Nuffield and Leyland Tractor Club

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The first stop for information on Nuffield, Leyland and Marshall Tractors. All comments and suggestions are welcome. Please contact us on contact@thenuffieldandleylandtractorclub.co.uk

If you would like to have your Tractor or Tractors featured here please send your details and pictures to the above E-mail address. See below for latest story.

Nuffield 3/45 from Sweden.

Tommy Westman, from Sweden, bought his Nuffield 3/45 in August 2012, its had four previous owners and was originally registered on the 30^th of November 1970. The “Tipp Topp” Swedish cab was made by Hambergs Bil & Mek, and the front end loader is a Swedish Källve model. The cab and front end loader have been on the tractor since new,

The tractor is in good running condition and is in daily use. Tommy has restored the electric system so that all the lamps, gauges, direction indicators and the windscreen wiper are now working. To bring the cab up to scratch a new roof was sourced and fitted.

Nuffield 3/45

When Tommy bought the 3/45 it had only about 4600 hours on the clock! The previous owner had died in 1991 and the tractor was laid up for the next 21years.

This winter the Nuffield was used for snow clearance work and in the forest to bring home wood and logs for the fire. Tommy also uses it to deliver hay to his horses. In a Swedish Tractor book Tommy read that the 3/45 and 4/65 versions of Nuffield didn’t sell very well! Journalists and Farmers stated that the Nuffield was badly constructed! Tommy doesn’t agree with that, the only thing he misses with his Nuffield is the lack of power steering! When he uses the front loader for moving snow the steering gets very heavy and it takes a lot of muscle to steer it.

Nuffield 3/45

Although there aren’t many Nuffield Tractors in Sweden this is Tommy’s first one, he had a BM 35 (Bolinder Munktell) 1952 diesel before it. Other tractors that he has owned were a Volvo T22 1949 with a kerosene engine, a MAN Ackerdiesel and a German built Farmall restoration project, he has now sold them all leaving the Nuffield as his only tractor.

Nuffield Universal reverse drive

The Nuffield Universal Four with reversed drive is located about 40km from Tommy’s home, nothing is known about it but it is in good condition and appears to be in use for clearing snow.

The BMC Mini 9/16 Prototype Tractors

For the last fourteen years John Poulter has been involved with the restoration and building of many of the small tractor range since buying his first BMC Mini 9/16 in 1999 after a meeting with the Club founder, the late John Harlow. Like many tractor enthusiasts his passion on occasions became obsessive and in recent years directed towards the prototype Minis that were designed and built by the Harry Fergusons Tractor Research Company in Coventry. From reading about the first prototype, called the Tractor Research Mk 1 and registered 495 EUE, the author has managed to locate eight of the original fifteen tractors and been responsible for the restoration of three, two of which now reside in his collection.

Ferguson Tractor Research MK1

This book is the story of the search for the tractors and a technical appraisal of the original design and its development into the BMC Mini 9/16 which was launched to the public in December 1965. The book is 75 pages, printed in full colour and packed with photos, some taken during the early trials in 1962 to 1964.

Copies, at £12.95, can be purchased direct from the author: phone 01453 547577 or email: johnpoulter@live.co.uk

FLYING THE FLAG – MY CAREER WITH NUFFIELD, LEYLAND AND MARSHALL TRACTORS by TONY THOMAS

Tony Thomas was an enthusiastic and respected member of the sales and marketing departments of the Nuffield, Leyland and Marshall Tractor companies for almost 30 years. In his absorbing new autobiography, Flying the Flag – My Career with Nuffield, Leyland and Marshall Tractors, he recalls not only his own close, personal involvement with these three famous British marques from 1962 to 1991, but also the continuous development of the tractor range that took place during that period.

Key events covered in Tony’s fascinating story include the 1962 transfer of tractor production from Birmingham to Bathgate; the development of the Mini tractor; the problematic launch of the Nuffield 3/45 and 4/65 models; the formation of British Leyland and introduction of the popular 154, 344 and 384 tractors in 1969; plus the launch of the Leyland Q cab, four-wheel drive models, and the award-winning Synchro gearbox during the 1970s.

Leyland’s tractor division was sold to Marshall of Gainsborough in 1981. After beginning so promisingly with the successful transfer of tractor production from West Lothian to Lincolnshire in 1982 and the development within two years of the new 100 Series and 904 models, this period in the history of the tractor range ended in uncertainly when Marshall went into receivership in 1985.

The subsequent formation of Marshall Tractors in 1986 and the move to Scunthorpe that took place the following year are also covered in detail, along with this company’s numerous attempts to expand its range with badge-engineered products from, among others, Ferrari of Italy and Steyr of Austria.

Tony’s tremendous affection for the Nuffield, Leyland and Marshall companies has not diminished over the years and shines through on every single page of his autobiography. His story is highly illustrated by almost 200 archive images, many from his own personal collection.

Copies of this book can be obtained from - email;  pam.harlow5@btinternet.com  or telephone; +44 (0) 1453 828737

As a Christmas present, in 2011, Edward (13) from Staffordshire, was given a Leyland 245 Synchro by his Grandad who had bought it in 1994 from a dairy farm in Warwickshire where it had been used as a yard tractor. Since then it had been laid up in the yard and unused for about 3 years. Edward is the third owner and has all the original documentation.

The 245 was in a poor state of repair needing a new clutch and gearbox centre bearing which had exploded, splitting the gearbox casting!

Edward, with the help of his dad and brother, set about repairing the damage, at the same time new brake discs were fitted and the clutch and brake master cylinders were serviced. To gain access to the gearbox the cab had been removed so it was decided that a complete restoration of the tractor should be carried out. The rest of the panels were removed and the chassis and engine prepared for repainting in dark blue. Next the radiator and tank frames were painted black, so that the tractor could be moved around the workshop the wheels were painted and refitted.

The cab and mud wings were generally in reasonable condition so after some straightening, filling and refurbishment of the rear window frame, the tin work and fuel tank were sprayed light blue. The seat and dash panel required some attention to bring them back to an acceptable condition.

All that was needed now was a new set of decals. After reassembling everything, the tractor was started up and checked over. New rear lights and extra spot lights were fitted before the tractor was used to feed the cows.

Now that Edward’s Leyland 245 is complete and in full working order he is looking forward to competing against his brother who ploughs with his Leyland 802.

A fantastic achievement for a young lad (with a bit of help from his family).

Welcome to the official Nuffield and Leyland Tractor Club Web Site

John Cannon’s restored Leyland Narrow 154

John’s award winning tractor at the ‘Tractor World’ show Malvern

John Cannon has restored several Leyland tractors over the past 10 years. However, his fascination with the narrow 154 came about when he bought an original sales brochure for the Leyland 154, in the centre fold was a picture of a very narrow tractor next to a standard width 154. He already had a BMC Mini, a Nuffield 4/25, a standard Leyland 154 and a Leyland 302 in his collection. It seemed that the next logical step was to place wanted ads in all the major tractor magazines. He had many calls from people that had standard size tractors but no narrow models.

Then he had a lucky break. By chance the Leyland and Nuffield club magazine had come and on the back cover was a yellow narrow tractor being driven by its owner, Lars Christensen in Denmark! He contacted Lars and asked if his tractor was for sale. Unfortunately the answer was no!

Leyland had made about one hundred of these narrow 154s. They were cut down to the narrow width by Beans Engineering, who were at that time owned by the Leyland Group. They were originally built for vineyard use but very few were sold. The bulk of them went to Denmark, Sweden and Norway to be used as municipal tractors for pavement snow clearing clearance.

The Leyland 154 in its original clothes from Denmark

John asked Lars to look out for a narrow 154 for sale in Denmark. A few months went by, then the news that he wanted came through. He had found one near Esbjerg. John contacted the owner and after pictures were sent and many emails exchanged a deal was done. Soon he was picking his latest toy up from Harwich docks.

It looked very out of scale with quite a large cab and balloon tyres on the front. It had a drop box on the PTO to allow the PTO to go under the tractor to the front end to power a rotating brush.

Salt had done a lot more damage than the pictures show. The tractor had no drawbar or lift arms. Everything underneath was rusted away and the bolt holes for the drawbar were rusted beyond repair.

Rear end of 154 with cranked link arms

John already had a spare 154 that he had bought for spares. He used the diff and gear box from the donor tractor and the shortened axles from his narrow one. Nine inches had been cut from the middle of each of these axles. This gave John a big problem to overcome. The casting bolt holes for the lower lift arms were missing and the three bolt holes for the wing brackets were under the fuel tank! So where the wings and link arms would normally fit was missing.  After much fabrication they were finally fitted.

Close up of link arm brackets

John heated the lift arms and cranked them as per the picture in the sales brochure (the standard model lift arms are straight).

Another problem to overcome was the hydraulic control lever, on the standard tractor it fits to a bracket on the offside wing but on the narrow version there’s no room to fit it there, so the lever is turned downwards and is under the fuel tank. The control lever is extended upwards and only just fits between the tank and offside wing.

John shot blasted the rusted parts with the fuel tank ending up looking like it had been shot with a shotgun. There were holes everywhere! He decided to make a new tank from the spares tractor. This was not easy; he used tape to mark the end that needed to be cut off. With a steady hand and using a small air driven disc cutter he set to and cut the end of the tank off, he then welded a flat plate to re-make the tank as per Beans’ modification.

The back end was now complete! Very unconventional, as it may seem a strange way to restore a tractor – from the backend forward, but John figured he could get the engine running only once the peculiarities of the backend was completed.

Leyland 154 engine with serviced injection pump 

The engine had been running when it came from Denmark but was smoky. He took the head off to find the bores very worn. A local engineer bored it out to +0.030”, new pistons were sourced and big end bearings fitted, the head was skimmed and new valve stem seals fitted. John had a spare injector pump that had been serviced, he fitted that along with serviced injectors, but he couldn’t get it to run smoothly. After weeks of trying, John got the original pump serviced and put that back on; the engine now ran much better.

Modified head lamp position and steering arrangement, the position of the head lamps can be seen in one of the pictures above

Due to the steering arrangement the headlights are refitted higher up the bonnet.

The paint work was next. When John sprays he still likes to see the casting joints. There seems to be a current fad to cover everything in high build primer. He didn’t like that; if you need to change any parts the whole paint job could be ruined. On the other hand John does like to see the panels well done.

The rear wheels have had extra spacers welded to move the centre further out than standard. It was quite crude welding and it was decided to leave this rather than smoothing the weld with the grinder so you can see how they were originally. John found the front wheels at Nettley Marsh steam show, in the auto jumble. They had implement tyres on and were rusty but he could see the potential although they were only three stud fixing. As the centre hole was the right size he welded up the stud holes and re drilled the centre to four stud.

This restoration was done with a spec sheet and photos from the sales brochure because there’s no information available from when this tractor was made. It has taken John the best part of 2 years to complete the restoration.

To John’s knowledge this could be the only narrow 154 with the dropped front axle and twelve inch front wheels in the UK.

This very rare picture has been unearthed from the archives and show a Nuffield tractor converted to a Crawler by Cantatore of Italy, it’s probably from 1961.

Here are some new pictures from the archives of the BMHIT, they show a brief history of the Bathgate Tractor production facility from 1962 to 1977.  All pictures Copyright BMHIT.

This is the first tractor off the production line at Bathgate in 1962, it’s a Nuffield 3/42. See how clean the floor is and how uncluttered the background! It’s not clear why the tractor has ‘Road Tyres’ fitted rather than agricultural tyres like the tractors behind.

By 1965 the Nuffield 10/60′s was being produced, this one, with flanged axles, is approaching the point where the wheels are to be fitted.

Queen Elizabeth visited Bathgate in 1968, she was driven around in a modified Land Rover. Here we see her viewing the machine shop in ‘B’ Block prior to visiting the tractor production facility in ‘C’ Block.

In 1977 the design of the tractor had changed dramatically, this 245 with a three cylinder Perkins engine is fitted with a ‘Q’ cab, required by law in many countries, to prevent excess noise damaging the drivers ears. Many changes had to be made to the production line to allow these tractors to be built.