The Classic Machinery Network

Hello Pete,

The transmission is made by Brockhouse and fitts the Fordson Major motor and rear axle.
It is driven by a torque converter and has two speeds forward and one reverse.

Indeed at the end of the automatic transmission there is a drop box wich connects the end of the transmission with the axles.
In the box is a 5-fold chain.

There were about 75 Matbro Mastiff Minor shovels made.

They also made 20 articulated tractors with thesame construction principals, called Matbro Mastiff 6/100 MT
There are 12 tractors remaining.

The tractors are well known by the Fordson enthousiasts.
Despite being made more numbers of the shovel I can find very little information about these on the internet.

Jurrie

Hi there Jurrie,
So glad you posted these pictures and you have made a really nice job of the restoration! Looking at the sale brochure that you have posted it has 1966 written in ink on the cover, but your machine would surely be slightly earlier than that wouldn't it? How well does the shovel operate? Powerful? How about the steering? Light and positive? Really interesting machine!!
Regards morgan

I was wondering about the age as well as the Super Major ceased production around 1964. How well does the Brockhouse work? It was impossible (AFAIK) to obtain spares 35 years ago. We had a Weatherill 12H fitted with one and it always was poor and a farm I worked on had a Chaseside 700 that died, a manual box was fitted.

Hello Morgan and Pete,

The machine was build 1967, the Fordson parts however are made in 1964 (according to the casting codes).
The Fordson company must have had a large number of parts for service purposes.
And later replacement parts were made by Ebro in Spain because after 1964 they build the Fordson Super Major in licence.

The Brockhouse gearbox indeed is a week part of the machine. The epicyclic gears wear very fast.
But I was lucky because I had a replacement set of gears of another loader of mine, a Werklust OL 501.
This machine based on a Fordson Power major with Roadless 4 wheel drive.
It also has a Brockhouse ITT gearbox. See attachments.
When I visited the factory in Apeldoorn 15 years ago I bought several spare parts for this machine.
It seemed to be a good investment.

The gearbox really works well.
Because of its 4 wheel drive and the weight of the machine beeing more than 5 tons, it can perform well.
Steering is all right, could be a bit lighter.
The orbitrol is not the genuine one.

Regards Jurrie

Interesting to read how the restoration was carried out and the number of hoops that had to be jumped through to achieve such a great result.

I used to deal with Matbro occasionally when they were in Tetbury back in the 80's

Thanks for posting.

Neil (v1230nm)