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

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Many Nuffields, Leylands and Marshall tractors were on display with others working in the demonstration field and transporting water to all the many steam engines.

General view of the club stand

Nuffield 3/45 with water bowser continuously feeding the thirsty steam engines which, when powering the generators, require many hundreds of gallons of water every hour.


This Leyland 285 still sounds as good as the day it was first worked!

This 4/65 has been modified by fitting a Perkins 6 cylinder engine, it is in excellent condition and fully capable of a full days work!

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.

Mark Johnson and his family use a fleet of Leyland and Marshall Tractors to run their farm, all are in good working order and here we see them bringing in the hay during the 2010 season.

Marshall 802 and Leyland 802 with bale loader

Leyland 285 with bale trailer

Leyland 154 bringing in the bales

Marshall 802 waiting for a load of bales

The Leyland 285 and 802 at rest waiting for their next task

Marshall 802 delivering a bale to the cattle

Displayed at the Newark show

Long hours of very hard work have been put into this restoration

The unrestored tractor as John found it.

John Poulter has now restored two Nuffield ‘Mini’ tractors. The first was a very rare Petrol engined version – He’d been told by a member of Tractor Research, the company who designed the Mini tractor, that three petrol and one calor gas version had been built. John now knows where one of the petrol and the calor gas versions are. The second tractor that John restored was his own prototype Mini. This was rebuilt from the wreck that he acquired and was probably built in 1963, but carried a 1965 registration number and was registered as a “Tractor Research” on 30 April 1965 (model number:- MK1. Serial No 503/5)

John’s Mini after full restoration.

It uses the first of the 9 speed gearboxes and has various development updates, such as different hydraulic lift casting, hydraulic oil tank and pump. These found their way into production but it still retains the 5 stud 15 inch front wheels and different rear axle with 8 stud Ferguson wheels!

Many components carry Tractor Research part numbers rather than the later BMC BTJ numbers. John has now found and photographed 3 of the first 4 prototypes – 495 EUE. 497 EUE & 498 EUE. John would like to know if anybody knows what happened to 496 EUE?

John’s tractor has always been grey and every part was painted individually. He had to make a new bonnet and tried to accurately replicate the original right down to the dome hammered into the top. This was to allow for the cap on the production style hydraulic tank – the cap was in a different position on the actual production tanks.

He has been unable to find any information on the tractor used in all the publicity film and brochures. EAC 214C registered as “Tractor Research Mk 1 serial number 503/12 on 7 April 1965″. However John has been fortunate to meet the driver – John Tugwood, who also drove the first prototype 495 EUE now owned by Mike Thorne.

John’s next task is to get the original registration number back. This tractor was displayed at recent Newark Show.

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.