OT. John Deere model D.

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Model T Ford Forum: Forum 2012: OT. John Deere model D.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Dexter Doucet on Thursday, May 03, 2012 - 10:29 pm:

My favorite vintage tractor built for 30 years starting in the early 20's. 501 cubic inch two cylinder engine. To keep this Ford related I read on wiki the guy who desiged this tractor was the father of one of the engineers of the Ford Mustang.
Anybody have stories about the model D?


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Bob Gruber- Spanaway, Wash. on Thursday, May 03, 2012 - 10:42 pm:

That baby must have about a 7 or 8 inch bore and stroke.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Craig Anderson, central Wisconsin on Thursday, May 03, 2012 - 11:30 pm:

6 3/4 × 7" to be exact.......same as the 18-36 Hart Parr....... :-)


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Bob Gruber- Spanaway, Wash. on Thursday, May 03, 2012 - 11:33 pm:

WOW!
A piston as big as your head.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Terry Woods, Katy, Texas on Thursday, May 03, 2012 - 11:39 pm:

There's nothing like a "Johnny Popper".


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Aaron Griffey, Hayward Ca. on Thursday, May 03, 2012 - 11:52 pm:

There were a few D's around where we lived in Wisconsin in the 40's and early 50's.
I did not know they had such a huge engine.
I don't remember any being used after the late fifties.
There was also a GP but I don't think near as many as the D in our part of the world (western Wisconsin).
We called the D's the Dear Johns, the B was the Poppin Johnny and the A was never to be made fun of.
I heard many times the D was the first tractor to replace the horse teams for heavy work but the Ford 8N came along later and totally replaced the horses.
It was great for cultivating and any other light job as well as plowing where as the D and such tractors just sat after the plowing, disking and dragging was done and the horses were used to seed, cultivate, mow, rake hay and pull the wagons in front of the hay loader as well as pull the grain binder and harvest wagons..The Ford could do all of that without using much fuel.
I think the only tractors I have never driven were the D and GP John Deeres. By the time I was old enough they were not being used any longer.
I liked the Oliver 70 and 80 but the Case DC was my favorite. I never worked with a VAC Case but I used an SC a lot. The DC had a nice sound to it and steered & handled easily.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By J Berch on Friday, May 04, 2012 - 12:57 am:

Aaron, I had 2 DC Cases. a 49 and a 52. They were a good old tractor. They'd do a lot of work and not use a lot of fuel. As I remember, Wide open throttle, governed, of course, was just a little over 1100 RPM. I honestly think, if a person took good care of one, they would be impossible to wear out.
They referred to their steering as "Quick Dodge" and they steered very easily. Growing up, we had a VAC Case as well as some more modern tractors. The VAC was a wide front with the Eagle Hitch. It was our chore tractor and never failed.

The John Deere's were a horse but they were gas hogs. A B John Deere would burn 4 gallon an hour pulling a 2 bottom plow where a DC Case would burn 3 pulling a 3 bottom plow.

There weren't many D John Deere's in central Iowa either. We always referred to them as "Wheat land Tractors" or "Standard Tread" tractors. They were more popular in the west in the wheat regions and not popular in the row crop areas of the midwest.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Robert G. Hester Jr., Riverview, FL on Friday, May 04, 2012 - 01:48 am:

The model D John Deere with it's 501 cid engine can work all day, pulling heavy loads in the hot sun, at speeds of less than 5 mph, without over heating. It can do this without a water pump.

Just thought I'd throw that in for you guys who think T Models need water pumps. :-) :-)


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Craig Anderson, central Wisconsin on Friday, May 04, 2012 - 02:04 am:

Yes but a JD D has 13 gallons of coolant, a HUGE radiator and a fan that moves air like a tornado....... :-)


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Gordon Byers - Rangely CO on Friday, May 04, 2012 - 08:14 am:

And you only forgot to shut it down on gas one time!! Took a lot of spins on the flywheel to get the diesel dried out and the plugs firing! Even with the petcocks open it had a lot of compression to overcome. :-)


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Mack Cole ---- Earth on Friday, May 04, 2012 - 01:52 pm:

I had a Vac for a while.
My dad uses a DE Case power unit for the sawmill.Same engine as the DC tractor.
And we have a 300 Case here as well.So I grew up with Case.
I have been helping fix a B John Deere the past couple months.Started out as replaceing the cracked cylinder head.Turned into new rings,rod inserts,new exhaust manifold,and new studs for it and the valves.John Deere will be glad to sell you alot of the parts for them.But the 4 studs for the exhaust manifold,would only cost you about 130 after shipping.We got some from MSC for less than 30 after shipping.
Gasktets,Head gasket only from Deere,68 bucks then tax and shipping.We got the Felpro part number,25 at Advance Auto parts.Yep,If you have parts numbers ,and get with a good employee,they can order parts for ye.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Dexter Doucet on Friday, May 04, 2012 - 08:12 pm:

Glad to read the stories and learn new things.

Got to looking online and a Later model D's are available for 2500$ or so. The earlier ones are pricey, no surprise there.

Anybody else got some related stories? Good reading about other old tractors too.

I have 30 year old footage of a D running a saw mill at an old engine show. I'm in the footage as a 7 yr. Old. My father filmed it. Wish I had skills to put it on YouTube. I got a friend who can help me. Just need to figure what he might need me for. :-)


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Craig Anderson, central Wisconsin on Friday, May 04, 2012 - 08:30 pm:

I had a '27 D and a '43 D.
I subsoiled my Dad's 8 acre field with the '43 pulling a JD #15 single tooth subsoiler which went about 2' into the ground.
If you are going to work a D you'd better be close to a gas station but they sure sound mean....... :-)


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Dexter Doucet on Friday, May 04, 2012 - 09:12 pm:

I love the way they sound. Probably my favorite engine to listen to with model T's and model A's being a close second and third..:-).
My father used to say (jest) a model D would stretch chain if the load were in a bind. I suppose many other tractors of the late D era had as much power.

Any model D's sold new in Oz or New Zealand?


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Aaron Griffey, Hayward Ca. on Saturday, May 05, 2012 - 02:08 am:

There were two problems with case tractors that you had to stay awake for.
The Dc would not let you make a left turn at the end of the field if you got too close to the fence. the steering arm would stick waaay out on a hard turn and catch the fence, I think it was the left turn.
the other thing is that if you had a DC for heavy work and an SC for lighter work when spring plowing came and you had been using the SC all winter the damned DC had the clutch lever on the other side and you could run into trouble while trying to find the hand clutch.
That got me into a couple of fences.
I loved the sound of that DC. It was a very slow RPM motor and it may have been 1100 RPMs but I think an A john Deere was 700 and a B 900RPM's.
But John Deeres had very large pistons.
I did not remember that John Deeres used more fuel than a Case, or any other tractor.
When I was in high school I lived and worked on a farm that tried out a Fordson Major diesle. Wow! Talk about a fuel miser.
I was never too impressed with that British marvel but I was very impressed at how long it would run on a tank of fuel.
As I recall the gas tractor would use the same amout of fuel by 11 AM that the diesle would use untill 2 PM. And I don't remember what the owner's gas tractor was, maybe a VAC Case even though I posted earlier that I never drove one..
Funny how I used it for several months and can't remember what it was.
I also did a lot of work with an Allis Chalmers WD. That was a great tractor when it first came out with the live power take-off and the backwards hand clutch. Pushing the foot clutch stopped everything but when you pushed the hand clutch only the wheels stopped turning. The power take-off kept going.
It was the only tractor that worked well with the Allis hay baler. The baler required you to stop feeding in hay when it was tieing the bale. So just before every bale came out you had to stop forward motion but leave the baler running.
I remember a guy who did custom work for hire with a DC that had it souped up a bunch.
I don't remember what was done to it but I know he ran it at a much higher RPM than it was supposed to be run and it stayed together at the marvel of a lot of farmers. I want to say it had a supercharger too but it was so many years ago and I was never interested in things I knew I could never do.
I do remember when we tried out (my Dad) a DC and a Farmal M at the same time.
The job we were doing with the two tractors required 4th gear on the M (5th was road gear).. The Case would just run away from the M. We didn't buy either one. Got used John Deere A instead to replace our tired Oliver 70. We had two John Deeres then. An A and a B.
A neighbor bought the DC and an SC and I often worked for them.
On our 200 acre mixed farming place in western Wisconsin My dad first had a fordson, then a new 9N which he used hard for 9 years, then a WC Allis Chalmers, then an Oliver 70, later a B John Deere was added and kept the Oliver.
Then traded the Oliver for an A John Deere.
A nice thing about having two John Deeres at once was that they were similar in the controls department.


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