The Finished Product

The last and most important thing you want to do on the tractor is install all the painted parts and the famous John Deere decals. When installing the parts you want to make sure that you don’t scratch the paint because of you do then you would have to do touch-ups. While you    are finishing the assembly look over the tractor and say to yourself wow this looks damn good. It’s now time to do the final step. It’s time to put on the decals. Before sticking them on make sure that the surface is clean and clear of any dirt and trash. If it is dirty it will create air bubbles and look really shitty when you are done. Now that the tractor is complete it is show ready and looking good. The best part about restoring a tractor is knowing that you have accomplished something amazing and that all that hard work paid off. Since you are done, it is now a collector’s item and it will  be good in parades and lots of antique tractor shows.

Paint and Primer

Although all the mechanical problems are fixed and sound, it is now time for the sandblasting, priming, and painting of the tractor. Before you can sandblast it, you have to make sure you have every possible open hole on the tractor closed in order to keep the sand out of the engine and transmission housings. If you get any sand in the engine it will ruin the gears and bearings surfaces causing you to damage the tractor.  Once that is done it is time to sandblast and always wear protective gear so you don’t get hurt by the sand. After you are finished you are going to wipe the tractor down to get excessive sand off before you spray the primer on the tractor and wheels. Now that the tractor is ready you can begin applying primer, you want to spray it with a pale yellow primer that way you don’t have to worry about it bleeding through the bright green paint. After you have the primer on the tractor it is time to spray it with that iconic John Deere green and yellow paint. Before putting the paint in the gun you want to add a sight ounce can of hardner to one gallon of paint. Then you need to add a little paint thinner to the paint so it will give it that streak free shine and make it look like a perfect show tractor. After the paint is dry it will be ready to reassemble and install the decals on the beautiful show tractor.

Engine and Transmission Rebuild

Now that the tractor is town all the way down to the engine and transmission housings, I can now start tearing the two of them apart. Before I can tear into it I have to take the tires off and remove the rear hubs from the shafts. The next thing I have to get is my engine jack and jack stands. Now I am ready to get started. As I tear into the engine I noticed that the pistons had gotten water in there and that the block needed to be re-bored  out and new pistons and rings put in. After I removed that it was time to remove to flywheel and clutch. After a lot of heavy lifting I finally got them both off. After hours of work the engine is completely torn down and it is now time to work on the transmission. The transmission is the main function in order to make the tractor move forward and backwards, so in the transmission there are a lot of gears and bearings along with oil. As I am tearing it down you have to watch out so you do not hurt yourself by pinching your fingers. After I had everything tore down and cleaned up, it was time to reassemble the engine and transmission. Since I had everything at home I was able to rebuild the engine and transmission within a week and reassemble the two. With this all done it is time to sandblast, prime, and paint this classic 1952 John Deere 60 tractor. 

Tear Down of the 60

Now that I have the engine free and turned over, I can begin the process of trying to get it started. As I am working on the tractor I begin to replace the plugs since the others were rusted. Once I finished that process up I put a new battery in the tractor and tried to crank it but it was no good. I didn't know what was wrong, so I checked the starter. If I didn't want to restore the tractor to its original condition I would've had the starter rebuilt right away. Since that was the least if my worries I started the initial tear down of the tractor. After hours and hours of working on the tractor I finally had it torn down to the main engine and transmission housings. But there is just one thing that I had not removed yet and it was the three-hundred pound radiator that sits in the front of the tractor then I talked to my buddy about helping me get it out because of it being so heavy and he told me “Why don’t you just use a cherry picker to pull it out?” “I don’t have one,” I replied. “I have one at home,” replied my buddy. My buddy agreed to me borrowing his cherry picker. Then my buddy left to get it while I took the main bolts that held it in place. Once we got it out the tractor was ready for the engine and transmission to be started on.

The Beginning

How many of you have heard about restoring a tractor? A few that I know of. I am going to explain the process of finding a tractor, tearing it down and doing all transmission and engine repairs, sandblasting, and prime and paint. When I look for a tractor I try to find one that is in beyond terrible condition and bring it back to life, I'll start by pulling this tractor into my shop so I can get a idea on what I need to do to make this piece of junk looking beautiful again. The tractor I'm going to restore is a 1952 John Deere model 60 tractor and this tractor has been in my family for 43 years. Since my dad passed in 2002 this tractor has been sitting outside in the elements just rusting away. The first thing I did was put brand new tires on it so I could get it into the shop. When I start tearing it down I first pull the hoods off and set up a dummy fuel tank so I can try to get it running. I try to pull on the fly-wheel a couple of times; therefore the engine takes flight and begins to run. Then I get out a chain and a pry-bar to try and break it free but still nothing.