Finding
an old John Deere expert for advice didn’t work. There was none nor could I find evidence that
any ever existed, at least locally. One
group was too far away and didn’t specialize in John Deere. The Internet didn’t help either. Like farmers everywhere, they end up doing
everything on their own - so I began.
Cleaning the spreader was obvious like prepping a house for
painting. At least I knew I could do
that. I also knew from my experience
with cars and trucks that the lack of rust and the excellent condition of the
wood would make the project winnable. I took the shroud off the port side and
stared. Grease and dirt gummed up the
sprockets and gears. I thinned the gum
with used paint thinner. As I flicked
off the crude, I noticed there were grease zerks everywhere. All the sprockets and gears had them. Oddly, they weren’t plugged after more than
60 years. I also found many Dirt Dobber
nests. The gear assembly at the bottom
is apparently a gear box whose function is to regulate the speed of the bed
chain that drags the load back to the flippers.
The box is connected to a port side handle with several notches at the
tongue.
You
guessed it. The spreader didn’t come
with a parts manual nor could I find one.
Observation has a lot to do with restoration and I try in this post to
put in simple terms how mechanisms work.
The starboard side has what I call the ground driven power train. As the spreader is pulled, the axle moves the
giant sprocket which (when it’s engaged by the starboard handle in the front)
powers the serpentine chain. Power is
transferred to a connecting sprocket that drives the auger, both sets of flipper
(tine) racks, and the bed chain. By now
the wooden bed has been painted in old motor oil. After I finished painting the spreader, I
painted all the chains with motor oil. That’s
the only tip I received.
Priming
was a tedious job and sanding was worse.
I used a leftover can of Zinsser Bulls Eye 1-2-3 which began to thicken
up. After it was gone I switched to
automotive spray primer because it was easier to apply and there’s no
cleanup. The only drawback for me was
that it made me a little queasy when I sprayed underneath the spreader. My advice
on John Deere Green Enamel is to buy it at the local farm and country
store. A quart of JD Yellow cost me
$19.79. That wasn’t repeated. A quart of JD Green was
$7 cheaper at the farm and country store.
Paint and primer cost me $89.35.
I bought a set of artist brushes to do the “John Deere” name on both
sides of the spreader. Hand painting was
easier than trying to track down official stencils. As for the 4-legged Deere logo, I’m still
working on trying to find it, but that’s another story.