Well here we go- this is the 31' D my father-in-law bought about 3 years ago. When he got it everything from the govener forward was off (except block and pistons). It came with the head redone, and a fresh rebuild on the mag. I helped him stick it back together and get it running. He wanted it restored "sometime" so I agreed to do it "sometime" I brought it back home with me 2 years ago and its sat in the shed ever since. This year we (entire family) descided it would be a good present to give him for christmas. SO here we go, I'll be updating pretty much DAILY.


Heres where its been the last 2 years (Saturday 11/12/05 early afternoon)


Moving her to the shop (yes with a case I know I know BUT it was cheap)



In the shop and ready for work to begin


Desciding on a plan of attack

Of course some of my projects have to get shoved in the corner







First thing I had to do was fix a final drive problem. The story here goes something like this- The father-in-law had to replace the outer bearing on the primary drive gear. Ok thats no big deal, BUT after he stuck it back together the entire drive line "froze"(when in gear, fine in neutral). This is how I got it, I ended up finding the Primary gear to be wore pretty bad in the bore (shaft contact area) causing a "ob-longed movement of about 1/4 inch!! Since this will be a parade tractor I decided to shim it up and tighten. Put the whole thing back together and it still froze up on me!! After a little investigating I found that the gears just had some pressure on them and after getting everything "back into place" its fine now. I adjusted the clutch and went on.



HMMMMM Water AND gear lube???


BIG CHAINS- Tad bit different then all the A's,B's and later waterloos I've done.


This is how we ended the day on Saturday!! not bad to bad

Sunday 11/13/05.
Didn't do alot, had to finish putting away the rest of the farm Eq. and then I went and plowed most of the afternoon with the 820 and the 5 bottem on some oat subble we used for our threshing bee last summer. Got home about 5 and descided to do some work on the D after all. So I took off the radiator, which the core is really nice but I have ALOT of work to do on the tanks, they have some missing "chunks" in the corners that need to be fixed as well as just a general cleaning up. I made a list of things that NEED to get ordered on monday and got the main case ready for power washing.


Got the radiator tore down and blasted the tanks so they are good and clean for some welding and machine work.

Monday 11/14/05

Ordered and bought parts and supplies today (pretty much everything) took me a hour and a half to get it all. Got off work at 5 went home and got the D ready for powerwashing.


Before


After (WHAT A DIFFERENCE)



This is how I ended last night. Tomorrow I'll tear it down more and get it ready to blast on Wednesday (hopefully, we are getting snowed on now)

Keep 'um coming. You are making a lot of progress in a short time. I gotta tighten up.

keep posting the updates and pics. i have a '29 D i hope to start on next fall. i never saw what the chains in the tranny look like so that was a cool photo.

when you say you need to take a few more parts off to get ready for blasting, you aren't going to sandblast the tractor are you? at least not assembled.

andy b.

Tuesday 11/15/05
Ordered Decals, they should be shipped out today (wednesday) got them from Jorde's I always buy my decals from them, and I always get the computer cut vinlys.
Got home and started to work on the D getting it ready tore down more for blasting. I removed quite a bit more and made some block off plates for places I dont want sand to get in. I still have some scraping and some wire bush work with the 4" grinder before I sandblast but thats ok because the weather is going to be anything BUT cooperative for me this week. I HOPE to get it blasted on saturday, which is fine in the mean time I will just start getting the tin work done. I was planning on having the main tractor primed and in green by the night of the 23rd (1 week away) that way it can sit and bake in the shop while I visit my mom for 4 days over the thankgiving holiday. Thats still the plan but I'll just have to see what the weather does I guess. If I can get the tin work mostly done and ready for blasting and final fit and finish now that will make it go faster later, so either way as long as I keep plugging away at it I'll be fine.
The carb (DLTX#3) will go out to Roberts carb shop today and the mag is going to a local here in town for a check up.



I highly recommend NOT doing this to your 2 jaw pullers, if the flywheel had pulled any harder then it did I would have rigged up something different BUT it came off really nice and I didn't have to worry about ruining my puller.


Made a few block off plates like this one over the intake, I use silicone behind them as well (about the only thing you'll ever see me use silicone on, on any of my restorations)


I also took the serial # plate off so it doesn't get ruined during blasting. And I restored it while I was at it.



Nice old DLTX#3 this goes to Roberts today.


Parts pile is starting to mount up

Still Tuesday 11/15/05

Ok so I was getting a little sit of the pics being so big (makes it a pain to read and I'm sure you guys agree) So I'll try some pic resizing and see how it works.

Heres how I finished up last night. Most everything is set to blast, I'll have about another hour of scraping and wire brushing and then about a hour putting duct tape, grease and shaving jell on it. I always wait until right before I'm ready to blast to do Duct tape grease and shaving jell. NOW I know lots of you are already going "what the heck is he doing with grease and shaving jell" well heres what I do. I use the duct tape to cover up things that I dont want to blast, lets say the crankshaft end where the flywheel goes which is splined. Well that works fine and dandy BUT what about back by the oil seal where you DO NOT want sand to go. I shot either grease or shaving jell in the splines and then duct tape over that as well. This way IF sand does get by my duct tape the grease or shaving jell will stop it because by the time it gets to it it wont have much if any momentum left to it. After I'm all done take the tape off and the grease or shaving jell is easy to clean up. Most people say not to blast a complete BUT you just have to prepare really well when you do it, OHH yeah I would much rather blast something like my 70 thats a bare case right now BUT I dont have that kinda time and this tractor doesn't need to come down that far anyway.






Its hard to see them in this pick but she's starting to show some of her war wounds from over the years, on the back of the primary cover theres a big brazing patch you can kinda see in the pick, the upper left side of the main tub has been broke out (chain must of broke at one time and piled up behind gear). They heated it (which you can see to the left of the shifter) moved it back and brazed this as well (cant see this because its around the corner of the case left of the shifter). The steering sector has been broke and brazed as well, all these repairs are done REALLY nice so I think I will just leave them (they add character anyway).
After blasting I'll tear it down a little further then this but not a whole lot, the govenor housing has to come for a new gasket, top covers will get new gaskets, water pipe will come off for a new gasket under that (it has to come off with the govenor housing or else I would leave it) I have a couple gaskets to fix on the left side. ALL the tires and rims will come off, I have to remove BOTH rear axle outer housing to seal them up at the main tub and I have to replace or at least fix the outer seals on the rear wheels. I'd like to tighten the steering gear up some (I took the steering shafts, mounts and u-joints to the machine shop this morning to get welded up turned back down and bushing installed SOO that should all be nice and tight when its done.
Thats it for today, we'll see what I get done tonight

Wednesday 11/16/05

Weather is not being cooperative (currently its 16 degrees, yesterday was about the same price BUT with a 30 MPH wind)

Soo last night I started doing some itial body work on the fenders, which for the most part is about it. Thank god I hate doing body work, I actually dont HATE doing it but I'm to stinking picky and it just seems to DRAWWWWW out forever. OHH well thats part of it I guess, the hood needs 1 dent (yes only 1, hard to beleive I know) and some very minor strating on the rear edge. SOOO the plan is to be set to blast Saturday morning right away, move everything back in the shop, get the main body up on stands, take the wheels off, blast them, hang everything and get ready to paint, let everything sit for about a day (paint does not like 20 degree iron) Sunday night (maybe) do all the gaskets and get ready to shoot primer on monday night.

Thursday 11/17/05

Worked on the tin work some more. Then I scraped and cleaned the rest of the tractor. Seemed like a good time to clean the shop and get set up for the tractor when I'm done sandblasting it. Friday I'll tape every thing up separate parts into piles that I want to sandblast together and dig out the pallets to put the parts on.
On another note- My shop is built into the first 50 feet (or last 50 depends on which way your walking ) of a 240' building, the rest is for storage (houses the rest of the collection). So I have a inside wall built for separation, I kept hearing a weird noise last night . So I go through the door to the "cold" storage side and as I walked through the door I INSTANTLY, smell a skunk (ya the little black with white stripe kind). Come to find out he thinks its kinda nice and warm inside separtating wall . SO I'm not sure how to fix this one, I think the plan is to watch for him and HOPEFULLY catch him outside the shed someday to give him a little lead poison with the old shotgun. Gonna have to be "in-cog-neto"

Saturday 11/19/05

Pretty nice day to sandblast, at first I thought I wasn't going to be able to get it done before the weather acted up. About 1:30 the sun came out and it stayed pretty nice till the sun started going down then it got a little cold, but hey, the way it felt in the morning I was suprised I made it to 10:00 without getting rained or snowed on. The tip on my blaster is pretty worn so my compressor was having trouble keeping up, so I'd blast a pot full (100/lbs) let the copressor catch up while I did some other things and and then blast again. If you try to keep blasting when your running out of air you end up wasting time and blasting sand, it just doesn't work as well without being at the proper pressures.









This is how it looked at the end of the day, I still have to take off the govenor, water pipe, exhaust manifold, and we'll remove all the other covers for gaskets (except primary drive cover, since I had that off for the previous repairs).

I have one rear axle housing off in the pic and the other still has to come off. These orginally sealed by being machined to fit that tight, WELLL after a few years of work for some reason they are alittle loose. Sooo I'll just remove them and seal back up with loctite gasket maker (jell like and I highly recommend it, spendy but hey what isn't anymore ). Both outside seals were leaking (left was REALLY bad) THANK GOD both felts were still good (they get the good ol' NLA (no longer available) letters from deere) so I'll clean them, soak them in new oil and reinstall. The nice thing about the rear seals is, unlike the rest with the steel "cup" to beat in and hold them the "D" has a threaded ring that pushes in on it, which is nice this way I can just tighten the ring up, and they should seal like new again, grease them after install and away we go.

She's lost her fluids as well (more then should have been there!!). I bet theres at LEAST a inch of crap, crud junk WHATEVER you want to call it in the bottom of the gear case. (I prefer sludge I guess). The engine, well first I got 3 gallons of water!!!(keep in mind I pulled the OIL plug) then I'd like to say it was oil BUTTT I'm not gonna go that far (Here again SLUDGE would be appropriate). Some of this "stuff" has even turned hard!!! (I suppose if I was locked away in a crank case for 75 years I'd be the same way!!
What'll happen here is we have a tank that we pressureize (on a regulator about 20/lbs of pressure) with a spray nozzle on the end. We fill the tank with diesel fuel and then we'll clean her "guts" up and give her ALL NEW fluids.




Parts piles are starting to mount up!!! SOME WHERE IN THERE IS A TRACTOR



Wheels cleaned up nice. I HATE SPOKES!!! anybody who's ever sandblasted or painted spokes knows what I'm talking about. I bet I used 1/2 of the total sand I used on Saturday on these wheels, oh well they'll look really nice when I'm done. I bought 1 gallon of yellow for these 4 rims (hope I have enough!!).

Well thats all I have for now, I'll make sure to get a pic when I have it ALL tore down. Hopefully I get it tore down and put back together with new gaskets and oils tonight, and get primer on it tuesday night.

My goal was to have it green by wednesday night before we leave to visit my mom for thanksgiving, BUTTT I dont think I will make it, but then again you never know.

Monday 11/21/05

I put the left side rear back together and tore the right side apart! Actually learned something , the rear axle housing are actually eccentrics, the bolts dont go through the main case at all, but instead have bolts much like wheel wedges. You turn the axle caseing either counter clockwise or clockwise and this "moves" the axle SHAFT forward or backward, and this is how the main drive chain tension is adjusted, kinda neat.




The block was full of crud as well, so we drilled and taped a pipe plug with a tire valvestem and installed it in the bottom drain plug. We then filled it up with water and hooked a tire chuck, put the air on a regulator and let it "bubble" away for awhile. This worked pretty good, we dumped the water and "crud". Dad spilled some water here and there and my block off plates did not exactly hold water. Its amazing how fast sandblasted metal rust up!!




Took off the oil pump and heres what you get when waters been there awhile!

Tuesday 11/22/05

Wellllll What to do tonight?? Lets start by doing a little cleaning!!
Seems like a good job for DAD




I bet neither the crankcase or the rear end housings been this clean for awhile!



NOTHING BUT DEERE for this old baby!

Doesn't exactly look like $170 does it??

Bottoms up This is how I like to fill gear cases!!

Tuesday 11/22/05 (cont.)

All new gaskets from the rear forward so far, I had to take the govenor off for gasket replacement there and found a very dirty govenor. So dirty in fact I'm not sure how it worked, weights were so crudded up that they did not move well, things like this. SO Off to the bench that went for a tear down, clean up and rebuild. I did find 2 gaskets under the govenor housing so I'm wondering if its a "shim to fit" type deal like the bevel gears for the fan shaft?





Motor internals all look pretty good for being 75!! Crank gear wear and 1 chipped tooth are the worst I found , but since its not going to work for a living anymore, I guess I let it slide.




Well I didn't get any paint on it (which was my goal) but I feel thats its still gonna make it on time. About 1 more night doing work like this and some cleaning and It'll be paint time. Once I get to painting I will cover ALOT of ground fast.
Well I'm off to my mom's for a 4 day thanksgiving weekend, so I'll post again on monday morning what I get done on sunday afternoon.

Have a happy Thanksgiving!

this is one of the best threads ever!!!! at least to me since i hope to be doing the same thing next year. keep 'em coming!

andy b.

Beautiful pictures! I hope to be doing the same to a '38 DI EVENTUALLY, when I get some barn space where I can park it for a LOONG time. It will probably need completely disassembled. VERY low compression, etc.

This winter I plan on tearing apart a DLTX-3 carb from our '28 D to fix some issues.

Keep the updates coming!

Brandon

Are you not back yet? Where are the pics from Sunday that you promised?!? ...we're waiting!...

Just my little way of letting you know that I can't wait to see the next entry. I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving.

Steven

Sorry, Dont have any pics for ya today. We got back a little later then planned. I did get myself a new welder, (small mig for doing body work). I put that together last night and got it ready to use.

I did take the govenor apart though. The gear and weights are wore really bad, I ended up finding a local gun smith thats gonna bore through the weights and gear, build oversized pins a then put it back together. Waiting for the govenor is gonna slow the process up alittle, I'll just have to work on sheet metal for the first part of the week. I'll see what I do tonight and if they are worht it I'll update the thread with some pics.
Later
Rob

Monday 11/28/05

Did alot of little stuff last night, ya know those things you dont really plan on BUT burn up LOTS of time.
BUTTTT first heres a pic of my new "TOY" This purchase was WAYYYY overdue for me, as much body work as I do I should have bought one of these YEARS ago, it'll get used thats for sure.



Now back to the "D"
Radiator is in good shape but the WHOLE front, had had the fins pushed flat, sooo-

Dig out the needle noses and go to work!!


After 3 hours of this-

The Radiator looks like this!!



Tightened up the steering as well, it had "enough" slop here.


This piece of the govenor is off getting rebuild- weights and pins were wore BAD!! So they'll get bored out and oversize pins will be "pressed in"


Rest of the govenor is waiting, I highly doubt its looked this good or operated this smooth for AWHILE.

Put hot paint on manifold and got fan shaft cleaned up for reassembly with new bearings


Also did some more cleaning.



I have NO idea what I'm doing tonight. I'm waiting on the govenor, BIG hold up right now, I've got gaskets coming from deere for both bearing covers and the fan shaft- (different thickness gaskets that determine tolerances on bearings and gear backlash's)

I suppose theres always cleaning and tin work

Tuesday 11/29/05

Well I did some cleaning and tin work!

Fenders were in "fairly" nice shape, but it still all takes plenty of time. On the plus side I did get to use my new welder. The fenders had both been hit in the rear at some point and the sides had been broke, plus some one had made some holes to mount something by taking a punch and literlly beating it through the fender That made a mess!!!

I've got the "hammer" work done on these, I'll still have to do some "bondo-ing" after I blast them




I also finished the hood and made stencils of the ORIGINAL painted John Deere logo, I'm pretty sure they wont show in the pics because they're pretty hard to see in person, but you'll get the idea.



Tonights project revolves around the air stack. SOO I think I'll go to Wal-Mart with a tape measure and start looking for whatever comes in a 5inch can

Thursday 12/1/05

Forgot my volleyball league started this week, so I wont get much done on wednesday nights BUT I did have a fairly good night last night.

For a update I'm waiting on the govenor from the machine shop, hopefully I get a call today (12/2/05) thats its done.
I had to have some work done on the radiator tanks, where pieces had been broken off over the years ect. I get those back today so at least I can work on that tonight.

I got all my steering pieces back from the machine shop last night so I could at least start getting that together.


The steering is put together with rivets soo I had to heat them red hot and set them in place.


In this pic you can see the 1st one I peened over and I'm just tightening up the 2nd one before I start. Then I ran outa oxygen and have to finish it tonight any way!!


I had helpers last night as well, you gotta start them young.


I was going to install the front radiator necks BUT I forgot that this is the last piece to get tightened up when you install the radiator. I always have a can of black rustoleum spray paint to make sure I hit areas that otherwise might get missed when I paint. This way 1) it sticks out better and 2) if I do miss some at least the metal is protected and wont give up any nasty rust stains later.


The final project was the air intake.
Rember this?

Well here we go! Cut her apart and find some new tin.

Do some measuring and some cutting and ya got your new piece.

Do some tack welding ALOT of cussing (ever try to weld a pop can? it aint fun!)

I got it tacked into place really well and descided instead of trying to fully weld it I would just finish it off with JBWeld, which for this will work just fine.
NOW when people say "my air stack doesn't have those ridges" the reply can be "cause you dont have a FOLGERS can grafted in"

Monday should be ALOT of pics and Maybe a suprise or 2!

Saturday 12/03/05

Spent most of the day cleaning and arranging. Making a list of things to do and a order to do them in. I also prayed alot for the machinest to call about the govenor BUT he didn't so that kinda sucked. The rest of the day I finished sandblasting and some other small stuff that needed to be done. Everything is ready on the tractor for the govenor, once I get that back and installed the main part will be ready for paint.




I never blast the tin work real well WAYYY to easy to make it wavey from the heat the blasting produces, so I just take off the "big" chunks and then DA sand before bondo and painting.

Really nice tag on the old Donaldson air cleaner with a little polishing it looks pretty good.




Before we covered them up, we thought we should take some pics of damage from the past 75 years.
This is the nasty one!! My best guess here is that the drive chain broke and piled up between the gear and the case, SOMETHING had to give.




This ones not so bad, My guess here would be that someone hit something with the right front tire, because ALL the spokes on that side have been brazed back onto the cast hub.



This is hard to see and I dont know what would have done it BUT its on the primary cover about right between those 2 bolts.

Sunday 12/4/05

I built the radiator today, I had to fix 3 broken corners on the cast tanks and fit it all together, so I could drill 2 of the corners that had bolt holes in them. So I built and disassembled the radiator twice before I put it together for the final time. Looks nice, I'll tape off the black and paint again later when I do the whole tractor. This isn't the best pic, but I highly recommend not lifting one of these off by yourself!! This is where I ended up putting it and I was not about to lift it back up and move it again.



HMMMM whats going on here?


OH YEAH my favorite part is just around the corner!!


Things are starting to change color!! I like to do all the yellow I can BEFORE I start to shoot the green, so tonight I'll put the yellow on and let them sit for a day or 2 and then move them to another shed while I get the green laid down.
Have I ever mentioned "I HATE SPOKES!!"

Holy cow have I been slacken off-

12/5/05

Got the carb and mag back today (I did'nt get the bill because they said "they had not had time to figure it up" )
Not the orginal mag for the tractor (I did find a good orginal for $400!!) This one is a LATE mag- it actually is a Wico BUT the number shows that it was built AFTER prestolite bought out wico. But it works good and throws a nice spark (narrow, but nice).


The carb is done and is WAYYY better then it was, I have NO idea how this tractor ran before??
Everything and I mean everything was wore out, even the throttle plate was shot!!



I painted yellow, I would have to admit I was not looking forward to doing this BUTT John Deere must have changed the formulation on their yellow, Normally it would have taken me 6 coats (like on my 4320) to get this finish BUTT on these it only took 3 Which is just fine because those spokes weren't that much fun, at least they were flats on the rear.
I'll let these bake in the shop for 2 or 3 days, then I'll move them so they dont get over spray on them.






Of course theres always alittle overspray to clean up- alittle lacquer thinner on a rag and WALLA nice clean black tires.

Tuesday 12/6/05

Got the govenor gear back!!!!
Got the govenor back together and installed, and finished up all the "mechanical" work on the tractor.



The last few bolts!!


I had to take a pic of this before we put the oil in a closed her up, the wrist pins are held in by a set screw and tied off with a wire through a hole in piston. (picture kinda sucks, but you get the idea) Its a good thing these only turn about 800 R.P.M

Thursday 12/8/05

LLLOOOOONNNNNGGGG night last night.

Started by fixing the gas tank.
This is what it looked like before, and was soldered, pretty much from one end to the other. And that leaked.



First we smoothed off the old solder and then put the knipco heater on the tank (about 5 foot away actually)We use a two part epoxy that is petroleum product resistant and so far, we've used this stuff to fix a block on a 730 diesel we had, the bottom of the fuel tank on our 4620 and more I cant remember. We heat it to make the epoxy flow and smooth out nice. It takes 24 hours for this to dry and harden, after that we'll leak check it, fix if we have to and then I'll probably apply some bondo over it to make it look alittle better when painted.

Then it was time to start doing a final cleaning before paint. I swear I've been over this tractor 4 times BUT theres still some cleaning to do.


Shop FULL of parts, like dad said "I didn't know there was so many parts"
(if you look, theres another row of parts behind this one as well!!


The last time for another 75 years it will look like this!

STILLLL Thursday 12/8/05 PLUS
Friday 12/9/05 EARLY morning!!


Its finally come to this


It gets to cloudy for the picture taker, so I was left all alone ( ) in the shop till 1:30 to do this.








OOOHHHH man did this thing SOAK up the primer, this one was worse then the 820. It took 4 coats to get it like this.
It will paint nice though!!
Now you guys are gonna have to wonder whats gonna happen this weekend ALL weekend long
See ya monday!!

Saturday 12/10/05

Pics will pretty much speak for them selves!

There's a big sticker that goes here so I wanted to make sure all the dents where filled since this cover is just tin, otherwise the sticker would make the dents really show up.


Then it was time for some COLOR



Litttle by little the yellow disappears!



Until it looks like this.




Got done about before noon, turned the shop heat up to about 65 and let her bake. This is the primary coat of paint, I'll wet sand some rough stuff down and then we'll assemble and then It'll get 1 or 2 final coats that will be a little bit shinier then this. That coat will get wet sanded and buffed for the final finish.

Saturday 12/10/05 (Evening)

Since the paint was dry enough to work with it I decided to put some parts back on.






I installed the seat assembly, steering wheel and flywheel. Not a real big list but it takes awhile.

Sunday 12/11/05

We had to be gone for a college graduation (congrats Andrea!! ) So I didn't get to work on the "D" today.

BUT Dad was board so he came out and installed quite a bit.

He installed the Aircleaner, drawbar assembly, magneto mount plate, rear fender mounts and the throttle/spark adjuster/clutch lever assembly.





It's starting to look like a tractor again. (kinda, you gotta look pretty hard to see it )
Tonight I plan on installing the fan, and radiator, wet sand some and try to finish the putty work on the fenders, hood and gas tank, Possibly even prime them.
It just MIGHT end up being a late night.
But its getting down to the wire and this week is pretty crucial to getting it done, I figure by the end of next weekend it had better look like a tractor again, or we are in trouble

HOPEFULLY IT RUNS!!!

Monday 12/12/05

I didn't get as far as I wanted to last night but I did some touch up painting that I had not planned on.

I got the radiator installed.



The fan


Worked on the bottom of the gas tank. I'll leak test this tonight and either fix some leaks OR do some bondo-ing on it and finish it off.


I started to do putty work on the fenders. It looks like I used a ton, but Its actually spread thin, after I'm done there wont be hardly and of this left



Maybe tonight I can get the body work done, the tank, hood and air stack are easy, the rest of the fill in plates are ready now so all I have to do is concentrate on the fenders tonight.

Tuesday 12/13/05

Not much for pics today- lot of work with little results it seems

2nd time around with bondo on the worst of the 2 fenders, this should get me REALLY close to where I want this fender to be, after its sanded down.


Did some more hammer work on the hood, I was just not happy how the rolled edge looked on the hood its fine now.

Tuesday 12/13/05
I dont know what happened there BUT ohwell.

Apply alot and leave alittle!!


Air stack also got finished up last night.


Tonight- hopefully get both fenders and the hood done and primed.

Thursday 12/15/05

Final body work

Finished and ready for primer




finished the air stack last night, the top had been "smacked" down alittle right in the center, and theres no way to get there to hammer it back out, so I had to fill and shape it in as well as "blend-in" my patch job.


This fender only needs a little bit of work, inside had the typical dents that I'm trying to smooth out a little here.


UNLIKE THIS FENDER!!, It's really close to being done now BUT man I dont know what they ran through, between the fender and the tire BUT man did it make a mess of this fender, Its just beat all to HE double hockey sticks!! It almost looks like they had it stuck, wrapped a log chain on the tire for some traction and that went between the tire and fender.
BUTT this should be the final work on it. (I hope)

Friday 12/16/05

Getting pretty close to being done with the body work.

"DONE" pile ready for Primer.


"BAD" fender is done and ready for primer, the better fender is getting close to being done.


Smoothing out the patch job on the bottom of the tank. AND it did hold gas!!


Primed everthing and let it sit for the night.


Also finished polishing some of the brass parts

Saturday 12/17/05

Primer shows ALL your body work mistakes, so we wet sand and do a little more filling and prime again before paint.

Hood was not quite perfect (yet )


I had to test fit the right fender so I could fit and straighten the clutch cover tin work, which was in pretty bad shape



FINALLY THE BODY WORK IS DONE!!!!
Everthing is hung and ready for the 2nd coat of primer.



Went and ate dinner and took a break.
Came back and started wet sanding


FINALLY- COLOR!!




CRANK UP THE HEAT and walk away for the night

Sunday 12/18/05

Dad did finaly assembly while I was at my god childs birthday party, so when I got back mid-afternoon I could start sanding off the paint I just put on

I just love to wet sand-Dont you?? (600 grit "sand alot and do little)


Make a big mess dont I



After I got done with all that I blew it down and wiped the ENTIRE tractor clean with "wax and grease remover" and got ready for the final coat of green.

OHHHHH AHHHHHHH!!!







The priliminary scheldule is:
It should have wheels and the rest of the parts by the end of tonight, get started on tuesday, Sit on Wednesday, polished out and possibly decals on Thursday
CLEAN SHOP ON FRIDAY AND SATURDAY and get ready for the next project.

Monday 12/19/05

Got a little more of it back together last night.










Hopefully we can make it run tonight.

Excellent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have ebeen following your progress and you have done exceptionally well.

Wow!!!!!

What a beauty!

Thanks for posting all this!

Now you got me thinking about our '38 DI!!!!!!!!

Brandon

Tuesday 12/20/05

Hows the old saying go "One step forward-2 Steps back"- Yeah that about sums it up!!

It started right away with the carb- upon assembly the needle was put in wrong so I got no gas to the carb bowl.


Then the gas tank protested to being mounted on the tractor (I put gas in this thing and it held for a WHOLE **** DAY!!! )


Then we move on to the MAJOR TEMPER FLARING event of the night!!
HUH what the heck do we have here, OHH whats that you say 2 stuck intake valves!!!
I know WAYYY better then to not check things like this BUT what do ya do.


So After all this Heres were things actually go together!!

Tank is fixed and waiting touch up paint


We got the drivers platform together (not fun)


And the tractor actually has its whole front end back on!!

that's a shame about the valves.
the tractor looks beautiful though!!!!!!!!!

andy b.

Wednesday 12/21/05

ITS ALIVE!!!!

Got it to run last night-

Momma didn't raise no fool!! - I'm not going to whip this thing over by hand with a carb and ignition outa place!





Its runs good now-we'll see tonight how hard she starts by hand and if any more adjustments need to be made. IDLES really nice-rebuilt carb-rebuilt govenor probably helped that alittle.

Then she developed a coolant leak-



The top of the neck was corroded in a spot to make it JUST low enough to not get a good seal. We took the radiator off, filed the neck alittle to make it flatter, constructed a new "thicker" gasket and used silicone (black).
Its really fighting hard here- right at the end. IF I didn't know anybetter I'd say it wants to go back into storage!!
But its back together now-holds water and we fixed 2 other small leaks we had-
SOO tonight we'll run it again and then do final paint touch-ups.
Friday, It'll get polished out and stickered and then run outside for some pics, probably on Saturday morning.
My wife is also doing a scrapbook ( ) soo she has to have a day to finish that.

Bert,
Is that a 47 48 or 49 JD A outside your shed. Your project has been exceptional to follow. Please by all means do another one just like this with photos for us mechanically dysfuntional JD lovers.
Merry Christmas
Butch Gow

Butch

Thats my 51' "A" we belted up to the "D" I did a bare case-out restoration on that in 98-99. Did the motor up and used to do some pulling with it. It had no trouble flippen that "D" over at a idle . When the "D" started we shut it down and made the "D" work, that way we could get the load jet-set.

I have a 44' hand cranker (dads project) and a early 70 gas (both are in some pics at the bigging of this post) the "A" has the motor done and is ready for assembly and tin work. The 70 still needs to be finished being tore down and this will be a bare case-out restoration as well. Both of those are still this winter with a Super "M" overhaul in there somewhere.
I dont care if members of JP want me to I'd be glad to do some more.
Next year is probably gonna be my 51' "G" or MMAAAYYYBBBEEE our EARlY 4010 diesel (with some added M&W goodies )
Or a 80 I'm trying to get bought.
WHO KNOWS??

Thursday 12/22/05

CRUNCH TIME

It runs good and starts by hand now (dad had to retard the timing after it tried to start backwards on him)
Sprung a small leak that we fixed (Never had one this stuborn on final assembly)

final touchup painting and some buffing and decal installation





i'm gonna put a piece of paper inside that says "Grab Flywheel and Jerk Vigoursly"

Not to many gear choices here!! (it should say SLOW, SLOWER, SLOW BACKWARDS )


The good ole no frills oil gauge


Tonight We'll be done,(finally) I have to wetsand and buff the hood out and then install the stickers. We decided to make a new fuel line for it (old one was beat up and looked bad) I found a shorter gas bowl to install since this long one rubs on the fan shaft . And then It just needs a general cleaning before we run it outside on Saturday morning for Final Pics.

Friday 12/23/05

Wanted to get it running and warm up the coolant- the radiator core "seemed to be weeping a little" so we wanted to add some stop leak to it (which is also a anti corrosion adgent).

She starts by hand now!!


Warmed her up and added the stop leak.


Thats about enough for tonight.

Saturday 12/24/05

AHHHH my last and final log!!!

I finished buffing (some stuff was just not right enough for me yet)- and added the last decal before I cleaned it up and we could take some pics.



Used some measurements off the stencils I made earlier.

The final product

(it even got approval from the kid)


Left side

Front

Right side

Rear (looks crooked, but its sitting in the drain area of the shop floor)


The "Money" Shot


THE END

Beautiful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love it!!

I just wish it didn't have to end!

Thank you!

Brandon