He Restores Rare All-Around Fordsons

He Restores Rare All-Around Fordsons Over 40 years, Dick Bosch has restored at least a dozen Fordson tractors and says his favorites are a blue 1937 All-Around and an orange 1938 All-Around. “When I bought the blue All-Around from a salvage yard, it was unrecognizable, basically all rusted metal,” Bosch says. “The front wheel rims were rusted off, and it was missing a rear wheel. The air washer was broken, and parts of the steering mechanism were missing, but the engine seemed in decent shape.” That rough condition didn’t deter Bosch, who was mechanically adept and had worked on other Fordsons. Because it was a hobby project, he looked for replacement parts at shows and swap meets whenever he had time. Not finding much, he moved on to rebuild what he could and make parts as needed. To repair the front wheels, Bosch found old plow wheel rims that matched the tractor’s rims. He cut off the rusted tractor rims and welded the existing spokes onto the plow wheels. For the steering system, he welded scrap steel together and ground the pieces into the shapes of the original parts. He used light scrap metal to fabricate missing parts for the air washer. The engine ran well after he ground the valves and repaired the carburetor and magneto. “I never did find an original rear wheel, so I made changes to one that was very similar, so at least it looked the same,” Bosch says. “I’ve had the restored tractor at several threshing shows, and there have only been two people who’ve noticed that the back wheels aren’t the same. Good pictures from manuals and brochures made finding and building parts easier, but completing the restoration still took me seven years,” he says. The orange ’38 All Around project began with parts scattered throughout the previous owner’s yard. Bosch says, “The owner’s son had disassembled it for a school project, then brought it home in pieces. There were parts in a barn, a chicken house, a garage and in a grove of trees. All of the nuts and bolts were missing. A friend and I hauled it home in two pickups.” Bosch says that after he cleaned the parts and found new bolts, putting it back together wasn’t too difficult because he was familiar with Fordsons. One exception was the pistons, which broke when he removed them, and replacements weren’t available. He eventually substituted Case 730 diesel pistons, machining extra aluminum from the top to make them fit. The valves were from a different Fordson tractor. Bosch says he takes the restored tractors to the Threshing Show in Atwater, Minn., every year. “People comment they didn’t know Case built a blue tractor because the steering system looks like that on a Case. They also didn’t know that, at one time, Fordson painted its tractors orange.” Bosch says that from 1937 to 1939, Fordson had many orange tractors at its Dagenham, England, facility. “Management learned that orange tractors were an easy target for German warplanes, which bombed the factory three times. They took those orange ones into the factory and painted them all green.” Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Dick Bosch, 5444 Co. Rd. 8 N.E., Kandiyohi, Minn. 56251.

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