Comeuppance’s Story

Comeuppance’s Story CComeuppance’s Story Comeuppance’s Story

By John Selley, A Ferguson Club Member

She is called ‘Comeuppance’ because out of the blue, a lady named Dot Mathers, called to ask if I could advise her on what price to ask for her late husband’s Fergie that had big end problems. We talked about it and came to common ground and I bought it, telling her that all my tractors are named and hers would be called Dottie. She knocked £50 off the agreed price!

It was arranged that we would pick the tractor up on Monday 1st July 2013. On Friday she sent me an E Mail to tell me that the tractor didn’t have a battery so if I wanted to start it I needed to bring my own. As far as I was concerned that was for information only, and I didn’t reply.

On Monday morning, as my wife and I enjoyed our morning cup of tea in bed, I told her that Steve and I were working at the workshop. That wasn’t untrue as Steve kept his truck at the workshop and we were going to use it to fetch Dottie. It also wasn’t the whole truth!

Anyway, we arrived at Dot’s. Steve fitted our battery and Dottie fired up immediately; no bottom end noise and good oil pressure, and was driven up onto the truck. Dot came out and asked if I had received her E mail for which I thanked her. As she hadn’t heard back from me, she had phoned home and was answered by a lady who sounded a bit bemused when told I was fetching a tractor from her that morning, so Dot said that she must have the wrong number and rang off!

When we got back to the workshop we tried to start Dottie and she was having nothing of it. Anyway, we persevered and eventually she started but made a very bad noise and allowed Steve just enough time to get off the truck before she threw a conrod through the crankcase! So there you are, I got my Comeuppance well and truly. When we stripped the engine we found that as the big end bolts had not been torqued up, one had rattled loose and the nut had come off during the journey. Also no split pins had been fitted.

The engine was fully overhauled, crankshaft ground, new liners, pistons and rings, all new big end and main bearing shells, four new conrods, fuel injection pump and injectors serviced, head skimmed and all valves refaced and ground in and, of course, the crankcase repaired. You can see it if you look carefully just below the injection pump, a grey area. The fault had arisen from an appalling earlier overhaul. So the moral of this story is to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth!

As it was a fairly scruffy little tractor and would have taken an awful lot of work to make her anything, I donated her to The Southwold Railway Trust and they are making very good use of her. I insisted they maintain her name!