One rough pair of fenders

rrlund · Feb 11, 2015

I took the fenders and battery boxes off the 500 today. I sure hope the body guy doesn't tell me to leave them in the truck and take them back home. He looked them over on the tractor when he gave me a price,but they look a lot worse now. He's got his work cut out,that's for sure.

Mike M · Feb 11, 2015

Those don't look real bad ? Seen worse.
Just rusted out in spots. Should be heavy enough metal to weld in some patches.

RGMartin · Feb 11, 2015

For an original set of fenders and crossbox, they look pretty good.

The fenders on the 900 I am fixing at the moment is are cracked all over(slightly older than your 500, but same basic design). Plan is to just weld up the cracks and repair as best I can without getting ridiculous.

The crossbox is nonexistent. Thinking of building a different style box and using a bench seat.

RayP(MI) · Feb 11, 2015

Buy a 5 gallon bucket of BONDO!

rrlund · Feb 11, 2015

The parts are all available for this one yet from Agriline,but I don't know what the quality is. Before it's all over with,I might be wishing I'd found out.

JRSutton · Feb 11, 2015

I was thinking the same thing - clearly our definition of "rough" differs.

rrlund · Feb 11, 2015

You didn't lift them off of there to know how shaky they were. lol

L.Fure · Feb 11, 2015

If your body man is worth his salt, those fenders should look like new when he's done. One good thing with them is he'll have some metal to work with. It's thin metal that's hard to get straightened out.

WIZZO · Feb 11, 2015

(quoted from post at 15:04:00 02/11/15) The parts are all available for this one yet from Agriline,but I don't know what the quality is. Before it's all over with,I might be wishing I'd found out.

Why didn't you ask Pete at DB Parts {in Britain} what the Agriline fenders are like? The battery boxes are easy to replicate locally over there.

Bob Harvey · Feb 11, 2015

Hmmmnnnn, If a guy got a couple of old satellite dishes and some tin snips.....

gab · Feb 11, 2015

What's an Oliver 550, in the photo adds some guy from Florida wants $500 for one in pieces.

WIZZO · Feb 11, 2015

(quoted from post at 16:07:56 02/11/15) What's an Oliver 550, in the photo adds some guy from Florida wants $500 for one in pieces.

In the early 1960's David Brown in Britain sold a bunch of their model DB 850 as the Oliver 500 & DB 950 as the Oliver 600. Identical tractors just painted Oliver colours. Some diesel & some gas engines.

David Brown 850

Oliver 500

A DB 850 converted for working in fruit fields with rear mounted sprayer

rrlund · Feb 11, 2015

I didn't even think to ask Pete about them. I didn't know where he got his parts.
We'll see how these come out. My one big concern with buying new was that pair of braces between the battery boxes and fenders. These need work,but they're there. It didn't appear to me that they came with the fenders or the battery box piece. I didn't see on the Agriline site that they were available either. I figured if I had to have somebody repair those or fabricate new ones,I might just as well have somebody attempt to fix the whole unit along with the grille,and paint them while they we at it.

rrlund · Feb 11, 2015

Actually,the 600 was a 990,not a 950 like some think it was. I think there were only about 400 of those sent over. They could be sold in the US,but not in Canada since DB was already selling the 990s there. They sold the 500s in Canada though since DB wasn't selling the 850 there.
Pete said he bought a 600 over here in Georgia and had it sent back to England. Lucky him,I still haven't found one.

rrlund · Feb 11, 2015

The Super 55 was an early version of the 550. Here's my Super 55 and 500 sitting side by side. Not much in common but the tire size.

larry@stinescorner · Feb 11, 2015

they dont look that bad,,seen worse for sure,,thats gona be a nice tractor...pretty rare Oliver

JD Seller · Feb 11, 2015

What did you have to torch off??? Those are some extra holes to fill. LOL

A local body fellow says that tractor hoods and fenders are actually easier to fix than car sheet metal as it is thicker an you have more to work with.

Goose · Feb 11, 2015

As a one time body man, I'll vouch for that. I once worked on a Subaru where the metal in the front fender was so thin you couldn't even use regular body tools on it. I finally just worked the metal with my fingers.

I took a micrometer to it and found the metal in that Subaru fender was 1/3 the thickness of a Chevy pickup fender.

Robert Major · Feb 12, 2015

Hi Those fenders and box aren't that bad. Before i moved to Canada I lived not far from Wizzo and up in england before that. There was a lot of old david browns round that had no fenders/ or one just hanging on. and not much of the battery box left.
There was a guy in a U.K tractor magazine, last year i think commenting on fitting repro fenders and battery boxes to a Brown. i think he had to adjust things a fair bit.
he said those braces were made a bit bigger than original from his source.
Regards Robert

rrlund · Feb 12, 2015

There's a hydraulic valve that mounts there. It had bolts with screw type heads. The battery sits right there and the heads were so rusted and corroded there was no way to get them out. I had to cut around them,grind the metal away from them and take them out of the valve with vise grips. That whole piece needs to be fab'd up new anyway.

One rough pair of fenders

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