John Deere Greene but a little bigger than normal!

So dorkpunch joins the major leagues...



This is a 1955 John Deere 60. It came with the house we bought and theoretically ran, but had been parked a year or two before and sat since. The nieces and nephews thought it was the best playground equipment in the world! The feller in the pic is who we largely have to blame for my engine addiction... He taught me everything I know over several summers spent working at his shop. He also has a thing for Deere's.





So I got it running, but... Watch the video. Right at the 33 second mark.



COVERED everything within about 20 feet in hydro fluid. Luckily all I needed was a shower, but I usually need those anyways so...

Don't have to worry about the rust getting any worse for a while either.



Took some doing, but it RUNS AND DRIVES! Had battery issues at first, then I couldn't get the clutch to disengage so I had to pop the cover off, loosen the 3 adjusting nuts almost all the way off, and let it smoke a bit. 10 lbs of crud and rust came out from under the cover. Blech. Got some air in that flat tire, figured out how the blinking shifter works, and viola!



And the first drive!





Took me 2 weeks of tinkering on it here and there for 5 minutes at a time between other projects.  Mostly because I had to sit and wait for the battery to charge, again.

It has a looonggg ways to go.  This poor thing has been used like you would expect a 60 year old tractor to be used.  The loader is terrifying, the cable pulleys are all about ready to pop off.  If that were to happen, the cable that sits right behind my head would suddenly and rapidly move forwards... Not pleasant to think about.  Hey!  One more thing to add to the list...