Lanz Success Leads To Field Marshal

Upon taking delivery a week later it was a sad parting for Norman as he watched us depart with his workhorse of some forty years, but I was determined to have it look eventually as it did in the agent's showroom.

First job was to burn out the exhaust, as quite a few sparks were being emitted from it. After lighting it, nothing happened until we tipped the exhaust upright, and boy, did we have a fire then! Red Adair couldn't put it out!

The exhaust port was amazingly clean, not even needing a de-coke. As with the Lanz, it was not deemed necessary to touch the engine, considering how well it ran. However, wheels, bonnet, tank, guards, platform and wheels were all removed and the tractor placed on jack stands. The frame/chassis was the first thing to be prepared for painting, firstly with a lot of wire brushing and sandpaper, followed up with a lot of buffing with steel wool to give a glass smooth surface. A preliminary coat of red oxide primer was applied, followed by a coat of green rustproof enamel undercoat. All body work was taken back to metal by hand, which took a lot of patience, before being painted in the same manner as the chassis, except this time a heavy coat of grey automotive primer was brushed onto all panels before being wet sanded by hand. This was followed by another coat of red oxide to prepare for the top coat of auto enamel. Jaguar British Racing Green was found to be a perfect match, and thankfully we got a hot sunny day which made the paint glide on beautifully.

The gearshift pattern was detailed in silver, and the badge work, which had been buffed and polished, was fixed in position on the nose panel and bonnet side.

The back platform had been severely rusted and pitted from standing out, and since we welded a new step in, it took some lining up as some distortion had taken place. Foam insulation stripping was attached to the inside edges of the bonnet to guard against vibration and possible scratching, rear fenders were bolted up which again took doing, as the straightened guards did not want to make up to now de-dented guards.

The hand brake levers were a huge problem, as they had to be fitted after the guards had been mounted, which meant they had to be guided up from the undersides of the floor panel and slid into splines, there being no room to force them on (which we naturally had to do). We succeeded, but only after losing a bit of paint. The seat Dad made was bolted on its support and a new upholstered cushion fitted. The steering box had been sent away and had new splines cut into the sector shaft for the pitman arm, so while jacked up the steering wheel was given plenty of exercise to loosen things up a little. New copper drain pipes were fitted to the exhaust and engine pipe, and all we needed to complete things now was some original silver striping and some union jacks as decorated on many special show models I luckily had photos of.