Old School Greene #5

The final update- all caught up now with this installment.



Cleaned the gas tank surfaces up with Acetone,



Bolted it all together,



And filled 'er up with Redkote. Seems to have worked okay, although I think I should kept it moving longer. Have a couple of thick spots I can see, but I don't think they are so thick that I'll have pockets of liquid.



I let that mess dry for about 2 weeks.

Mounted the gas tank good and tight.



Flipped it over, and got it back on skids.



My cup was just a little off. Hard to see, but the weights just barely rub on the side of the cup.



Easy fix, just jammed a big screw driver down there and pushed the side out a little bit. No more rubbing!

Got some brass plugs for all of the holes...




With the exception of the fuel tank drain. Spaced that one, but it turns out an oil drain plug from your standard 3.5 horse Briggs and Stratton fits great! Little on the long side but it worked.



SO!!!



It runs! Need to tinker with timing a bit and then see if I can crank the speed down, make it run nice and slooooowwww....

Fast forward a bit to last week. I had a chance to tinker with the timing and de-crudify the governor tension knob. Now it runs smooth and slooooww, without the clickity clack of the missed fires. Will try and get another vid of that eventually. Still need to put the cover gasket on, and now I need to find an old dead garden tractor frame to mount it to.

Old School Greene #4

...TIME WARP a couple of years here...

Finally found something that will work for the oil screen. Only took me what, 2 years?



Anyone recognize it? Its a sink strainer, think its stainless and came from Walmart. Ole' John is probably rolling over in his grave right now...

It worked great though.



Working on a few other Deere projects but when they are done in the next week or two I'm planning on getting back on this project. Would like to get the thing running instead of being a paper weight.

Took a few measurements and spot welded the cup to the pan. Looks like it should work fine, although I need to bow one side out just a hair so the governor weights don't snag on it.



And in preparation for coating the tank, I painted the outside. Don't think it's technically the right color of John Deere Greene (?) but the tank will be mostly hidden under the engine between the skids. Eventually I'd like to clean the whole engine up and make it look new, but for now we'll just go with the patina.



Borrowed a tap to clean up some threads...



Looks a lot better.



Cleaned up the gasket surface and installed the new fuel line.



Back of the timing cover cleaned up.



Getting close! 

Old School Greene #3

Still working on getting all of this transferred and sorted out, so here is the latest installment.  

Blasted the tank and it seems to be useable. Couldn't find any pinholes. Going to buy some Red Kote and line the inside unless someone recommends a different product?





My package of parts showed up too. Seems like not very much for the price I paid... But I'm not complaining. Just glad there are still people out there that make parts for em!



Got a little more cleaning done. Still can't decide if I should leave it patina'd or clean it up and put some fresh paint on it.

Still waffling on the paint... Sounds like I've got one of the nicer original paint jobs out there, leaning towards leaving it original. Don't think that'll last, but its harder to un-restore them than it is to slap a coat of paint on it later.

Got a can of Red Kote to line the tank with. Started on a new oil pan today. Base was pretty simple.




The cup took a little more figuring, but I think this'll work. As you can tell, I don't know how to solder... It doesn't leak though!



Going to sit something like this.



Need to figure out a screen, then I can spot weld it on and should be good to go!

Old School Greene #2.

Continuing on!  We're still maybe a year back in the process here.

Got some parts ordered and they are on their way. In the meantime, might as well do a little cleaning, right?

Pulled the skids off the bottom. Have a pretty good oil leak somewhere too...



Drained the oil and tipped 'er over.



Not sure if this is supposed to be a freeze plug or if its sposed to be threaded for a pipe plug?



The piece you can see in the hole is loose and looks like it could have been a plug of some kind... Can't get it out either way at the moment.  (As it turns out, it was a rock...)

This should have prepared me.



But it wasn't enough of a warning.





That is some NASTY old junk in the tank...

At least the crankcase doesn't look too bad.



Did some cleaning. Tank *might* be made useable,



but the oil pan has some small issues. Dozens of them.



Think I can build a new pan pretty easily, cut the sump tank thingy off and spot weld it on to a new one.

The tank, I can buy a reman tank for about $60. The question is- do I get a metal one that doesn't look like the original (squared ends, made like a pan instead of drawn like this one), or a plastic one that looks identical to the original? Almost seems sacrilegeous putting plastic parts on this thing.  

Old School Greene #1.

So I've got his old John Deere stationary engine I've been working on very sporadically for the last couple of years. I finally have it to a point where it starts and runs, so I figured I would start (re)posting its story here with a little more detail.

About 2 years ago, my parents decided they were going to do some traveling / service work. As a result there was a bit of a binge de-junking. For some reason, anything made out of cast iron and coated in a healthy layer of rust somehow found its way 600 miles south to my place. This includes a '48 Dodge B1-B pickup that Great Grandpa bought brand new, bits and pieces of a hand crank forge, parts of an ooollllddd military surplus generator, and several other odds and ends. One of those odds was this:



It's a 1934 John Deere Model E, 1 1/2 horsepower hit and miss engine.

The following has been taken from several different posts in a couple different forums as I went through the engine and got things figured out.



From the initial inspection, it looks like it's had the magnets recharged and a broken... Sparker? fixed. Supposedly just needs to be put back in and it should run. Like that's EVER happened, but it'll be fun to tinker with.

Once I tinkered a bit with it, it seemed to be making power but from what I'd read it seemed somehow the timing inside the mag is off... Had to set the igniter and now it trips when its supposed to but there is a button on the side of the mag that is supposed to drop in at the same time. It drops 10 er 20 degrees after the igniter trips. Still researching that before I try re aligning gears.

Tinkered some more with it tonight and got it to actually run half decent!

Couple of questions though for thems that are in the know...

Seems like my spark may still be a little off. The magneto trips right where I think it's supposed too:



but the igniter doesnt trip until a few degrees later.



I've adjusted it as far as it can go but still pop up to catch on the igniter tab. Do I dare try filing a bit off of the tab to move it retard the timing more?

It seems to run okay but won't start unless I dump a bunch of gas in the igniter hole.



Another worry... Here's the inside after about a minute of run time.





I would have thought there would be a lot more oil sprayed all over the place?

Especially on the piston. Seems really dry on top.





Stay tuned for the next installment!