Every day as I walk to work and back, I pass a house in the village where an older gentleman called Frank lives. Frank is one of those characters in the village who will be missed. Frank sees everything from his vantage point in the middle of the village, and until a couple of years ago he would spend all day everyday leaning on his garden wall seeing what was happening and speaking to everybody who passed by.
Frank uses a walking stick and there is a reason for his using a stick, this is because Frank has a prosthetic leg. I was going to say a wooden leg, as he is of the age and type of character where it may well be a wooden leg or would have been a wooden leg back in his youth. I have never seen his fake leg, so we will leave it that, he has lost his leg and he is a lucky chap.
So, you may wonder why Frank has come to my mind this afternoon as I write this blog. Well earlier I booked in some gearbox isolator switches which was a new batch of switches for the Leyland tractors, and they are now on the shelf and ready for sale. Whenever I buy, book in, put away, sell or pack up a gearbox isolator switch as part of my work duty I always think of Frank and his leg. Because, when he was a young, Frank worked on a farm in the local area. He was starting a tractor one day and he was stood beside the tractor in order to start it. Yes, I am sure you have guessed where this is going now, but just humour me by finishing reading this paragraph. The tractor was still in gear and the tractor moved and it somehow trapped him between the tractor tyre and the wall. Frank must be in his 80s now, so we are talking wartime when this happened, so medical intervention was not so great. The long and short of this story is that Frank lost his leg that day and all because he started his tractor while stood by the side of it and not on the seat.
Had he been perched atop the seat things would have been very different.
So, this is why I am always thinking of Frank whenever I get into a tractor and whenever I sell or do anything with gearbox isolator switches as part of my Tractor Spare Parts Ltd work.
Gearbox Isolator Switch
A gearbox isolator switch is a small switch that sits on top of the gearbox and prevents you from starting the tractor when it is in gear. It cuts off the electrical circuit when the tractor is in gear, preventing it from starting.
Gearbox isolator switches were introduced into the Nuffield range with the release of the new-look Nuffield 3/45 and Nuffield 4/65. Prior to this the Nuffield tractors did not have such things, hence poor Frank being able to start his tractor in gear (I doubt that it was a Nuffield tractor, but a tractor from the same era). The same design of gearbox isolator switch was then used from these late Nuffield models, through the Leyland middleweight range of tractors (Leyland 245 to 282 and the four-wheel drive versions) and the Golden Harvest Marshall tractors too. This gearbox isolator switch is used on the Leyland Heavyweight 6-cylinder range which comprises of the Leyland 285, 485, 2100 and 4100 when the Synchro 3x3 gearbox is fitted.
This is part number 13H2024 and can be purchased from Tractor Spare Parts Ltd by following the link. This isolator switch even has a rubber cover to prevent water ingress.
On the Leyland lightweight tractors, such as the BMC Mini, Leyland 154, Nuffield 4/25 and Marshall 302, there is a starting gear, where the start gear must be engaged in order to start the tractor. This is activated by the gearbox isolator switch part number 83H610 and can be found by following the link. Interestingly this 83H610 isolator switch is the same switch as for the Leyland Heavyweight tractors which is the Leyland 285, 485, 2100 and 4100 models of Leyland tractor that are fitted with the 10 speed gearbox.
It may be a really small item and it may be tempting to not fit it, or bypass it, or you may just find it annoying. There are times when we all want to start a tractor when we are not sat on the seat, but when you do, please think about Frank. Let’s have some good out of this tragedy that happened so many years ago.
