Grey nomad gets among ‘grey Fergies’

But like many Baby Boomers, his ‘motor’ is still turning over as a gopher for his sons Brad and Glenn, who run the family farm, after Ian and his wife Pam retired to Albany.

He also is a coach driver for his daughter Debbie’s charter business in Albany.

And he has a ‘men’s shed’ in Albany restoring tractors, mainly ‘grey Fergies’.

These tractors were designed by Harry Ferguson, a rambunctious entrepreneur, who became the first Irishman to build and fly his own aeroplane, with the 1909 flight of the Ferguson monoplane.

Ian has always been a Ferguson aficionado, having driven the Ferguson TEA20 as a seven-year-old on his father’s farm in Coonamble, New South Wales.

His interest in them was re-kindled 14 years ago when a friend gave him a TEA20 to restore which started a collection of mostly Massey Ferguson models.

“The TEA20 still needs a bit more work on it,” Ian said, reflecting the fact that he won’t run out of work anytime soon.

“I’ve got about 17 or 18 tractors all together and I’ve probably restored eight of them.”

Most of his restored models are in working order and Ian sources genuine parts from mainly United States contacts and from friends in the Harry Ferguson Tractor Club of Australia, of which he has been a member for 14 years.

He set up a shed in Albany with the mandatory welding gear, grinders, bench drills and sundry tools, including a 70-year-old tool box containing a Sidchrome socket and spanner set that belonged to his father.

“The only thing missing is the screwdriver,” Ian said.

Another prize possession is a 60-year-old Stillson pipe wrench, which Ian remembers buying at Coles in Bathurst in 1957.

“It gets plenty of use in those hard to get to places,” he quipped.

Memories come gushing back as we walk around his collection.

“This is a Ford Ferguson N2,” he said.

“You can see it has the N9 linkage because the N9 is stamped on the side but it’s an N2 because it has a cast steering box and a different radius arm.

“It was a war-time tractor and the four cylinder motor was a version of the Ford V8 motor used in 1939 Ford flat-top trucks.

“This is a Ferguson 35 which I bought in 2009 or 2010.

“I drove it from Oodnadatta (South Australia) in 2010, pulling a 1.5 tonne camper, into the Simpson Desert and up to the Ferguson range, then onto Alice (Springs) and along the original Ghan railway line and back to Oodnadatta with other club members.

“This also has a Ferguson two shear mouldboard plough, and the 35 is now my competition tractor.

“I like having a go in mouldboard competitions and it’s not as easy as it looks.”

Ian regularly is involved in club trips and has earmarked another for next month, leaving from Wentworth in NSW and following the Darling River to Cooper’s Creek, then to Broken Hill and back to Wentworth.

His tractor of choice for the trip is a Massey Ferguson 65 Hi Clearance model.

“It’s rare model used in the cane fields,” Ian said. “It has got a Perkins 203 diesel motor and it has still got the original taco which reads 5410 hours.

“I haven’t touched the motor and it doesn’t burn oil and this will be its second trip.

“I’ve cut off the roof but left the ROPS and I’ve specced it with a two-way radio and flashing lights to meet NSW transport regs.”

The 65’s first trip was in 2013, from Cook Town to Weipa in Queensland, along the old Telegraph Track to Cape York then back to Cook Town.

“It never missed a beat,” Ian said. “The only thing I’ve added since the last trip is the radio and flashing lights and an Engel fridge mounted on the hitch, just in case we get thirsty.”

Another interesting model in Ian’s collection is a “French Fergie”, designated a MF30.

“It was made in Paris and when I got it, the Perkins 4-107 motor had seized,” Ian said.

“I worked on it and got it going and took it for a spin in 2015 from Kalgoorlie to Alice Springs, across the Victoria Desert.

“It was registered like the others and it had the original headlights and panels.

“I made the radiator grille from stainless steel, but it looks like the original.”

Ian likes to match Ferguson equipment to some of his tractors such as a ‘Horndraulic’ front-end loader, made in Wales, circa, 1950s.

It’s mounted on a Ferguson TEA20, which is another work-in-progress task for Ian, who jokes that his hobby is now “out of control”.

Another TEA20 boasts a Ferguson post-hole digger which runs off the PTO and this is in working order.

“It just needs to be repainted,” Ian said.

Another treasure is a Sunshine Massey Harris 745S tractor, the last model made by Massey Harris, a company Harry Ferguson merged with in 1952.

“It has got a L4 Perkins motor and while she works, she needs to be cleaned up,” Ian said.

“The motor had seized when I got it but I freed it up, serviced the injectors and fixed up the fuel system and she’s as good as gold.

“This model has the steering box enclosed and the bonnet opens up sideways rather than being unbolted.”

A trip to the family farm reveals more old tractors in a designated shed.

A McCormick International B250 “just needs a battery and she’ll go”.

This model was rated at 22kW (30hp) and was Britain’s first tractor incorporating disc brakes and differential locking.

The Ferguson 35 also is waiting on Ian as it sports a padded seat, a taco and a dual clutch while ‘Jack’, the Ferguson TEA, built in 1949 by the Standard Motor Company, was Ian’s first Fergie.

And you guessed it. Jack “needs redoing”.

Hobby note: In all, more than 500,000 Little Grey Fergies were built between 1946 and 1956, and a surprising number survive today.

So successful was the TE20 model, that it was nicknamed the “Grey Menace” as sales of the tractor spread throughout the world.

They were even used on an expedition to the South Pole in 1958 by Sir Edmund Hillary, a testament to the durability of the machine.