John Deere Psychology

Or, getting into my head.

     The 830 started pushing oil out of the left exhaust port sometime in August.  It got to where it wasted a quart of oil about every five hours.  I have friends who would have kept a quart of oil handy and let the dirt accumulate where the oil seeped out between head and exhaust manifold and would have lived happily ever after.

    There are two cardinal sins an engine can commit in my book.  The first is to be hard to start.  Nothing is more frustrating than a struggle to get an engine going when I’m ready to go.

     The second is to use oil.  So when the wheat was up suitably and the tractoring season was over, I “tore down” the engine to do a “top” overhaul.  Everything in the middle of the picture comes off.  (Exclude the radiator on the left and everything in the lower right corner behind the exhaust pipe.)

    The head weighs about 150 pounds, a bit much for an old guy.  Come-along to the rescue.

    This all happened early in October.  The head went to Burlington, the gaskets got ordered.  I was hoping to get everything back in time to work on it before the big move.  The mechanic shop rang my cell phone as we neared Loveland with a load of “stuff”.

    All things happen for a reason.  I needed a break from the clutter of stacked cardboard boxes, from trying to find things in that cluttered stack, from finding the best place to put “stuff”.  About a week or so after receiving the call, I trekked to Burlington and picked up the head and the gaskets.

    The head overhaul cost nearly $600.  Here is what a revamped head looks like.  Note the shiny new valves (the round things) and the nice green paint.

    

Here is what a $250 gasket set from John Deere looks like:  (a cardboard separator hides the main gasket from the rest of the assortment.  In the second picture the main gasket is mounted on the block waiting to seal the head to the block.)

 

    

    Speaking of sticker shock, here is what a $123 oil pressure gauge from John Deere looks like:

     The head is now buttoned up to the block.  It is waiting for an accurate torque wrench to bring it up to the required 275 foot pounds of torque.  I didn’t have a lot of faith in the Rube Goldberg device which extended the wrench’s lever by 26 inches.  I couldn’t do the math to figure out how much torque I had to show on the torque wrench when its reach was extended by 2 feet.  Plus, it was a chore to keep the torque wrench from turning on the socket handle and at the same time getting an accurate reading on it.

     There is quite a bit of work left to be done, but the covers are on and the openings closed well enough to keep out the vermin and the weather. Besides, I will need another break from the clutter of modern existence.  I will escape into the simplicity of the past where 270 foot pounds of torque are on the tractor’s head bolts, not my molars.

     Here is a World War Two joke.  A Native American joined the Navy.  During his enlistment he was trained as an electrician.  Unfortunately, he also contracted a chronic case of dysentery.  When he mustered out, he returned to his home on the reservation.  He brought with him both his electrician skills and his health problems.  Now his home was a bit behind the times as far as modern conveniences, so he set out to help bring light through electricity to his people.  One dark moonless night, his chronic health problem surfaced and he raced for the outhouse.  Because the outhouse was unlit, he failed to find it in time and the result was an unfortunate accident.  Resolved never to be embarrassed by that sort of thing again, the young man set about the very next day installing a light fixture in the outhouse and connecting to the recently-completed power supply.  He flipped the switch and on came the light.

     The completion of the project entitled him to a place in the record book as the first Indian to wire a head for a reservation.  (Thanks to that great jokester, Uncle Pete)