[AT] Starter installation trick on the later two cylinder JD Tractors.

Sun May 17 07:38:02 PDT 2020

 Why do you guys LOVE those pain in the ass John Deer tractors so much.  I have owned international, Massey Harris, Massey Ferguson, Oliver and Miniapalious Moline tractors. All were acceptable. All of those tractors still run. :-}

There was always a lot of Cussing, Wrench Throwing, Pulling etc from the JD owners. :-}   

Now I did it and insulted your Religion. :-}

    On Sunday, May 17, 2020, 2:46:43 AM CDT, deanvp at att.net <deanvp at att.net> wrote:  

 I just went through a few days of hassle that caused me to remove/reinstall
the starter on my 1958 JD 620 high Clearance tractor. There is an
abbreviation for this procedure called a complete PITA unless you know a
trick I knew at one time and had completely forgotten about. My situation
was compounded by a 10" shorter battery cable than what is supposed to be
installed. Mine was 54", the std is 64" that makes it a triple PITA.  I am
referring to all the late Two Cylinder tractors, letter and numbered series,
that have the starter inside a cast cavity in the underside of the main
case. The battery cable is fed to an anodized copper semi-ridged ribbon the
connects to the starter switch mounted on the starter. To use the proper
terminology on a JD 620 it is called a cranking motor. To pull the started
one is supposed to disconnect the battery cable from this copper ribbon
before trying to remove the starter.  Well folks unless all the planets are
in alignment and the nut that needs to be loosened is oriented such that you
can get to it between the flywheel and the main case there is no way in hell
that is going to happen.  Well, unless as JD very casually mentions that the
flywheel may need to be removed. That is not a casual decision.  So if you
have to remove the starter with the cable still attached, the battery cable
needs to be worked forward and downward to provide enough slack to slide the
starter out of the cavity so one can get to the nut that holds the battery
cable to the copper ribbon.  That in itself can be difficult. But now lets
say you are ready to reinstall the starter with the cable attached removing
the slack at the starter in inserted into the round hole in the main
casting. Here come the trick that will save you all kinds of grief and time.
As you slide the starter cone into the hole you will all of a sudden hit a
dead stop and are unable to get the starter further into the hole. 

What you will discover is either the copper ribbon and bolt/nut tied to the
battery cable is hitting the casting or the lever that actuates the button
on the starter switch is hitting the cavity hole casting or both. The
cable/copper ribbon and the starter switch lever go through an oblong
horizontal  hole above the hole the starter goes into. So one comes to the
conclusion that somehow the battery cable/copper ribbon is bent to go
through that hole and then somehow pry the switch lever up high enough to
get thought the upper hole.  I can assure you that just plain doesn't work.
BTW, this is all hidden behind the flywheel. But what completely fools you
is the starter can be raised another 1/2" or more in its hole because the
whole cone isn't in yet and the lever simply slides over the interference
and all is cool, I will guarantee you will convince yourself that the
starter can't go higher because it is in a tight hole.  Wrong it will go
higher. I used a floor jack to get the starter up close to the cavity and
tiled the starter to get it started in the hole and then carefully found the
center of gravity of the starter and lifted that whole sucker up the extra
half inch or so and boom the lever and cable/copper ribbon fall into place
by taking the slack out. Once I did it the right way I realized I had been
here before but probably 20 years ago. And then all the lights started
blinking.  This trick will save you hours of frustration and heartache.  

I also changed the cable to a longer version even longer than standard
version. I went to 72" rather than the std 64"  I wanted more wiggle room.
I never could really firmly establish whether the original cable size  was
2/0 or 1/0 from the factory but since there are places where the cable goes
though that are tight fits the OD of the cable cannot be much over 0.5" I
went out cable hunting at all the local Auto Parts stores as well as Napa.
I found out there is a bunch of different cables out there with varying
thickness of insulation. None fit my requirement until I found some 1/0
Welding cable. That fit four requirements. High current carrying capability,
OD wasn't too big, the cable was reasonably flexible and it was less
expensive than anything else I had looked at. Now where do you get that
stuff? Of course at a welding supply store except the closest one for me is
a bit of a hike so I went to a "Batteries Plus" dealer. Sure enough had
exactly what I needed. Cable cut to length. 

So I hope this might save you some time and grief you when you work on the
late letter series and numbered series Two Cylinder JD starter issues. 

BTW, the thing that caused me to remove the starter to begin with was a
complete misdiagnosis on my part.  !@#$%^&*(  Starter went dead. Made the
assumption the starter switch had gone bad because I knew I had a good
battery and 12 Volts at the starter switch.  The real problem was I had a
resistive ground between the battery cable and the battery box and then to
top it off an even more resistive ground (15K ohms) between the battery box
and the rest of the tractor.  Now why did this all seem to happen when I
thought I was going to go to a plowing day .    I Power Washed the tractor
which I hadn't done in a long time. Rust developed immediately where it
doesn't belong.  So the moral of this story is to never wash your tractor.

Dean VP
Snohomish, WA 98290

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