/census-report-unusually-informative-... Go back to 1910, and more than 50% of the population lived in rural areas. And rural doesn't mean "suburbs". As this trend continues further back in time, I'd expect that people in their 30s may be living in cities in 1910, but we often not born there. They migrated from rural areas to the city. Which means that city people even into the 50s had a very, very rural background. So people who grew up on farms miles from any town or neighbours or stores, who had to rely upon themselves entirely, were the ones buying machines. But if you look at today, many people are apartment dwellers, or live in townhomes. They don't even have a place to fix something, let alone the tools or background. I could fix any small engine before I was 10, work on cars before I could drive, and it's because you just picked up this stuff in a rural area. I guess my point is, if you don't know how to fix anything, and no one around you does except for specialists? Then you probably won't care about owner repairability as much. Sad, but probably a likely reason why we're where we are.
hypercube33 5mo ago
I have the original 1940's Minneapolis Moline R and my wife has the original Farmall H and we both currently live in the city (but grew up farming or close to it) so we're not city kids, but somewhere stuck in between. I deeply get the feeling of using a non-tech machine, and how simple it is but intuitive to use. We used a pain mixing stick to check the gas level in our tractors on the farm, I don't think the gas gauges ever worked. You'd have to whack the starter with a wrench since they didn't ever work half the time. They worked over 60 years before they got their first oil change (my grandpa didn't believe in changing them - but my dad and I think it's just because you'll never get the canister filter to seal ever again if you did change it) Great memories.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 5mo ago
  My Ford 2N has exactly two gauges: oil pressure, and ammeter. And the ammeter doesn't work. But the tractor does.
SanjayMehta 5mo ago
Basic models still sell like hot cakes in India. I see them all the time. https://masseyfergusonindia.com/massey-ferguson/ https://masseyfergusonindia.com/massey-ferguson/
isolli 5mo ago
My father drove one of those in his childhood. Now retired, he has bought a used one and uses it to maintain about an acre of land (and his grandkids love helping him). Once, it broke down, and I was astonished to see that there are forums dedicated to this tractor. If I remember correctly, it was a problem with the fuel line that is rather common, and we managed to fix it thanks to these communities. As I was researching it, I read stories of MF135s found abandoned in a ditch and starting immediately again. A robustness that makes this and other models popular in Africa...
Tor3 5mo ago
I went through my teenager years driving one of those MF 135 machines. A very versatile tractor. I enjoyed driving tractors (including a much older MF), when I eventually got my car's driver license some years later I found that driving cars weren't really that interesting. During certain kinds of driving gear shifts became.. tricky. That's when I learned how to double-clutch, something I kept doing on cars as well, for many years after (think going steep uphill on snow and then having to shift into first gear without stopping)
adev_ 5mo ago
> Up until a year ago I was regularly using a Massy Fergusson 135 There is a tradition in several European countries named Affouage: If you live in a rural area, you can get very cheap (or even free) wood at the condition that you go to cut it yourself in the close-by forest. Many many people who are doing this practice are still using today Massy Fergusson 135, Renault R98/461, Ford 3000-4000 series, SOMECA or similar low tech tractors. The reason are simple: They are cheap to operate, cheap to repair (damages happen easily forest environment) and their small size is perfect for the task. The demand for these things will never die. Rugged environment requires cheap and robust hardware. If this startup can capitalize on that, they do have a market.
- FpUser 5mo ago
  >"f this startup can capitalize on that, they do have a market." $100K-$200 is very expensive for many. better find used old one
  - adev_ 5mo ago
    > 100K-$200 is very expensive for many. better find used old one It is true. But the stock of old repairable tractor will soon or later run dry. The price of some of these are currently increasing on the secondary market. If you told me 20y ago, that the old rusty tractor in the neighbour Grand'Pa's storage would be an appreciating asset, I would have laugh.
    - FpUser 5mo ago
      >"But the stock of old repairable tractor will soon or later run dry." Then some other country will come up with the alternative. It is insane that piece of very old and simple tech has such a price tag. There are whole bunch of countries that have cheap enough metal to come up with the alternative
- abdjdoeke 5mo ago
  I would like this in a new car company. Low tech, simple to operate, repair, etc. the tech is what goes out of style and I don’t know how (or don’t care) to use half of tech cars have to offer aside from the automatic safety stuff.
bambax 5mo ago
The name of the brand is "Massey Ferguson" not "Massy Fergusson". The reason I know that is not that I'm a farmer. It's that 20 years ago a bunch of friends and I wrote and performed a parody song of Gainsbourg/Bardot song "Harley Davidson" where the motorbike brand was replaced with the tractor one. "Je n'ai besoin de personne en Harley Davidson" became "Je n'ai besoin de personne en Massey Ferguson".
- benj111 5mo ago
  I'm now imagining J'taime with tractors and Brigitte Bardot with an ear of corn in her mouth.
asdefghyk 5mo ago
Must be used all around the world. My parents had one on our farm in the 70s. Maybe it is still there- as a "back up" tractor. I remember it well.
- jamesinmn 5mo ago
  I spent the night on Flatéy, a 2km long Icelandic island, in 2024, and there were around a half dozen Massey Fergusons strewn about. The old church had a mural of Icelandic Jesus wearing a fisherman’s sweater.
gibspaulding 5mo ago
You say “up until a year ago”, what ended up replacing it? I’m in the market for a tractor in roughly that size, and am very tempted to just find an old machine in decent shape. I’d be very curious about the decision/experience if you did upgrade to something more modern?
- cogman10 5mo ago
  The old machines are rock solid. They really just keep going and going. Really the only reason we got a new tractor was for the cabin with AC. That does make it a lot easier to spend an entire day working field. Otherwise you have to deal with whatever weather it is outdoors which can be unpleasant if it's very cold or very hot. You also get a radio to listen to, which is nice.
cogman10 5mo ago
Hey, we have the exact same model and it's still in use. Those things were built like tanks. We have an even older one from the 1940s that also still fires up and works just fine. The main thing the modern tractor buys at this point is simply a cabin with AC (which, TBH, is a VERY nice feature). Otherwise there's not much reason not to use the older farm equipment even today. We'll still use the old massy for tilling and seeding.
- MarkusWandel 5mo ago
  I grew up on a farm in Germany. Our "little" tractor was the MF135 (3 cylinder engine!). I started driving it for real work at 12 for the simple reason that my grandpa, who was the third driver when the hay was being brought in, had passed away, and someone had to do it. My dad and a cousin drove the big tractors. Can't remember whether MF55 or MF65, possibly one of each. Thundering monsters being driven flat out, double-clutched gear changes and all. The reason for all the rush is that the weather isn't that reliable in south Germany, and when they hay is dry and ready, it's all hands on deck. Anyway... years later I visited the old homestead and there they still were, those big... umm. On Youtube you can probably still find a video of one being turned into a riding lawnmower, underslung mowing deck and all. Those tractors belong in the "Old MacDonald had a farm" era. The modern world is different with the base model of those tractors in the article having three times the power of those old ones, and it goes up from there.
- torginus 5mo ago
  Would fitting the old tractor with one of those external AC units that run off 12V work?
  - cogman10 5mo ago
    The old tractors are missing cabs, they are open to the air. Some of them have a removable roof but that's about it.
- Bayart 5mo ago
  > Those things were built like tanks In the late 40s, a lot of them were built from tanks !
_blk 5mo ago
Thanks for sharing all those experiences and tech explanations in how tractor clutches work everyone. Great thread to read. I'm kinda surprised the OP made the HN tops but DIY anything seems to be experiencing a Renaissance. (Not too big a surprise in HN I suppose)
elAhmo 5mo ago
I wasn't driving too much, but grew up with my uncle and grandfather using Ursus C-335, which is probably from the 70s. They said they traded an ox for it 40-50 years ago, still in use almost daily. Effectively zero electronics.

mrexroad 5mo ago

While I love wrenching on cars, I imagine a tractor like this would scratch a different itch—something more latent, leftover from childhood. Do you still have the Massy?

adamcharnock 5mo ago
I do, but a friend is taking care of the farm now. I moved back to the big city lights (Munich, as fate would have it).

pavel_lishin 5mo ago

My dad had one of these, to support his farming hobby. (He used to joke that we ate fifty dollar cucumbers, and a hundred-dollar ear of corn.) It came in handy living in the country, when occasionally someone would get bogged down on a dirt road, and this thing would come to the rescue.

andrew_lettuce 5mo ago
My grandpa was a high school principal to support his love of farming, not because he wasn't dedicated, but because they wanted to survive
modo_mario 5mo ago
Did your dad grow up with subsistence farmers? I also encountered plenty of hobby farmers who joke about the cost of their hobby which used to get me confused a bit since it was very much a food on the table thing for my grandparents and at least a small financial bonus to me. Then again I don't buy much new other than seed. Everything feels like a ripoff nowadays.

malfist 5mo ago

> no fancy technology in it at all It's amazing we can use huge machinery with internal combustion engines and declare it "no fancy technology"

efskap 5mo ago
Any sufficiently mundane technology is indistinguishable from... furniture?
- contingencies 5mo ago
  Nice one. Added to https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup
MrMetric 5mo ago
An internal combustion engine may be complex, but it's not fancy. I can see and touch and understand every part of it. I can maintain and modify and repair it. This is not true for fancy electronics and certainly not locked-down proprietary firmware.
- WarmWash 5mo ago
  The magic of an engine is less in how it operates, and more in how it was built. At least around the time they started showing up, manufacturing lots of precision metal parts was not trivial. Although modern electronics take this further, with both operation and construction being utterly complex.
  - organsnyder 5mo ago
    One of my vehicles is a 2009 Civic. It continues to amaze me that with minimal maintenance, that 17-year-old vehicle will fire right up with the turn of a key, with hundreds (thousands?) of parts moving in a specific way, many of them with tolerances in tiny fractions of an inch.
    - 5mo ago

uticus 5mo ago

> The air filter was basically a shisha-pipe that bubbled the incoming air through wire wool and engine oil. What is a shisha-pipe?

ozonhulliet 5mo ago
Basically a fancy bong.
Mraedis 5mo ago
Also known as hookah or just waterpipe.
numpad0 5mo ago
Class of Middle Eastern tabletop usually-tobacco smoking devices with water based filtering 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hookah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hookah
hypercube33 5mo ago
The other name for these filters are "oil bath filters" basically it snorkles the intake air through oil and that sticks to any dust and dirt.

mothballed 5mo ago

The smaller tractors now mostly use a hydrostatic transmission instead of a clutch[]. You just move a plate that changes the mechanical advantage of the engine powered hydraulic drive. It's basically another set of hydraulics but for driving the tractor. [] https://youtu.be/TunlPGZ3UOg?t=69 https://youtu.be/TunlPGZ3UOg?t=69

Loughla 5mo ago

Did yours have a foot feed for the accelerator? I've never seen one without a hand feed for the rpm's on the steering column.

beAbU 5mo ago
The fancy ones had an accelerator pedal, but most just had the lever on the steering column.
- Loughla 5mo ago
  Wild. We ran a 175 and 1100 for our daily tractors before Grandpa died and I quit farming (big ass John Deere machines for the real work at planting and harvest though). They're phenomenal little machines that can do 99% of what you need. It blows my mind that for years, Grandpa farmed with a little Ford smaller than the 175. I can't imagine planting with that thing. The ww2 generation really were tough as nails.
- Tor3 5mo ago
  The one I drove (and a much older MF as well) had both. A lever on the steering column, as well as a foot pedal. I've never seen anyone without one elsewhere either, maybe they were only sold that way in my country.
adamcharnock 5mo ago
Mine and a pedal and steering column lever, so I guess I got one of the fancy ones!
- Loughla 5mo ago
  So our main small tractors were a 175 and an 1100. The 1100 had a bucket but I would've killed for a bucket on that little 175. Man that thing was handy. You could drive it through the yard without leaving tire tracks.
userbinator 5mo ago
"Mash the foot feed" is a phrase you'll hear mostly in the southern US, and rarely elsewhere, including HN.

mitchell_h 5mo ago

> I imagine the clutch is easier on the knees these days! Modern tractors don't really have a clutch. I mean they sorta do, but it's electronic. Even on sizable consumer positioned tractors(I have a JD 5055, but it applies to almost all the JD models), there's just a lever for forward, N, and reverse. Gear shifters work MUCH MUCH better now.

awesome_dude 5mo ago
When I was younger I absolutely HATED changing gear on the tractor - it was a matter of dropping the revs which caused a dive, then a clunk finding the gear, then a jolt as the gear took hold and the revs came back up I never felt in control of that old beast
- isolli 5mo ago
  Ha ha, that's such a wonderful description, that's exactly how it feels!
- rypskar 5mo ago
  Changing gears while driving? Are you sure you where supposed to? Many old tractors are without synced drives, so you are supposed to select gear before you start driving. Of course you can change when driving, but then you have to match revs to not get the drop betwen
  - benj111 5mo ago
    You have to match revs anyway. Without Synchromesh the trick is to double declutch.

ThaDood 5mo ago

I shamefully have some Facebook Marketplace notifications for some Massy tractors. I'd love one. I don't even have land to use them, I just think they are neat.

bartvk 5mo ago
I wonder if it's legal to just park your tractor in a regular parking spot across your apartment. I'm European so we have small parking spots. But would a small tractor fit in the parking spot of the biggest Ford truck?
- grosswait 5mo ago
  Definitely
- stavros 5mo ago
  Tractors are tall but generally not that much wider or longer than a car. Small ones, especially, are pretty manageable.

beAbU 5mo ago

I learnt to drive on one of those. I'm a city kid but my grandfather was a wool farmer. Every school holiday we'd visit and I's spend my days literally puttering around the farm, which was pretty huge (~2000ha). When I started out, 13ish or so, I had to stand on the clutch to get it down. If you gave it enough beans and dropped the clutch it'll pop a wheelie! (Don't tell my grandpa)

adamcharnock 5mo ago
Honestly, I still had to practically stand on the clutch with mine! I'd teach someone to drive it and say, "now push down on the clutch". They they would heave and struggle, then eventually succeed and look victorious. I'd say, "well done, it is now half way down! But that's all you need for now!" EDIT: To fully explain: It has a two-stage clutch. You half-press it and it disconnects the wheels from the engine. If you fully depress it all the way to the floor, it additionally disconnects the power-take-off shaft (PTO) from the engine. The PTO shaft is a spindle on the back of the tractor which drives things like your flail mower, wood chipper, etc. EDIT 2: Edit 1 was for the general audience, not the parent commenter ;-)
- npongratz 5mo ago
  > The PTO shaft is a spindle on the back of the tractor which drives things like your flail mower, wood chipper, etc. ... and kills/maims anyone with lose clothing trying to step over it!
  - EvanAnderson 5mo ago
    Oh, god yes. I mowed using a Farmall H on a family farm when I was about 12 y/o. I don't remember ever having deadly serious conversations with family members up to that point in my life. All four grandparents, aunts and uncles-- it seemed like everybody-- sat me down, looked me dead in the eye, and told me sternly and bluntly "you turn off the PTO and see the shaft isn't turning before you get off the tractor. Every. Time." All of them knew somebody who lost an arm or leg or got killed when they got pulled into a PTO. That was probably the first time I'd ever been given the opportunity to operate a machine that would fucking kill me if I shirked on respecting it. I will never forget the tone of that communication.

userbinator 5mo ago

with a spanner in one hand and YouTube into the other There are so many useful videos on this stuff, but unfortunately the majority of the population still seems reluctant to learn.

m463 5mo ago
I think this kind of thing is much more commonplace than you think. Never underestimate a young person and their phone. They not only use youtube or chatgpt to solve daily problems, but date, pay bills, and communicate with their friends using mostly videos/photos/emojis (and occasionally english).
stronglikedan 5mo ago
I'm not sure the majority of the population will ever need, or even want, to learn to bleed fuel lines, so I wouldn't consider it reluctance. And I would wager that the majority of the (internet) population does engage in learning activities on the regular.
lachlan_gray 5mo ago
Tangential, but made me think of this YouTube channel I like. I have no plans to own a tractor but for some reason many others and I enjoy videos like this one: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pQO-pVxvKvA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pQO-pVxvKvA
- defrost 5mo ago
  New Zealand tree farmer Marty T has been posting detailed "back from the dead" tractor / bulldozer / grader / etc. restoration project videos for some time. * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVvO1tKKjRQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVvO1tKKjRQ * https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrCvcRxFfyzt3vJmctRaN58_-07eQMfGr https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrCvcRxFfyzt3vJmctRaN... etc. Also hydropower from old washing machine parts and other associated stuff you do on the land videos.
- suttontom 5mo ago
  Possibly a result of a high Systemising Quotient (SQ)? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathising%E2%80%93systemising_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathising%E2%80%93systemisin...

bombcar 5mo ago

You'll likely appreciate this then: https://farmboymusic.bandcamp.com/track/we-couldnt-start-the-tractor https://farmboymusic.bandcamp.com/track/we-couldnt-start-the...

ErroneousBosh 5mo ago

I loved the MF 135 my neighbour had. It was great. The injector pump had failed and we'd swapped it with one off a marine version of the Perkins AD3, which had a reasonably "opened up" governor on it. Flat it out could do a whopping 20mph!

m463 5mo ago

I remember when I was young seeing a combine that had a radio and television in the cab. wow! Now things have wrapped back around, and nobody would want that, they want less tech and to use their phone, lol.

woods42 5mo ago

My grandfather had one of these, though gas powered. It may have been the Ford model, cannot remember, though his was built I believe in the late 40s / early 50s. One story that still makes me laugh, he couldn't start it one day, and asked my grandmother to give him a pulling start w/ their ford diesel pickup. One look and my about 12 year old self just knew she wanted to be anywhere else but there (some foreshadowing, she had a reputation for a lead foot). Grandpa had already tied a rope from the tractor to the truck, and I believe he was in maybe one of the lower gears ready to pop the clutch after he got up to speed. Grandma tore (yes, tore) out of the yard shifting gears, and she was accelerating down their long driveway headed for the main road as Grandpa started frantically waving his hat trying to get her to stop. I'm pretty sure he never asked her again to help start the tractor. And yeah, the tractor was started, probably in the first 50 feet of that episode.

drfloyd51 5mo ago
Never do a job well if you never want to do it again.

all2 5mo ago

My father still has one of these in orange and white. I remember when I was a little child and he would start it up, I could feel the concussion of the exhaust in my chest. An awesome memory. Lovely things, these.

temp03030 5mo ago

Those are so cool. First motorized thing I ever drove was some 1950s Ford tractor, as a little kid. My uncle showed me how to use it. I almost had to stand with both feet on the clutch and pull myself up to release it, while my brother manned the wheel and throttle separately.

yesbabyyes 5mo ago

We used to have a really old Massey Ferguson, I think TE-20, at the family (moonshine) farm. It was finally retired around 15 years ago and replaced with a MF 165. I hear you about the clutch--sometimes I feel I can't even push it down far enough. I also love driving it, apart from the fact the hydraulics are somewhat off, so the front/rear lift won't ever stay in position.

c0decracker 5mo ago

One of my early memories was driving a tractor like this hauling potato harvest with my late grandfather when his "big" tractor wouldn't start. Feels like a 1000 years ago...

aucisson_masque 5mo ago

Still rocking one over here. The thing had not been maintained for 20 years while still being used, ran several times with almost no oil in the engine, drank gasoil full of water. And it still works. Things were made different back then. I looked up the manual, you got everything you need to repair it. Maintenance is extremely easy. Even have electric schema. Now my BMW, I looked into the manual how to change a light. It said to go to the dealer lol. Fuck the modern car / tractor / tools. I blame the people for that, we went from customer that demanded to be able to repair their stuff to people who are now mechanically illiterate. I'm not sure they would even know how to replace a tire on their Tesla :) That's why manufacturer have all the latitude to do what they do. And that's why it didn't go very far with farmers.

mikestorrent 5mo ago
> It said to go to the dealer lol. It's amazing we let it slip this far. Even cars from a decade or so ago feel much more repairable. I bought an EV and I haven't even seen the motor yet, because I'm going to have to dismantle a bunch of plastic-clipped stuff to remove the frunk, and I've broken enough brittle tabs for one lifetime. God forbid they'd just use actual metal fasteners for this stuff.
- aucisson_masque 5mo ago
  Yeah that also. It's even worst tho, one day I layed a little bit against the front of the car and it made a reverse bump in the bodywork right on my ass. Got a 2000 Suzuki that is full metal. I think the trend of plastic went around 2000 to 2010 because of regulation on crash, plastic absorbs better the kinetic energy so we don't get our head smashed. But yeah, no excuse to not make it easy to dismantle. It's the equivalent of Volkswagen using all kind of different screws to hold the plastic protection under the car, so that the average Joe who has standards screw drivers can't bleed his oil himself or change the gasoline filter. This is maddening but you don't know it when you buy the car. It's only later.
- b112 5mo ago
  And example, in the US, is how much the population makeup has changed over time: https://dailyyonder.com/census-report-unusually-informative-about-rural/2016/12/08/ https://dailyyonder.com/census-report-unusually-informative-... Go back to 1910, and more than 50% of the population lived in rural areas. And rural doesn't mean "suburbs". As this trend continues further back in time, I'd expect that people in their 30s may be living in cities in 1910, but we often not born there. They migrated from rural areas to the city. Which means that city people even into the 50s had a very, very rural background. So people who grew up on farms miles from any town or neighbours or stores, who had to rely upon themselves entirely, were the ones buying machines. But if you look at today, many people are apartment dwellers, or live in townhomes. They don't even have a place to fix something, let alone the tools or background. I could fix any small engine before I was 10, work on cars before I could drive, and it's because you just picked up this stuff in a rural area. I guess my point is, if you don't know how to fix anything, and no one around you does except for specialists? Then you probably won't care about owner repairability as much. Sad, but probably a likely reason why we're where we are.

hypercube33 5mo ago

I have the original 1940's Minneapolis Moline R and my wife has the original Farmall H and we both currently live in the city (but grew up farming or close to it) so we're not city kids, but somewhere stuck in between. I deeply get the feeling of using a non-tech machine, and how simple it is but intuitive to use. We used a pain mixing stick to check the gas level in our tractors on the farm, I don't think the gas gauges ever worked. You'd have to whack the starter with a wrench since they didn't ever work half the time. They worked over 60 years before they got their first oil change (my grandpa didn't believe in changing them - but my dad and I think it's just because you'll never get the canister filter to seal ever again if you did change it) Great memories.

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 5mo ago
My Ford 2N has exactly two gauges: oil pressure, and ammeter. And the ammeter doesn't work. But the tractor does.

SanjayMehta 5mo ago

Basic models still sell like hot cakes in India. I see them all the time. https://masseyfergusonindia.com/massey-ferguson/ https://masseyfergusonindia.com/massey-ferguson/

isolli 5mo ago

My father drove one of those in his childhood. Now retired, he has bought a used one and uses it to maintain about an acre of land (and his grandkids love helping him). Once, it broke down, and I was astonished to see that there are forums dedicated to this tractor. If I remember correctly, it was a problem with the fuel line that is rather common, and we managed to fix it thanks to these communities. As I was researching it, I read stories of MF135s found abandoned in a ditch and starting immediately again. A robustness that makes this and other models popular in Africa...

Tor3 5mo ago

I went through my teenager years driving one of those MF 135 machines. A very versatile tractor. I enjoyed driving tractors (including a much older MF), when I eventually got my car's driver license some years later I found that driving cars weren't really that interesting. During certain kinds of driving gear shifts became.. tricky. That's when I learned how to double-clutch, something I kept doing on cars as well, for many years after (think going steep uphill on snow and then having to shift into first gear without stopping)

adev_ 5mo ago

> Up until a year ago I was regularly using a Massy Fergusson 135 There is a tradition in several European countries named Affouage: If you live in a rural area, you can get very cheap (or even free) wood at the condition that you go to cut it yourself in the close-by forest. Many many people who are doing this practice are still using today Massy Fergusson 135, Renault R98/461, Ford 3000-4000 series, SOMECA or similar low tech tractors. The reason are simple: They are cheap to operate, cheap to repair (damages happen easily forest environment) and their small size is perfect for the task. The demand for these things will never die. Rugged environment requires cheap and robust hardware. If this startup can capitalize on that, they do have a market.

FpUser 5mo ago
>"f this startup can capitalize on that, they do have a market." $100K-$200 is very expensive for many. better find used old one
- adev_ 5mo ago
  > 100K-$200 is very expensive for many. better find used old one It is true. But the stock of old repairable tractor will soon or later run dry. The price of some of these are currently increasing on the secondary market. If you told me 20y ago, that the old rusty tractor in the neighbour Grand'Pa's storage would be an appreciating asset, I would have laugh.
  - FpUser 5mo ago
    >"But the stock of old repairable tractor will soon or later run dry." Then some other country will come up with the alternative. It is insane that piece of very old and simple tech has such a price tag. There are whole bunch of countries that have cheap enough metal to come up with the alternative
abdjdoeke 5mo ago
I would like this in a new car company. Low tech, simple to operate, repair, etc. the tech is what goes out of style and I don’t know how (or don’t care) to use half of tech cars have to offer aside from the automatic safety stuff.

bambax 5mo ago

The name of the brand is "Massey Ferguson" not "Massy Fergusson". The reason I know that is not that I'm a farmer. It's that 20 years ago a bunch of friends and I wrote and performed a parody song of Gainsbourg/Bardot song "Harley Davidson" where the motorbike brand was replaced with the tractor one. "Je n'ai besoin de personne en Harley Davidson" became "Je n'ai besoin de personne en Massey Ferguson".

benj111 5mo ago
I'm now imagining J'taime with tractors and Brigitte Bardot with an ear of corn in her mouth.

asdefghyk 5mo ago

Must be used all around the world. My parents had one on our farm in the 70s. Maybe it is still there- as a "back up" tractor. I remember it well.

jamesinmn 5mo ago
I spent the night on Flatéy, a 2km long Icelandic island, in 2024, and there were around a half dozen Massey Fergusons strewn about. The old church had a mural of Icelandic Jesus wearing a fisherman’s sweater.

gibspaulding 5mo ago

You say “up until a year ago”, what ended up replacing it? I’m in the market for a tractor in roughly that size, and am very tempted to just find an old machine in decent shape. I’d be very curious about the decision/experience if you did upgrade to something more modern?

cogman10 5mo ago
The old machines are rock solid. They really just keep going and going. Really the only reason we got a new tractor was for the cabin with AC. That does make it a lot easier to spend an entire day working field. Otherwise you have to deal with whatever weather it is outdoors which can be unpleasant if it's very cold or very hot. You also get a radio to listen to, which is nice.

cogman10 5mo ago

Hey, we have the exact same model and it's still in use. Those things were built like tanks. We have an even older one from the 1940s that also still fires up and works just fine. The main thing the modern tractor buys at this point is simply a cabin with AC (which, TBH, is a VERY nice feature). Otherwise there's not much reason not to use the older farm equipment even today. We'll still use the old massy for tilling and seeding.

MarkusWandel 5mo ago
I grew up on a farm in Germany. Our "little" tractor was the MF135 (3 cylinder engine!). I started driving it for real work at 12 for the simple reason that my grandpa, who was the third driver when the hay was being brought in, had passed away, and someone had to do it. My dad and a cousin drove the big tractors. Can't remember whether MF55 or MF65, possibly one of each. Thundering monsters being driven flat out, double-clutched gear changes and all. The reason for all the rush is that the weather isn't that reliable in south Germany, and when they hay is dry and ready, it's all hands on deck. Anyway... years later I visited the old homestead and there they still were, those big... umm. On Youtube you can probably still find a video of one being turned into a riding lawnmower, underslung mowing deck and all. Those tractors belong in the "Old MacDonald had a farm" era. The modern world is different with the base model of those tractors in the article having three times the power of those old ones, and it goes up from there.
torginus 5mo ago
Would fitting the old tractor with one of those external AC units that run off 12V work?
- cogman10 5mo ago
  The old tractors are missing cabs, they are open to the air. Some of them have a removable roof but that's about it.
Bayart 5mo ago
> Those things were built like tanks In the late 40s, a lot of them were built from tanks !

_blk 5mo ago

Thanks for sharing all those experiences and tech explanations in how tractor clutches work everyone. Great thread to read. I'm kinda surprised the OP made the HN tops but DIY anything seems to be experiencing a Renaissance. (Not too big a surprise in HN I suppose)

elAhmo 5mo ago

I wasn't driving too much, but grew up with my uncle and grandfather using Ursus C-335, which is probably from the 70s. They said they traded an ox for it 40-50 years ago, still in use almost daily. Effectively zero electronics.