Ferguson Plow... Opinions

[Farmwithjunk]

Mornin Bill,
I knew if I made a statement like that I could get you to post on my thread again !!!

As you can see, Bob was nice enough to find me a place to buy some replacement parts ! I started taking this thing apart the other day, I took the bar that the lower arms hookup to. On the left side looking from the 3 pt hitch, the 1 5/8" bar goes through a round plate ,3 3/4" OD .312 thk, that has graduation marks on one section. Im assuming that this thing adjusts the camber of the plow, by moving the pull bar fore or aft ? I can post a closeup of what Im talking about. But if you go back to my pic 0160 you can see kind of what Im talkin about! Last night I took off the front coulter arm and cutter. The thing will need to be rebushed, its sloppy. Another question I had was in reference to the coulter adjustment. I re read your thread, and you went over this point, but Im curious if different soil conditions change these settings ? Im certainly a long way away from that point but just curious ! Also whats the deal with the check chains, are they just there in case your assembly loosens up ? Actually, Bob might have answers to all these questions ! Thanks for your help guys !

And a good morning to you Scotty!

That adjustment on the drawbar.... That's known by two terms. "landing" or "width of cut". By rotating the drawbar, you'll move the tail end of the plow left or right. By swinging it left, you apply more pressure to the landslide(s) and/or tailwheel. That makes the plow tend to run more to the right. By doing so, you push the front bottom towards the previous furrow, narrowing the cut of the front bottom. Hence the "width of cut" terminology. A PROPERLY adjusted plow will see the front bottom cutting the same exact width as the rear. THEN the tractors right side wheels are adjusted to run in the open furrow. If and when the width of cut is set "just right", the plow SHOULD trail the tractor with the top link running perfectly straight in line with the tractor. Some degree of variation is acceptable, but in general, you want that top link running true. All plows are different, but NORMALLY, you'll want the right side hitch pin to be 10 to 15 degrees FORWARD of the 6 oclock position as a starting point.

On the coulters... At one point, it was commonly accepted that the coulters should run in line with the leading edge of the plow (in line with the shin) As it was more common to be plowing in heavy crop residue, such as corn stalks, it became a more common practice to set the coulter to the left of the leading edge by a small amount. That allows the coulter to cut the "trash" with enough clearance so the shin didn't collect the stalks and "plug" the plow (where stalks and such collect under the beam of the plow, raising it out of the ground.) With-in reason, setting the coulters just to the left of the shin helped to bury the trash and leave a cleaner looking plowed field. At some point, "cover boards" became the rage on moldboard plows. They're the small "wings" that you'll see from time to time just above the moldboards. They catch the "trash" as the plow slices a new furrow and toss it in the existing furrow just ahead of each new swath. That helps to bury trash. In order to make those coverboards work better, the coulter is set even farther to the left, maybe as much as 1". The entire point of the coulter being "left of center" is about burying surface trash and leaving a clean plowed field.

On some plows there is an adjustment on the coulters to set the lowest point farther forward or rearward. Most plows set the lowest point just forward of the plow point by an inch or two. Not sure what would be achieved by moving it back or forward. Now you have me wondering....

And the check chains... I've heard a couple explainations for them, neither that I buy into, but here they are. One, back in the day, 2-bottom mounted plows end up on tractors with wheel spacings tighter than bigger tractors of the day that normally used drawn plows and had LOTS of wheel clearance. Sometimes the coulters could swing out to hit the sidewall of a tire. The check chains were supposedly to prevent that. The other "excuse" I heard was they were more to keep tall weeds and stalks from catching on the coulter hardware. Either may be true. For that matter, they may BOTH be true. I don't know.

Hope this helps,
Bill

 

[scott_vt]

Good Mornin Bill,
A very detailed assesment of the finer points of plowing if I dont say so myself ! Thankyou for taking the time for all that info, I have read it once , I will be rereading it again, and will do so until I understand whats going on with all these adjustments !

One more question, Im thinking way ahead here so dont mind me, but curious about plowing speed. I have 3 gear ranges on the Massey. Mid range 4 th gear is just under 4 mph, would that be about the right speed to plow, or should I be running a bit slower. Keep in mind that this is Vt and we have ROCKS ! This is also unplowed pasture, oh Im sure it was plowed at some point but long before I owned it ! Thanks !

 

[Farmwithjunk]

Most of the plows built beyond the inception of the 3-point hitch were what was considered a "high speed" plow back in the day. 4 to 4-1/2MPH was about the norm. I TRY to plow at or near 5mph myself. Any slower than 4mph, and you don't get the soil shattering action, nor does the furrow slice want to roll completely over. Much faster than 5mph, and those plows would try to flip the furrow slice back to "green side up". The John Deere mounted plow I sold after refurbing my Massey plow was an older design bottom. 3 to 3-1/2mph was plenty fast for it. It was "old school", big plow, low gear, and tons of ballast "technology". Later plows were designed with a moldboard contour and angle of attack for the share that allowed even higher speeds. By the late 1960's just about all the major players had come to the realization that it was much more efficient to pull a smaller implement at higher speeds than to plod along at slow speeds with huge implements. Plows in the US market were becoming a thing of the past by then. Take a look at European plows of today. They're built for speeds of 6, 7, even as high as 10 MPH.

 

[scott_vt]

Afternoon Guys,
I took both coulter assemblies off the plow. Disassembled the rusted mess and figured out what I was going to do to them. The original bushings that ride inside the cast coulter hub were 1.125. Either from lack of grease or a lot of use the cast hubs were badly worn ! I decided to make new bushings, so I bored the existing hubs out to 1.188 and got lucky and found a nice length of 1 3/16" drill rod to to make the replacement bushings I sand blasted all the parts, bored the hubs, and painted the coulter wheel and hub parts black. The coulter frame gets painted red. From the pics that I have found, thats the paint scheme. Although Im going to be using Farmall Red instead of Ford Red, but thats what Ive got and it will have to be good enough !

First pic, rusted parts

Second pic, boring cast hub out

Third pic, coulter parts sand blasted and painted

Fourth pic, coulter frame

Fifth pic, assembled coulter and hub

BTW, if FWJ is reading this, I hope I didnt use the wrong vernacular on any of the parts ! Or Im in trouble !

 

[schmism]

NICE spray booth....

set up for spray and powercoat?

 

[Farmwithjunk]

Afternoon Guys,
I took both coulter assemblies off the plow. Disassembled the rusted mess and figured out what I was going to do to them. The original bushings that ride inside the cast coulter hub were 1.125. Either from lack of grease or a lot of use the cast hubs were badly worn ! I decided to make new bushings, so I bored the existing hubs out to 1.188 and got lucky and found a nice length of 1 3/16" drill rod to to make the replacement bushings I sand blasted all the parts, bored the hubs, and painted the coulter wheel and hub parts black. The coulter frame gets painted red. From the pics that I have found, thats the paint scheme. Although Im going to be using Farmall Red instead of Ford Red, but thats what Ive got and it will have to be good enough !

First pic, rusted parts

Second pic, boring cast hub out

Third pic, coulter parts sand blasted and painted

Fourth pic, coulter frame

Fifth pic, assembled coulter and hub

BTW, if FWJ is reading this, I hope I didnt use the wrong vernacular on any of the parts ! Or Im in trouble !

Now Scotty, have you ever known me to correct someone when I thought they were wrong? And besides that, I do believe you got 'em all by the right name. And to top it all off, you're doing an incredable job on those coulter hubs! If the Big Brown Truck pulls up in front of your house and shoves a heavy box out on your porch, it's just 3,791 coulter hubs I need re-done. You wouldn't mind doing that small favor would you?

 

[scott_vt]

NICE spray booth....

set up for spray and powercoat?

Afternoon Steve,
Thats my spray booth at work, they are nice enough to let me use it on my old iron hobby !

 

[scott_vt]

Now Scotty, have you ever known me to correct someone when I thought they were wrong?

Afternoon Bill,
Absolutely not !

I figure I owe you a couple of favors, but 3791 favors ?

Did a little more work on the plow and painted the coulter frames and drawbar. Also the special U-bolt that attaches the drawbar to the plow with the width of cut adjustment.

First pic is the coulter frames painted

Second pic is the adjust mechanism for width of cut

BTW do they still make those special eye bolts that attach the coulter frame to the plow, the threads are not great on mine ?

 

[Farmwithjunk]

BTW do they still make those special eye bolts that attach the coulter frame to the plow, the threads are not great on mine ?

Howdy Scotty!

I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that those eyebolts are gonna be hard to find new. Most of the wear parts are getting to be rather hard to find. It's downright next to impossible to get even the coulter disc itself nowdays.

I'd try posting on the "N" board over at YT.

Just to get a plow "perfect" I've had to buy a couple "junkers" to cannabilize for parts.

A machinist with your skills could probably make new ones with less trouble. It's well worth the effort to fix up a plow "just right". They're getting scarce. In due time, they'll be worth a nice price. A well restored plow should last the average user a couple lifetimes.

Bill

 

[scott_vt]

Mornin Guys,
Well I started tearing into the plow last night, for the heck of it I got my Dewalt grinder out and put a wire wheel on it. I cant believe that the moldbaord wasnt more pitted with rust tan it is ! In the first pic you can see what I was able to do in just a few minutes with the wire wheel.

Thank God for Liquid Wrench and cutoff wheels or I would never get this thing apart ! Took the front share off, it has some numbers on the underside, one of them being a 12, Im sure representative of a 12" plow. I posted over on the Implement board on YT and one fella called them "blacksmith sharpen type of shares". I also sent away for a manual, so we will see what happens there. The second pic is the removed share, any comments welcome !

Hey Bill, the tail wheel is shot, know anywhere to get a replacement ? The thing unbolts from the hub, it would be a bear to reproduce because of the radius.