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

Mon May 18 08:43:02 PDT 2020

 Funny I thought all 4020's had Detroit.  These guys owned about two dozen of them.  Had their own private repair shop run by one of the brothers. Their shop was better equipped than the local Dealer. They farmed land in Texas and Louisiana.
We were farming over 2000 acres of peanuts on land mostly rented from them. They farmed thousands of acres of rice.  All that has stopped.  Little rice and Peanuts farmed in the area.  Mostly Corn.  The rice driers and Peanut driers are all gone now. 

One of my first engineering jobs was designing optical rice sorters. There were many rice related business all over the Houston area.  No more.  I must have installed over 10,000 channels of rice sorters.

    On Monday, May 18, 2020, 9:39:16 AM CDT, Ken Knierim <ken.knierim at gmail.com> wrote:  

 I have also heard the 4020 spoken quite highly of. My Dad has 2 and they came to him in pieces (one was broke in half at the bell housing due to a loader, the other was called "speckles" because of the oil landing all over it when it ran). He got the factory manuals and went through them from end to end including the powershift. They are solid tractors that get a fair amount of use (though not the tractor-breaking tillage we did when I was growing up. Bowdoin clay might as well be concrete when its dry) and they aren't in the shop often. Once the kids (read: field mechanics that could keep everything sorta running) moved away he got the first green tractor and parked the wore-out Minneapolis hardware. He got the 2-piece special for "parts", then got the parts to fix it too (since it came with a cab). 

I had a LOT of hours cultivating corn with a 2-row setup on a hand-start '39 A when I was 11 and 12. I can't say I miss that beast; if I made the mistake of stalling it I wasn't strong enough to start it until I was about 16... and Dad was usually busy elsewhere. 

Oh, the memories. 

Ken in AZ

On Mon, May 18, 2020 at 7:08 AM Cecil Bearden <crbearden at copper.net> wrote:

A 4020 is the highest priced tractor for its age at all the Farm sales around here..
 Cecil

 On 5/18/2020 9:04 AM, Dean Vinson wrote:

Thomas, 4020s with Detroit Diesels?   Must have been after-market conversions.   And I’d wonder why.   Although I haven’t (yet) owned a 4020 I include them in my general sense of “hard to find a better engineered, better built…” etc.

Dean Vinson

Saint Paris, Ohio

From: AT [mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of ustonThomas Mehrkam
 Sent: Monday, May 18, 2020 6:48 AM
 To: Antique Tractor Email Discussion Group <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
 Subject: Re: [AT] Starter installation trick on the later two cylinder JD Tractors.

JD seems to have a following so they must have done something right over the years.  I have never owned one just observed some of the trials of neighbors.  We never had that much trouble on the other brands. Maybe the neighbors were just bad mechanics.

We had a big land owner that raised thousands of acres of rice. They had all JD.  4020's and such. Plus JD combines.  I drove the combines when they were in a pinch for a couple of summers.  I have no problem with the combines and the 4020 tractors.  Except they looked like a steam engine with all that black smoke coming out of the stack.  Boy those Detroit Diesels could scream and blow smoke.

On Sunday, May 17, 2020, 7:40:09 PM CDT, Dean Vinson <dean at vinsonfarm.net> wrote: 

I like pretty much all the old tractor makes, and have a red one, green one, and a newer (~1980) blue one, and all three get pretty regular use.   The green one is a 620, same model Dean VP was describing.    Difficult starter access aside, my guess is you’d have to hunt pretty hard to find a better engineered, better built, more reliable, tougher-down-to-the-last-breath series of tractors.

Not that I’d kick an Oliver 77 out of bed, so to speak.

Dean Vinson

Saint Paris Ohio

From: AT [mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of ustonThomas Mehrkam
 Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2020 10:38 AM
 To: Antique Tractor Email Discussion Group <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
 Subject: Re: [AT] Starter installation trick on the later two cylinder JD Tractors.

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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