my neighbor aquired a inoperative John Deere back hoe. I got it where it can be driven but no bucket/loader action yet. Reading the books last night I think i can get it going. He will be very happy. He got a good deal on it as the prev. 3 owners had given up.
There is some ingenious things they did even in the early 70’s. A lot of people can not fathom a person that would be intrigued by figuring this stuff out.
I think what happened is water got in there and collected a lot of krap which plugged the intake screen to the main xmission pump, seems no one had ever taken it out. the other thing is i think they removed a relief valve thinking it was a drain and the spring/plunger etc. all blew out on the ground but this allows xmission press. which primes main system pump to return to xmission pump intake.
it’ll be neat if i can get it all working. my good deed for the month or so.
If you need to look up parts, or see what you might be missing, go to www.Deere.com scroll down to and click on an icon of a shopping cart labeled “buy parts”, and you should see a page where you can enter your model and next choose what type of machine you have. (Deere has used the same model numbers over the years for different machines). Have your serial number, as some machines and their parts have undergone revisions over the years.
Am a partner in a farm my grandfolks owned. They were strictly John Deere for many years. Then went to Ford tractors because of parts and other things. The latest tractor we all pitched in with is a killer Kubota. My brother who does pile driving has gone to that brand as well. Sometimes you have to go with the best product available and parts chain to maintain them. Deere lately does not allow you to fix the big stuff on your own without their “Assistance” a frigging shame on them that is getting a bit of attention from our most competent congressmen, which are quite few.
boats; yes, JD is sort of like CAT, they still make those, cat in particular goes way back to the thirties keeping common parts on hand.
Sea Eagle: the resale value of the 80’s common Deere farm/ranch tractors remains incredibly high. During harvest we see JD dealer service trucks hauling ass somewhere while some rancher is sweating out trying to get hay baled before it rains … potatoes out of the ground etc. etc.
aboard ship we of course had all the computer bs to locate the culprit but the average tractor jock hasn’t got that nor the time to learn it. Incredibly complicated for the average guy to save a few gallons of diesel, It isn’t worth it but one day they’ll swath 60 acres on a quart of fuel, the intervening generations have to plow ahead … keeping a prior generation of equipment at hand is probably cheaper in the long run.
sea eagle: kubota is one tuff tractor. I don’t know what competition is like with the development process in china but it is a safe assumption equipment takes a lot of punishment over there. Kubota seems to use a lot of iron in the front end, drive system, places you’d expect breakage to occur.
Though I don’t see Kubota stuff often, what I have seen indicates they have thus far not gotten too far gone with computer control systems and such. in certain places I’ve seen our ‘‘modern’’ cars Totally converted to ‘retro’, africa and south america come to mind !! It is increasingly difficult to retro some of the new stuff though. I was looking at a 900 series cat loader that had caught fire … keerimany !!, the engine looked intact, new tires and drive train ok but the cab, instruments, computers, all the wires, fiberglass, , what a mess ! but if you could just get it to run and drive it’d be worth probably $30K or something, but what a mess.
I had a small farm about 30 years ago when I was youngish. I needed a tractor so I bought a Fordson Major, vintage early 1950s. What a beast. The rear tyres were about 6 foot in diameter. It had a front end loader bucket and a massive concrete counter weight at the back. It was not very practical as a farm tractor but I found a good use for it in digging out tree stumps. I was advised by old hands that this size of tractor ban be dangerous and if I got into trouble while driving on a hill to drop the bucket immediately to try to stabilise the tractor. I never had this kind of trouble in the three years I owned it. I sold it to a neighbour and gave him the same advice that I had received but he must have got careless as I heard a while later that one of his sons was badly injured in this tractor.
several times i’ve saved my butt by dropping a load. the last time ironically enough was on a kubota. that tractor is still arouind here working well. not much flat ground here!