1941 John Deere HN - Investigating Cylinder Head and Engine Block Issues Part 2 of 2

Two days ago is where I left off on the previous blog. Yesterday I ground out the engine block crack. I used a carbide burr on an ancient dremel-type drill motor.

1941 John Deere HN - Investigating Cylinder Head and Engine Block Issues Part 1 of 2

As was shown in the previous blog, the engine block has a serious crack in it. The previous owner advertised that the head was cracked, and when I got the tractor going in the last blog, the right cylinder was also not firing so there are at least a couple things going on with this tractor. My current job is to see if the head is serviceable, and just make a general assessment of the engine.

Getting the head off is fairly straightforward, but a bit time-consuming. The carb has to come off, and the exhaust pipe needs to be disconnected. Then the valve cover and breather are next.

1941 John Deere HN Tractor - New Acquisition

I recently sold two tractors, a 1949 Ferguson TO-20 and a 1950 John Deere BN. So what do I do? Why, I surf the net for tractors, of course. My eye came across several potential candidates, an Allis Chalmers B and WD, and a Case VAI (industrial). I went on vacation for a couple weeks so I couldn't act on anything. While on vacation (floating around Norway on a cruise ship), an ad popped up on FB Marketplace for a John Deere. The ad said, "John Deere H tractor has cracked head." Here's the one and only photo from the ad.

1942 Oliver 60 Standard - Installing an Air Cleaner

Here's another job on the old 60 Std, installing the oil bath air cleaner I removed from the parts 60. This should have taken a fraction of the time it took to do, but this time it isn't the factory's fault (the other "long" job was putting on the radiator and nose shell (link here)). This 15-minute job took three hours. The reason this time is because the carburetor is not correct for the engine. The carb is close to being correct but the real issue is that the lever for the throttle plate is on the wrong side of the carburetor (it's on the side of the carb facing out and is supposed to be on the side of the carb facing the engine). A previous owner had jury-rigged a piece of all-thread as linkage from the governor lever to the throttle lever. The setup looks very much kludged together but it works well. The problem is, the left part of the all-thread is taking up real estate that the air cleaner needs to occupy.

Vintage Jaeger (British) Speedometer Repair

Don't ask me why I began working on this project because I really don't know. I guess it's the part of me that has the need to fiddle with things. This speedometer came in a box of stuff that came with a basket case Farmall C tractor I bought a while back. The speedometer obviously didn't belong with the tractor.

1942 Oliver 60 Standard - "New" Grilles and Radiator

It's been awhile since I did anything of significance on a tractor. Well, a few days ago I did get a guy's David Bradley garden tractor's engine running, but that doesn't really count. Today I decided to install an original Oliver radiator and grille halves on this tractor that I had gotten off somewhat of a parts tractor I'd bought six months ago. It should have been a simple process of swapping parts from one tractor to the other. Well, an hour job took four hours. The final product though is so nice.

New Wen Generator and Generator Cord Modification for Current Transformers

I got a new generator a week or so ago to replace my old faithful 325 pound 1973 Onan 5CCK 5kw behemoth. There are blog entries for the Onan if anyone wants to search for them. The new generator is a Wen DF680iX 6,800-surge / 5,100-rated watts on gasoline or 6,000-surge / 4,500-rated watts on propane. The plan is to only use propane so it has a 4,500 watt rated capacity. This is an inverter generator so it runs slower when little or no load is on it, making it fairly quiet.

Jupiter E-bike Flat Tire - Tube Repair

I suppose it was bound to happen. I got a flat tire on my e-bike. I don't really remember getting a flat tire on a bike in the past but I can't imagine it didn't happen. I went to Sequim with my wife a few days back (she had an appointment). I brought my e-bike to ride around while waiting and started out by riding on the Olympic Discovery Trail but there were more pedestrians than I liked so I decided to get off the trail and ride on one of the little-travelled roads.

There were hardly any cars and no pedestrians, so I was happy. After 5 miles into the ride I came across a couple of dogs on the other side of the street in a fenced yard barking at me. I was looking at them and then, "thud", I ran over something. I kept going for several seconds hoping I didn't get a flat but then I started hearing that dreaded sound of air escaping. Bummer, a hole in the back tire. First thing I tried to do was keep riding slowly but that didn't work so I stopped and looked to see how far I was from the car. Three miles. That's a bit of a hike pushing a bike with a flat.

John Deere Model E - New Cart Kit

This engine is heavy enough that it is difficult to move it around unless it has wheels under it. I looked around online and came across a universal cart kit for hit and miss engines on a website called Flywheel Supply. The kit came with four 8" diameter cast iron wheels, two cast rear axle supports, a front cast axle swivel bolster, and some U-bolts.

Belco Generator - Wisconsin Engine Gots No Compression

I picked up this generator almost five years ago and got it running back then with a bunch of minor repairs like carb and fuel tank cleaning, magneto points cleaning, and unsticking the exhaust valve. As is with a lot of things I buy and get working, this generator sat for the next four years without being run. I've decided to sell it so I dragged it out of the dark corner it has been sitting in, tried to start it, but it wasn't cooperating as there was no compression. A sad state of affairs.

1943 Dodge Weapon Carrier Starter Switch Repair/Replace

I've mentioned previously the funky starter switch these old Dodge trucks have. It is a long rod in the cab of the truck that you push with your foot. That action does two things, it engages the starter pinion gear to the engine ring gear on the flywheel, and also transmits voltage to the starter motor at the far end of the rod's downward travel. The switch has to pass hundreds of amps of current to the starter motor during this operation, so the contacts in the switch are necessarily beefy. But they still wear out. This first photo shows the starter rod with a long spring wrapped around it (center of photo).

1959 Volkswagen Deluxe - A Walk Down Memory Lane

What special event happened May 4th, 1959? I hadn't yet had my second birthday when this brand spankin' new little German car, a beige 1959 Volkswagen DeLuxe,, showed up in our driveway at Lake Sammamish. This photo was taken in June of 1960 when the car was a year old so I'd be around 2-1/2 then (a neighbor girl is in the photo with us three kids). Ain't that little car a beaut (what you can see of it)?

1950 John Deere BN - Rectify Timing Issues, Small Generator Issue, and Start/Run/Slow Idle Video

It has been awhile since I mentioned my JD BN. I've put a couple of videos on Youtube about fixing the timing of this tractor.

Swatch-Omega Speedmaster MoonSwatch 1965

I restrained myself on our recent trip to Europe. I didn't buy an expensive watch. I may have in the past given in to such excessive-ness but this time I didn't. I should get at least a half of a brownie point for that. Notice though that I didn't say that I didn't buy a watch, because I did. It's a bit different than your normal watch. It is a Swatch brand quartz chronograph styled after the famous Omega Speedmaster Professional "moon watch", which is a hand-wind mechanical chronograph that was the first watch worn on the moon back in 1969. Swatch calls this the Speedmaster MoonSwatch. This first photo is not of my watch but is something I grabbed from the Swatch website (I'm sure they don't mind). My phone doesn't take photos this good.

1973 Onan 5CCK 5kw Generator - Why Don't You Start?

I bought this 1973 Onan 5CCK 5kw 120/240 volt generator January of 2020, right before Covid hit (I also have an old, loud Generac 120/240v 5kw generator from the 90's but got on the Onan 5CCK kick in 2019). I use this Onan when the power goes out. It's not terribly fuel efficient so if I don't need to run the 240v well pump, I can get away with using my Pulsar 2kw 120-only inverter generator to run the house if I switch off all 240 volt circuit breakers and make sure the two laser printers in the office are turned off (they take a ton of wattage when they first come on).

Anyway, it's probably been two or three years since I started up the Onan 5CCK so I figured today was the day. It managed to cough to life after several tries with the starter button and ran for a minute or so but then started missing and finally died. I don't have a recent photo of it but the below one is shortly after I first got it. I added the little grey box on the side of the switch panel, which shows volts/amps/hertz of each 120v leg.

Jupiter Discovery X5 E-bike - Adding Onboard Power Circuit to Tail Light

Something a little odd with this bike is that the rear tail light runs off a 3 volt button cell rather than from the bike's main battery like the headlight does. I wanted to rectify this situation so I bought what's called a DC-DC Buck Converter, or Step-Down Converter. It will take nominal 40 volt bike battery voltage and step it down to pretty much anything you'd like. In this case it will step down to 3 volts (or 12 volts as you will notice further down the blog). Here's a photo of the converter that I found on Amazon ($9 for two). The small rectangular blue thing is an adjustable potentiometer which is used to adjust the output voltage.

Oliver 60 - Straightening Radiator Grilles and Nameplate

The grilles and radiator shroud are in OK condition but I really do need to try and straighten things out as much as possible.

1945 Oliver 60 Row Crop Tractor - New Acquisition

Yet another tractor followed me home, or that's the story us tractor hoarders always want everyone to think. I do acknowledge I'm the problem. That's the first step, or so they say. And to be fair, this tractor is just a stepping stone to bigger and better things.

This new tractor is a 60 Row Crop, meaning it has adjustable wheel width spacing for planting and cultivating crops planted in rows. The back story of this purchase is this. I needed some parts for my 1942 Oliver 60 Standard, things like grille halves, the all-important Oliver grille nameplate, oil bath air cleaner, correct carburetor, and a couple other little tidbits. I had contacted someone on Facebook in an Oliver tractor forum and he said he should have all the parts. I asked for photos and prices on what he had. Well, he just kept stringing me along for over a month, giving one excuse after another (including losing my messages - how does someone lose messages that are stored on Facebook Messenger?). The worst part was, during this time he kept putting up postings on the forum of other tractor parts for sale, so he certainly had time to do things he wanted to do. In the end however, it was all for the best, as this 1945 Oliver tractor popped up on Facebook Marketplace for $550, I'm guessing a number not too far off from what the Facebook guy probably would have wanted for the few parts I'd asked for.

Costco Jupiter Discovery X5 E-bike Battery Replacement

We bought two of these e-bikes from Costco in April of 2021 to take with us when we went camping in our truck camper. The bikes are 36 volts with a 350 watt motor, so no speed demons, but they would fold in half and fit in the back seat area of our F350 crew cab without too much trouble. One little hiccup, when the pandemic hit in 2020, everyone and their brother went out and bought an RV, so by 2022 all the campgrounds got overcrowded and difficult to get reservations. We ended up selling our camper in May of 2023 but kept the bikes.

1942 Oliver 60 Standard - Seat Repair

The wood seat bottom on the tractor has seen better days, and the first photo says it all. The vinyl looks great but the plywood base is rotting away to nothingness. Whenever the tractor is running, detrious flows out from under the seat. And by the way, the steel seat frame and square steel plate aren't original to the tractor.