Dad and I both had an itch to rebuild an old tractor. We’d both liked the little grey Fergie, and when an 8N came up, we bought it. It was a basket case.
The poor old tractor had lived a hard life. It had a bad brush paint job, and at best ran on three cylinders. We were lucky enough to get it for a song, though, and started picking away at it.
It was all there, but had been “modified” at some point. You can see the truck rims and drums on the front there, but the worst to come was the engine. It did not run well at all. It didn’t have the power to move in fourth gear at all, and the amount of blowby gave a good indication of the engine’s lack of health. Our intention was to replace the sleeves in the engine, but after sending the engine to a machine shop, they’d said the sleeves had been removed, and a set of V8 pistons installed instead. They were very loose in the bore and explained the poor running.
You can see the sleeves in this picture of the replacement engine.
A replacement engine was obtained from Fawcett Tractor, and the tractor was reassembled. The new engine ran very nicely – smooth and quiet. We did have to weld up and fill the hood and fenders, but once assembled the tractor worked out well.
We had some fun with the tractor, leveling off a piece of property that Dad had gotten for a summer cottage, and some occasional plowing when the plow truck wouldn’t go. We intended to keep the 8N for a while, but upon getting the new-to-us Kioti tractor, we had nowhere to store this one and decided to sell it. It went to a nice home where the owner was looking for a simple tractor to play with. I hope it served him well.
The tractor which replaced it and the Massey 135 has been excellent. A 2008 Kioti DK40SE, it has proven to be trouble-free in the 7 years that we’ve had it. I’d thought of it as a knock-off Kubota, but it really is a well-made machine. The hydrostatic controls are intuitive, and the layout of all of the controls all fall readily to hand. It does have an indirect-injected diesel 4-cylinder engine, but the glow plugs must be good. It always starts and runs nicely. Other features, like electric over hydraulic 4 wheel drive and PTO clutch and a strong set of hydraulics for the loader make it a treat to run. Even the rear lift arms have adjustable locks to keep them in place, and a release to allow you to move them into position to hook up attachments easily. I’d recommend one of these tractors to anyone.
Anyhow, thanks for reading. I hope you have enjoyed my stories. I am glad to have done it.
Nice little N! Models prior to mid-1950 had the distributor mounted on the front of the engine – you removed two bolts and pulled the whole thing to do a bench tune-up. It had a offset tang on the shaft so there was no way to install it out of time (without breaking something). The later engine has a more traditional-looking side-mount distributor.
The N Series engine was loosely based off the Mercury V8, and it was a not-uncommon mod to pull the sleeves and run Merc pistons for a couple extra HP. Of course, as you found, the wear surface is no longer replaceable. I had my engine resleeved when it was rebuilt and it’s still running smooth and strong over ten years later.
These tractors were somewhat collectible 10-15 years ago (going by selling prices), but the market’s pretty much dried up. Not too many young kids interested in them, and all us old farts that grew up with them are getting old!
I still have many use cases for my 1950, but the 2010 NH Boomer 8N (50 HP) is sure nice for a lot of jobs, too.
You raise a good point about generational interest. Only here, instead of younger folks moving to different kinds of cars, they are showing no interest in tractors at all.
I suspect part of it is how so few young people are staying in rural areas. I love old tractors like this, but there is no way I could own one. My 1/3 acre lot is huge by modern standards but it is still an inner suburb of a large city and gives me no place to drive a tractor. Now think about a 30 year old in a tract house on a teeny yard or the milennial in a city apartment – they have even less use for one even if tractors interest them.
My and my wife’s longer term goal is to buy a piece of rural property to have somewhere to get away to on the weekends, and build it up over time, possibly turn it into a hobby farm like what my folks have. A key part of the dream for me is a tractor, I always thought I’d want an old one, but after driving my dad’s newer New Holland Boomer 24 (Mitsu 3cyl diesel, 4wd, etc), I can appreciate the utility of the newer hardware.
Thank you Marc for your excellent COAL series.
I spent quite a bit of time on an 8N when I was between 9 and 12, as the Mennonite family I sent a few weeks with each summer had one. Compared to their tall and gangly row crop Farmalls, the little Ford was a veritable sports tractor. It handled so much better (I now that sounds a bit silly for a tractor) but I did use to sometimes just take it out and try to drive it like an ATV, bouncing in 4th gear over the ruts and holes, and making tight turns. It was my first experience with joy riding.
I remember trying to rake hay in too high a gear once, crashing and bobbing around on the rough field. Mr Yoder soon put a stop to that. He showed me where I was leaving hay behind from the bouncing of the rake, never mind the possible damage to the rake tines.
The Ford was used as the pull tractor to raise the big hay tongs when we loaded bales up into the hay loft of the main barn. He didn’t let me do that the first year or two, as that required a degree of finesse that I apparently hadn’t yet achieved.
Happy memories sitting in that odd position (compared to row crop tractors) on that little Ford.
Love those old Ford tractors! We hope that you’ll write up your old Chevy truck project soon. Some of us love old car/truck restoration articles!
My uncle maintained the grounds of a large private school and I learned to drive on an old Ford tractor like that one when I was young enough I had to stand up to push the clutch down. Having learned, my cousin and I mowed the lawns and thought it was great fun.
Marc I thoroughly enjoyed your COAL series, thank you for sharing. These 8N tractors are one of the few I have any interest in. My great aunt in Nova Scotia had a farm with an old Ford 8N (aren’t you a Nova Scotian too?) My first driving experience was piloting that tractor around her farm field. Dad hooked up a big trailer to it and we all road down to the ocean to go swimming. If I ever got an old tractor, a Ford 8N would be the only choice for me.
Beware that for trailer-pulling (and some other specific tasks) 8N’s had what one old timer called alliteratively “Ford’s Famous Fast Reverse” which was about equal in speed to 3rd gear forward — much too fast to back a trailer up without excessive clutch slip. The 2N and 9N preecessors may have had only 3 forward speeds, which tended to all be rather slow, but reverse was much slower and thus more useful. I believe Fergusons, on the other hand, always had 4 forward gears back then, and some what later 3 or 4 forward and 1 reverse gear in each of two ranges yielding 6 or 8 speeds. Ferguson rear axle seals didn’t usually leak either, a famous weakness of 8N’s.