Massey Ferguson Tractor Starter Motor | 12V 10-Tooth | OEM 1868285M2

Somewhere in the MF parts books there is a shortlist of numbers that quietly did the heavy lifting for three decades, and 1868285M2 belongs on it. Behind the number sits the Lucas M50 heavy starter — twelve volts driving a ten-tooth pinion clockwise through a direct shaft, wound to about 2.8 kW, hung on a three-hole 89 mm flange — and Massey Ferguson used it wherever the engine was too big for the smaller M45 line: the 168 and the 185 from the row-crop years, the 188 that closed the 100-series, the 240, 270, 271 and 283 from the later utility range, and the 3050 that carried the family into the 3000-series era. The Perkins engines beneath all of them were cousins, the cranks needed the same turning effort on a cold morning, and one starter design answered for the lot.

OEM and Search References

• Primary MF reference: 1868285M2
• MF family cross-references: 1868285M1 / M3 / R3, 1868287T, 909971R2, 963989M1, 3763-362-M91, 579-488-M91
• Perkins engine numbers: 2873006R, 2873A031, 2873D002
• Other crosses in family tables: Lucas 27539 / 26274 / 27537 codes, LRS00232, Bosch 9000143416, Prestolite 20500969
• Buyer search terms: 1868285M2 starter, MF 240 starter motor, Massey Ferguson 283 starter, MF 3050 starter 12V, Lucas M50 tractor starter
• Ratings: 12 V, 2.8 kW, 10 teeth, CW, weight 15.12 kg — aftermarket power figures run 2.5 to 2.9 kW across brands; the plate on your old unit settles it

Fitment and Purchase Checks

Three decades of production explain why this number behaves the way it does in catalogues. An 185 left the line in 1971, a 240 arrived in 1980, the 270 followed in 1983, a 283 was still being built in the late nineties and a 271 rolled out as late as 2000 — one starter family, five different decades, and revision numbers accumulating the whole way through, M1 then M2 then M3 then the R3, until even MF dealers reach for the cross tables twice. Weight is the quiet tell in this family, by the way: a proper M50 unit comes in around fifteen kilograms, roughly three times what the smaller M45 starters weigh, and any unit that feels too light for its box has already answered a question the paperwork was avoiding.

The rest of the check is the one that always wins with MF iron — the plate on the old starter, the tooth count on the pinion, a photograph of both sent with the enquiry. On that basis the quote comes back firm: unit price, carton quantity, dispatch window, warranty terms set for the destination market, and any number on a plate that the cross tables cannot place gets worked through the MF parts system before money moves rather than after.