Ford 8Ns

[T-Mo-(Moderator) 4,496]

I know Ford 8Ns are plentiful, and about every other person has or had one.  I have never own one though.  I know about the non-live hydraulics and the non-live pto, so I'm aware of some of it's drawbacks.  But, I still won't mind having one.  I found this one at a dealer, which I may or may not be interested in (the wife lets me know how interested I'm in a tractor or not). 

 

 

[DennisThornton 4,769]

I wanted one for 50 years or so but now I'd pass unless it was CHEAP and even then I'd be looking to sell or trade it for a newer 800 series.

[1995 520H+96+97 937]

Sherman trans is worth alot.

[squonk 41,104]

Depends on what you want to do with it. My B-I-L had one with a bush hog. My Dad had a 39 AC "B" with a belly mower. We had a "mow off" one day. I mowed 3/4 of the field with the B to his 1/4 with the Ford.

 

[slim67 2,735]

I may be wrong but weren't the 600/800s OHV?

[T-Mo-(Moderator) 4,496]

1 hour ago, slim67 said:

I may be wrong but weren't the 600/800s OHV?

I think you're right.

 

This one in the video has the Sherman shift-up transmission and the over ride clutch.  But, the dealer says the 3 point is a bit slow, but I'm wondering if that's compared to newer 3 point systems.  Also, someone put another starter button on the dash, they came out with the starter button near the gear shift so you can't start it in gear.

 

I know of where a 601 is, but it's further away and a lot more money.

[slim67 2,735]

My dad had 600 with a FEL and with no power steering it sucked. As a brush hog tractor which is what I usually see them being used for, they are great. Real easy to fix by the way.

[DennisThornton 4,769]

I gather the price/performance was awesome when they first came out but they needed improvements which came along with the 600s and then the 800s.  I'd at least have to have a Sherman.

[ClassicTractorProfessor 5,314]

Looks like a solid little early model 8N. Handy little tractors if a person respects their limitations. I bought the girlfriend a 2N that has been fitted with a later model side distributor 8N engine. Granted it's not near the tractor my M is, but it wasn't designed to be (that and there isn't a tractor out there that can hold a candle to a Farmall )  but for mowing and other light chores around the farm it is a very handy machine to have. That one looks and sounds to be in good condition, and with a Sherman step-up, I'd say you couldn't go wrong. As you probably already know, one of the nice things about the N's is parts availability, you could just almost build an entire tractor from the ground up with the amount of parts still being made for these things. 

[Darb1964 1,042]

An old farmer friend of mine has had  one sence new, and obviously loves it. The only tractor he has owned. He makes hay with it every year, except the last few, because I have been doing it. If he's feeling up to it he helps out tedding or raking with his 9n. I have used it a few times, its a powerful tractor. The only thing for me was getting on it, very tight, but I'm disabled and getting on my wheel horses can be a challenge. He's not one for up keep and only fixes something if it breaks, and not Much has. The starter went a few years ago, so now he parks it on a hill. He couldn't understand why it went, never had to replace it before. I told him I would grease it up because it was a little hard to turn, his response, it's not hard. I think I may have insulted him. His son was there and he told me he had greased it about ten years back or so. He said the old man asked him, what thet hell did you do to the tractor.

I'd love to have one, don't need it ,but that's yet to be a factor.

[Pollack Pete 2,273]

I've got a 1948 8n and a 1956 Ford 800.No comparison at all between the 2 tractors.And like someone here said,the 800 is overhead valve.The 8n is flathead.Did all kinds of work to both of them.New rear rims and tires on both.Sandblasted,primed and painted front rims and new front tires on both.Rebuilt the carbs.Full tune up on both.New clutch,pressure plate,throw out bearing and pilot bearing in the 800.New king pins and bushings in the 800.Some new paint on both.I like the 800 much better.But........the 8n's are still a pretty capable little tractor for not having many horsepower.

[T-Mo-(Moderator) 4,496]

There are so many 8Ns out there, but then again, there is a reason for this.  Henry Ford believe in one model for everyone.  Look at the Model T, and then the Model A.  When the Fordson tractor was being produced, the Model F, and then the Model N, there was just one model to chose from.  Same for the 9N, 2N, 8N, and then the NAA.  One tractor fits all, so a farmer or buyer who went to the Ford tractor dealer, there was just one option.  So that's why so many N series were sold.  By the time 1954-55 rollled around, Ford decided to match the competition, and make several models as an option.  The 600 and 800, then later 601, 801 and 901 models were produced.  A narrow front was offered.  Now the Fordson Major was being sold since the late 1930s, but that probably had a more European influence.  Here is a good history of the Ford tractor up to the 60s.

History-of-the-Ford-Tractors.pdf

[1995 520H+96+97 937]

Harry Ferguson and Henry Ford photographed at the 1939 press introduction of their Ford-Ferguson 9N.

By Brian Witt, Contributor
February / March 2004

Henry “Harry” Ferguson was an inventor who was constantly tinkering and trying new things. In the course of his life, he helped to revolutionize the tractor, helped revive the fortunes of an American automobile company’s farm implements, and his name was known worldwide. Henry Ford was the son of emigrants from Cork who revolutionized automobile manufacturing. Together, these sons of Erin formed a strong alliance and helped to change the way the world was farmed.

Harry Ferguson was born at Growell, near Hillsborough, Co. Down, on November 4, 1884. From the start, there was dynamism about him. In 1902, at the age of eighteen, he joined his brother Joe in a car and bicycle repair business in Belfast, and in 1904 he began to race motorcycles. In 1909, at Hillsborough, he made the first powered flight in Ireland, traveling 130 meters in a monoplane he had built. He continued airplane development for the next decade. He later drove racing cars, and helped to establish the famous Ulster Tourist Trophy races in 1928. Ferguson formed his own motor business in 1911, and during World War One he began to sell American tractors to Irish farmers, who were more accustomed to horse-drawn plows. With the revolutionary concept that tractor and plow should be designed as a unit, Ferguson began to register his own patents.

Irish-American carmaker Henry Ford started his Ford Motor Company in 1903. As a farm boy, he had a great interest in agriculture, and developing more efficient ways to improve cultivation and planting. An early model prototype tractor was completed in 1907. It was referred to as an “automobile plow,” and, in fact, used a number of parts from the Ford line of cars in order to cut development and production costs. It would be nearly a decade later before the first viable commercial model, the Fordson Model F, came off the production lines in Dearborn, Michigan.

As work proceeded, and it became clear that the Ford Motor Company and its directors were completely unwilling to produce a tractor, Henry Ford set up an independent company, Henry Ford and Son, to build and market the machine. The Fordson name was taken partially because there was a Ford Tractor Company in existence, and partially because of the refusal of the Ford board to back up this endeavor. The Fordson Model F was rolled out in 1917 in limited production in Cork, Ireland, and scaled up to mass production in 1918 to meet the urgent need for tractors by the British government, due to the loss of farm laborers in England and Ireland during World War One. When Ford assumed sole control of his company in 1920, the Henry Ford and Son Company was rolled into the Ford Motor Company, but the Fordson name was kept.

The Fordson was revolutionary first and foremost because it was a smaller design than many of the tractors produced by other companies at the time. The smaller design of the Fordson allowed the tractor to be affordable and easy to produce. The engine, transmission, and axle housings were all bolted together to form the basic structure of the tractor. As a result of this, the machine could be sold at a much lower price affordable to average farmers. Just as Ford had brought the car to the middle class through assembly line production, the tractor was now also within reach. The Fordson tractors were produced in Cork, and later in Dagenham, England. This would prove to be costly for Ford down the road, as all tractors sold in the United States were at least three thousand miles away from the factories. Production was transferred from Cork to England in 1922.

Harry Ferguson was also producing tractors during this period. He developed a plow suitable to the Fordson model F. His very first system was made of springs and levers. In 1925, with Eber and George Sherman, he founded, ironically, in the United States, the Ferguson-Sherman Corporation in Detroit, which produced a plow with “Duplex hitch” system suitable to Fordson line tractors. The principal patent of the Ferguson system, which was a system of hydraulic regulation of the working depth of the various implements linked to the tractor, was granted in 1926. He made his first Ferguson hydraulic system for his Ferguson-Brown prototype tractor for which David Brown had made the differential gear and transmission. In 1933 he founded with Brown the Ferguson-Brown Co., where around 1,350 Ferguson-Brown tractors, model A, equipped with the Ferguson hydraulic system, were produced. Henry Ford offered Ferguson a job, but he preferred his independence. In time, his system would change the face of agriculture, but commercial success proved elusive for Ferguson.

Another application that Ferguson came up with was the “three-point hitch.” This allowed farm implements to be attached or detached from tractors with a minimum of effort, compared to previous devices. The hitch also allowed tractors to be able to plow on hillsides, because the implements were able to adjust the depth of the plowing. The three-point hitch was compatible with the Fordson line of tractors. This adaptation opened a door that allowed the Fordson to jump back up in popularity.

By the middle of the 1930’s, Fordson sales had all but died in the United States. The cost of importing the tractors was the largest issue. Another was the entry into the market by a number of other competitors, and whose designs made the Fordson look obsolete and a bit clunky. A third factor was the downturn in agriculture worldwide that started prior to the Great Depression. In 1938, Ferguson met with Henry Ford. He brought along a Ferguson-Brown tractor. The men made a so-called “gentleman’s agreement.” A handshake was the only contract that they had. Ford engineers used the Ferguson-Brown design, along with Ferguson’s input, in order to produce Ferguson system tractors. The two men brought different strengths to the collaboration. Henry Ford’s financial strength and reputation were on the line. Harry Ferguson’s patents and designs were his contributions.

Harry Ferguson was to do all the marketing for the joint venture. Through the Harry Ferguson Inc. Corporation, he sold tractors and parts of equipment, among which Ferguson-Sherman Inc. produced several. The Ford 9N tractors were made from 1939 to 1942, and the Ford 2N tractors from 1942 to 1947. The Fordson name was used in Europe, but the N nomenclature was used to market them in the United States. The tractor contributed enormously to wartime food production, but Ferguson’s real hope was to raise living standards throughout the world. “Agriculture should have been the first industry to be modernized, not the last,” Ferguson said in 1943.

The head of Ford Motor, Edsel Ford, Henry’s son, died unexpectedly in 1943, whereupon Henry Ford came back to take over the company. Upon Henry Ford’s death from the effects of a stroke in 1946, his grandson Henry Ford II took over control of the company. He immediately started to dismantle a number of the things that his grandfather put into place. One of those things was the “handshake agreement” between Ferguson and Ford. Ford II disliked the lack of Ford’s marketing of the tractor business, and wanted to cut out the middleman. In late 1946, he advised Ferguson that the agreement would be ending on June 30, 1947.

The moment Ford Motor Co. started to sell its own newly named tractor, model 8N, which was built using Harry Ferguson’s hydraulic systems, Ferguson countered by filing a suit against Ford Motor Co. and associated companies for $350 million. The 8N was identical to the 2N/9N models, especially in its use of the Ferguson hydraulic model. Ferguson then negotiated with Standard Motors Co. for them to produce his new tractor, model TE20. Harry Ferguson drove the serial # 1 tractor; model TO20 (Tractor Oversea, for European sales), built in Detroit in 1948 off the factory line in something of a victory drive. Tractor models TO20 and TE20 were identical except for electrical system and transmission case. Ferguson pushed his new line of tractors aggressively, and the TO30 model cut into the 8N market. The lawsuit and Ferguson’s marketing effectively killed the 8N.

[Zeek 2,286]

I always liked them as well. A guy down the road had one for sale last year, but wanted too much and I didn't have a place to store it.

 

I always wanted the Ford Golden Jubilee.

 

Edited February 5, 2021 by Zeek

[6wheeler 603]

We have 2 of them . In my opinion? They are handy little tractors . As long as they are used for what they are intended for. You will get used to driving it with your feet resting on the steering arms to keep them from shaking . Ours don't do as much work as they used to. They do get used to pick rocks or rake hay sometimes. And? As HandyProfessor said ? Except? My JD A will "MELT" any candle next to that "M".. . They are fun to mess with. If the price is right? Have at it.

[slim67 2,735]

I may add that the Ferguson’s were good little tractors too. I believe they were made in England and similar to the fords.

[DennisThornton 4,769]

Ferguson and Ford were handshake partners in the beginning.  The 3-point hitch was Ferguson's idea!  Interesting story and worth reading up on.  Ferguson was from England.

[T-Mo-(Moderator) 4,496]

Henry Ford II broke the handshake agreement with Harry Ferguson and Henry Ford, when Henry II took over Ford in the 1947.  The agreement between Ferguson and Ford, was that Ford would make the tractors with the Ferguson system and Ferguson would sell them.  Henry II realized that Ford was losing millions, so he broke the agreement and began selling the 8N and cut Ferguson out of the sell.  Lawsuits followed.

 

Looking at old videos of the earlier Ferguson built tractors, they had a lot to offer that wasn't available on the 8Ns.