I picked up a massey 35 deluxe gas not long ago. The idea is to fix it up and sell it to buy my wife a portable school building to put her wool machinery in. It needs a few things to make it right and I'd like to know a little more about it besides. It is a Ferguson TO 35 and while it has MF on the tag it is a Ferguson only badge, made in the USA. I'll get the serial number but i can't work out the age. it needs a gear selection stick replaced. I have a good one but are there any shortcuts top tearing apart the whole steering system/dash? The govenor seems to be the hang up actually. There is water in the tranny oil to, (from the missing boot on the broken shifter?) can it be cleaned up enough to use or should I cut my losses now and sel the thing for scrap?
Unless your scrap prices are still high, i myself would keep it and put the 400-800 hours into a classic tractor restore...... the water in the tranny should not be a problem as long as all the fears are still free.... using a rust remover on any gears may help you look things over to see which might need replaced..... ive been harboring ideas of picking up[ a few old machines sitting in the bushes for playing with ...... William
Water in the transmission seems to be a common problem on these old tractors - and you're quite correct about the missing rubber boot being the cause. You'll definitely want to replace the boot - unless you're doing a restoration, an inexpensive aftermarket shifter boot can be found at any auto parts store. As Blu3duk pointed out, the water in the transmission shouldn't be a problem if the gears are free - just change the oil. (That's all I did.) These old tractors are amazingly rugged; they'll take a lot of abuse and just keep running. A lot of the problems they have are simply due to dirt and rust build-up ... and a good cleaning usually cures that. I've got an old reliable workhorse: a 1948 Ferguson TO20 ... and I won't sell or trade it. The only really nagging problem I had with it was the old points ignition system ... and I cured that with a simple 2-wire $100 electronic ignition conversion.
