Tractor heritage, news and features

Last of the big twins

Modern corporations spend millions on what they like to call their ‘corporate image’, getting their logo and public face just right. Waste of time or a vital tool of competition? Who knows, the only thing I’m sure of is that we the customers end up paying for it in the retail price, whether the product is a tractor or a telephone.

But when it comes to the internal combustion engine, sometimes there’s no need for all this marketing waffle – that’s if a certain company becomes associated with a certain engine layout. Harley-Davidson is so strongly identified with the V-twin that these days they daren’t make anything else. For years, VW built nothing but
air-cooled flat-fours, while Porsche’s heart still lies with the flat-six, whatever else they might make now.

When it comes to tractors, there’s really only one contender – John Deere. For over 40 years, from 1914 to 1960, Deere was loyal to the parallel twin-cylinder layout that earned it wide admiration, the nickname Johnny Popper, and a couple of generations of loyal fans.

While rival US manufacturers switched to fours and sixes, Deere stuck to the twin, but this apparently outmoded engine didn’t seem to do them any harm. Its low-speed lugging ability and fuel efficiency became legendary, and JD was canny enough to update the rest of the tractor around it.

But by the mid-1950s, it was clear that even Johnny Popper was nearing the end of his life, and the company set about designing an all-new range of fours and sixes to replace him. In the meantime, the old twins soldiered on, and the 830 on these pages is one of the very last, built in 1959, just months before the new generation took over.

“I’d often seen the two-cylinder John Deeres about,” says Mark Dowding, “and liked the look of them.” Mark runs a 250-acre dairy farm in Somerset with wife Wendy, and his classic tractor history includes the usual suspects – Fordson Major and Standard, David Brown Cropmaster – but there was something about the big John Deere that appealed.

Get that pony trotting

It was of course a recent US import, as the 830 was never, to the best of my knowledge, officially sold over here. Dave Corbin in Dorset brought it over in the 1990s, but hadn’t done much with it. In fact, according to Mark, the tractor needed quite a bit of work. It was original, and much of the paintwork had gone, though the rust was only surface, with the actual tinwork intact. According to the tractormeter, the 830 had done around 8000 hours, which if it was accurate meant the whole tractor shouldn’t have been completely worn out.

Mind you, it had to be bump started! These early John Deere diesels used a V4 pony engine to pre-heat the main diesel. A 24-volt electric start was optional later on, and Mark reckons that the production split was about 50/50. Mark’s tractor is pony-equipped, but the auxiliary motor didn’t work. Nor did the clutch, which must have made those bump starts interesting, not to mention the fact that it could only be driven in one gear. Still, once it was running, the main engine seemed fine, so a few days before Christmas 2005, Mark hauled the tractor home.

First job was to get the pony engine and clutch sorted out, which would make the JD much easier to deal with. Mark actually got the pony running by Christmas Eve, having found that one of its two ignition coils was playing up. Smarts Agricultural Services at Piddlehinton, down in Dorset, had a suitable replacement, and would also come up with an ammeter, regulator and sealed beam headlights. The pony also needed a new carburettor jet, but Mark’s friend Brian Jones helped out there. Brian is one of those kind and useful friends who has a lathe, and he actually made a new jet, not to mention a pin and bush for the clutch lever.

So, a working pony engine that could now be left alone? Er, no – Mark ended up having to remove it three times. The first was to check it over and get it working, the second was to paint it and the third to repair an oil leak – it wasn’t serious, but was one of those awkward to get at jobs that necessitated hauling the whole engine out again to do it. The pony is all fine now, oil-tight and sounding sweet as the proverbial nut, but it was quite a saga to get there, especially as this ‘small’ engine weighs 100 kilos, so lifting it in and out isn’t to be taken lightly, if you’ll excuse the pun.

Still, one advantage of having the pony engine out was that Mark was able to take a good look at the main unit, all 7.7 litres of it. “With the pony engine removed, I could see that it all looked as new, confirming that it had been overhauled not too long ago. I did have a look inside, and the bores and pistons were all like new.”

A few oil seals had to be replaced, and new ones were found by John Baker Engineering, a local firm in south Somerset. Apart from those, the only other work the diesel needed was new oil and filters. You might think that a John Deere 830 oil filter is something that needs a special order from the USA, but it turns out to be the same as the transmission filter on a 1980s John Deere 2450. I’m convinced that there’s a fortune to be made by anyone who could compile a book on this mix and matching of components – all they need is 30 years' experience as a parts person, and a brain like a computer.

Having a perfect engine wouldn’t have been much use without a working clutch, and happily sorting this out proved to be a much easier job. The clutch is very easy to get to – it’s part of the belt pulley and is accessed by removing three bolts. Mark soon found the trouble. The multi-plate clutch consists of eight friction plates with steel plates in between. One of these steel plates was distorted, preventing the whole assembly from freeing.

Again, rather than order a new bit from the States, he looked around more locally. He managed to find a piece of steel of the right thickness (cut out from a steel cabinet, believe it or not) which he then fabricated to shape – the clutch has worked fine ever since.

But that wasn’t the end of getting oily. Power steering was an option on these big John Deeres, and Mark’s 830 has it…but it wasn’t working. This turned out to be down to a serious oil leak and the seal could only be replaced by removing the whole unit. Mark did that, bolted it all back in, and still the PAS wasn’t up to scratch. “It took a lot of trial and error to get it working properly,” he said. “I nearly gave up, because it was very complicated, but I got it working in the end.”

Trailer blasting

So Mark had a fully working John Deere, and he did use it for some jobs on the farm, towing a heavy roller and working with a big baler. But really he wanted to finish the restoration properly. “I dismantled it, took all the tinwork off and sandblasted that with a small sandblaster from Spaldings Ag suppliers. I did the blasting in our cattle trailer, because I had nowhere else to do it. It took a long time and is not something I would like to go through again!”

John Baker, another local man, supplied the correct shades of green and yellow from Vapormatic, and several coats of primer and top colour were all applied by Mark. The tyres came off for the wheels to get the same treatment – new front tyres went on, but the rears were only part-worn and deemed to be OK as they were.

There were plenty of details to sort out. The seat, for example, looks extremely comfy, and as it left the Waterloo factory, had rubber suspension as well as a damper! The rubber was perished, and proper replacements would have been expensive, so Mark found a couple of coil springs from a hay bob, which do the job.

As a finishing touch, all the correct badges and stickers were sourced from Dave Sanders of Machinery Decals. And very good they look too, unlike some US-made decals I’ve seen, which are littered with spelling errors!

The result is a John Deere that looks much as it must have done (rear tyres apart) when it rolled out of the Waterloo factory over a half a century ago. Mark certainly likes it. “It’s a very torquey engine,” he says, “and it didn’t have any problem towing the heavy roller.”

In fact, this last of the old-generation John Deeres seems to have fired up his ambition to own one of the earliest of the new generation, a 4020. Now that would make an interesting matched pair.

Words & Pictures Pete Henshaw