70's John Deere 310 Backhoe Sitting For Years... Will It Run? - NNKH

this is a 1970s John Deere 310 front loader backhoe that's been sitting since around the turn of the century so probably 20 some odd years slated to be cut up scrap as with some other machines I've been working on lately because that's really the more lucrative option these days but I convinced the owner to sell to me for a thousand dollars and we're gonna see if we can get it running and driving home to where maybe we'll do some more work to it sell it for a profit or some other thing besides paying cut up for scrap so we'll start with just doing a walk around tour like usual and then jump right into it this is a fairly large machine weighs in around 12 000 some odd pounds and I was reading they come with a 52 horsepower three-cylinder diesel he said this did run when it was parked and then he had pumped the tires up a couple times it actually has new front tires Here's the the old ones it looks like but he he put the new tires on it and that's parked at some short time after that I don't know what we're gonna find out oh wow actually looks pretty darn clean under there at first glance far away this machine was looking pretty rough but the closer I get that's actually not in bad shape I mean the seat still has some foam in place this is manual transmission and the shifters move the steering it's got a lot of slop in it but seems to beat not seized up whatever that is seems to be working I might add that I'm not familiar with equipment that much so this is just a guy tinkering around probably the clutch which seems to work breaks I would assume if it's anything like my Kubota paint a nice shape how about the backhoe controls look at that oh these all have boots covering them up too which are still intact so because what what's terrible is when these Hydraulics the Pistons get rusty and seized up front loader Hydraulics are free too just that way it has been sitting since 2000 but I mean well let's uncover it foreign it's great that somebody kept this covered up because the the engines nope pretty pretty clean and decent looking it's got some hydraulic oil here here She looks like a sieve and has a ton of different leaks all these hydraulic hoses should really be replaced before you even run a machine like this extremely dangerous if these blow up in your face they could well they could kill you actually or bind you or cut you really bad but dangerous yeah I don't see anything in the red we'll throw some water in that for now this must be the fuel tank let me go with ah it's not bad it's nice with diesel it doesn't get smelling terrible like like gasoline you guys probably can't see but I got maybe an inch or two of red looking diesel down down there and put cooling water in it later so much smaller looking now tiny little guy exhaust stack it's just open I'm glad it was covered though should mean that water didn't get in there and water pumps free we'll have to get sucking on the crank foreign ERS in there sunk in the ground pretty good it's like uh weights on the front so one downside of this is that it's not a four by four I mean not that it's still a very useful machine all right here's our oil filter fuel filter I like it's got the clear bottom on there and it's always a good idea to check for water on the bottom of these separators but that looks fine to me pull the bleed poured off oh yeah up to level in there too engine oil nothing on the stick and this is probably either the Hydraulics or the transmission right here see what that one's got sometimes you're supposed to check these when they're running but that's got fluid level somebody cut a notch in the stick too for easy checking it sounds like gear oil to me I don't know it's got oil that's all I care about the battery box maybe rotted through table there there's a negative cable look how low these hoses hang to the ground I mean she sunk a little bit but that's it's really low well actually I don't know which one's the negative but I'll figure that out it's negative a little power meter uh is it 5893 hours that's that's quite a bit for something like this I feel like this optim is not really charged up but I got a jump pack if we need it to really take these apart and clean them but I just file out the inside a little bit and then work this back and forth to break in corrosion tighten down give it a go we can't crank the engine by hand because it's got what looks like a hydraulic pump mounted on the front of the crankshaft look at John Deere remanufactured pump on it oh look at that I should probably give this thing a good look over before we do much with it I was gonna crack the drain bolt loose but then I seen big heavy oil drips coming off and the ground is really oil soaked that's probably where all that oil went uh I usually always crack these just to check for water on the bottom since I've had you know experiences where you fire it up once and then it pulls that water up it ain't gonna harm anything but it does cause the engine oil to get all foamy and white and it's a mess this must be our throttle yep turtle grab it's missing it's locked up that's okay I'm assuming we got start button right here and then I still don't know what this is but I'm reading and it shows n down so neutral all the way down and that seems these are both in neutral let's give it a bump nothing that's a suing that's the start switch what do we got here that's a master switch all off right there on that gonna be hard figuring out what's going on because we got plenty of excess and that switch has no wires going to it at all how about the toggle toggle does have wires we got Battery Plus on the main bong and then this little start wire just kind of goes into the harness and we'll just we'll just put some jumpers on there I got this end at the starter let's give her a bump oh nice solenoid all right it's not locked up let's put some oil in it in case that's bone dry I really need to clean up in here or get a utility truck all right I'm out of oil no need to worry though we got the Private Stock probably not gonna be enough but I do have a few quarts in here a couple quarts actually two quarts we got nothing still things I gotta run out and get some oil I went to pull out there's some used motor oil over here looks like yeah I'll throw that in there let's check it out wait a second that's brand new what is this fully oh this is trans fluid all right well I know they're junking all this stuff so I'll definitely keep that what else we got all right that's used motor oil yeah we can use that antifreeze yeah nothing but the bass is a real long trip I literally drove 20 feet to get that a couple quarts more and we're right at the low Mark spray a little Lube in the intake for the cylinders we have our emergency shut off too in case the injectors were stuck for some odd reason don't think that would be the case but here we go [Music] battery's a little low um let's let's give it a shot of starting fluid this stuff's got the lube built into not that you know mute [Applause] back with a second battery and uh he's over here tending to his bees they are nice and calm it was really neat to stop and check out I'll let him finish up before we start spraying chemicals and making noise again but it's just interesting he didn't even smoke The Hive and they're so calm no gloves my bees are usually a lot more aggressive than that but it really depends on the time of the year too sometimes they're calm and sometimes they're not he did find the queen though and the hive's in great condition so he's gonna wrap her back up foreign I don't see any glow plugs or grid heater on it I really shocked why I'm usually diesels have always just started up with the starting fluid but we'll crack one of these injector lines loose see if we're getting any diesel flow through it and actually better yet money's full cracked the inlet loose first too you got good flow out of the lift pump let's see if anything out of the line I'd love to get a stronger crank out of this but yeah so that could mean this is all gummed up inside wait a second this looks like an identical pump that was on the low and it does have a solenoid on it too different location but I saw just the one wire however this one's going to ground and when I tap it listen to that solenoid's clicking oh now we should have flow no flow foreign get a trickle out of those lines now good sign cut all three lines at the injectors loosened up let's see everybody feel like we need to put 24 volts in the starter I mean that's with a jump pack on it too and this thing's pretty darn tough I got a bunch of air out of all three lines up top and now only fuel I'm thinking it's going to start up I ditched the battery terminals and went direct copper to lead posts this is really terrible for these batteries but still no lock so now I wired it up in 24 volt and I have a jumper cable going between the two posts probably should have a better connection but let's give it a go and just see what happens I don't advise anybody doing this this is how you break a starter motor but let's let's see if we get a better crank and maybe a fire boys it sounds much better give her a shot of start we're getting a nice crank now anyway I just can't even believe these are all scrambling to get back in a lot of them probably didn't make it quite back and had to take cover somewhere else they cannot fly in the rain what's the next plan I've got the Eco flow battery Bank hooked up pulling 270 Watts with the Die Hard charger charging these batteries back up and I'm really leaning toward we just got low compression on a few cylinders or mechanical problem in the engine but I'm going to try heating up the intake with this blow torch a little bit you see that that buff back is the starting fluid I'm also a little curious if any smoke starts coming out of there indicating maybe like a nest that I don't see immediately a homemade grid heater I do have a power stripper we can try too but I figure we'll go with this first you see the bottom of the intake too I mean it's all one piece part of the head get the whole head nice and warm foreign back in parallel I'm gonna let them charge up and I think we'll pull these injectors now [Applause] got them all out of there here goes compression check all right number one we got good compression number two just just like nothing and number three even worse all right well I should have checked that earlier makes sense why it was just hanging a little bit with the starting fluid it was just this cylinder hitting a touch these other two no compression maybe it's just a stuck ring or something where's the fill them with diesel stuck ring I mean he said it ran when it was parked but it could be rusted cylinders you can get a borescope down there too check the valve train could be a hung up valve let's pause here real quick guys and discuss something lately I've been seeing a lot of comments from people asking where I get the energy and motivation to work on these old worn out machines and all the the simple answer is nutrition and that's why we're talking about today's video sponsor athletic greens and their ag1 nutritional drink it's truly the ultimate all-in-one daily health drink it covers a lot simply one scoop with eight ounces of water each morning and you're getting 75 essential vitamins minerals superfoods probiotics and more I used to think coffee was convenient energy and drink like several cups a day just to keep going not anymore I take one scoop of this in the morning I don't even desire coffee it's got a natural B12 in it a bunch of other energy supporting ingredients and something that stood out to me it's made in New Zealand that's quality right there so here's the deal guys if you're feeling low on energy and could use is a nutritional boost then go check them out at athleticgreens.com no-nonsense know-how and get your order started they're also currently giving the viewers of this Channel a free one-year supply of immune supporting vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase so check them out over there and let's dive back into the video see if this John Deere is gonna fire up or not I'm a little disappointed I didn't check the compression sooner because going back I mean here in that crank you could kind of hear it was just a one cylinder that had compression but I don't really work on inline threes much or diesels for that matter but definitely should have checked that first foreign wow really clean under there no oil at all looks like somebody soldered this at some point unbelievable okay well that's a lot of clearance um holy smokes seems to all be working well except for that insane amount of valve clearance hose these down with some PB blasts and turn it over maybe loosen up a ring or if the compression gets better and then gets worse again that'll tell us it's went out Rings or cylinders so yeah bad piston rings or cylinder cover this up go get a bore scope here's what we got on the borescope we're on cylinder number two and I don't know if this will record right so I'm kind of recording it with my phone too but hopefully you guys can see that all right uh pretty severe pitting on those walls that one's pretty wiped and then number three oh yeah yeah look at that hmm definitely a lot of cylinder damage just coming down toward the dish of the Piston we're in the dish section of the Piston right now this is a side view inside there but yeah you can see all that that heavy petting and that's why we got no compression I got this on Amazon it's the Ila home there's a few different models but it's got the side and facing down camera so we can see when it comes up you got two screens on there it's been working pretty well back here next day for round two on trying to get this running and you're probably thinking what are you doing it obviously needs a rebuild uh there's a few things we we didn't try like I want to check the valve clearance on here because these are I showed you they're super sloppy and these aren't hydraulic lifters we also I want to try to reseat the valves by hitting them with a hammer and a couple other odds and ends you know it's just gonna be a whole lot easier getting this machine out of here if we can get the Hydraulics working and the attachments up they do sell rebuild kits for these for around 400 bucks you can get the cylinder sleeves Rings rod bearings and do an in-frame rebuild for pretty cheap on this and then you get to find out all its other problems if you get it running good so on the valves originally when I saw that clearance I was thinking this must have hydraulic lifters but it does not we're gonna try to get those in Spec it's a 14 000 on the in intake and 18 thousandths on the exhaust before that I want to try hammering down on these to allow the valve to spring up and maybe break apart any carbon deposits and we didn't do a leak down test that's something else we might we might do today as well but to start I'm gonna take my hammer and just push down and make sure okay it's not hitting the Piston the rod just popped out over here there we go and now that I've done that I'm going to give it a few good whacks with the brass Hammer ideally or a block of wood just like so now we still got the same clearance but that way if there's any thick carbon deposits or rust build up on the valve seat or valve face that could break it off and I do that across each one again always make sure to push down first the rod keeps popping out so push down first to make sure the Piston's not sitting right there because you don't want to hammer the valve into the piston I think I rotate the engine to get these last two cash let's see what the crank sounds like now that's super easy on this you just have a half inch nut on the other side and you tighten the clearance I just loosen that a little bit and it's just I guess just a lock you know boat whatever very tight and then you can set that to the proper clearance so I'm going to just snug those all down got those all around twenty thousands here to crank now by the way fully charged battery I got a spare with me too almost sounds a little bit better see we're getting good diesel flow out of those injectors for sure lots of lots of smoke and that's like that one cylinder wants to fire on the Hawaii guys will see it but I got a compression gauge let's check that number one this only goes up to 300 PSI but let's see what we got oh yeah that's going up to 250. we're healthy on number one I'm pretty healthy it's popping my hand off how about number two we're we're all going to press we're up to 150 on number two and number three we are at about 60 PSI on number three I'm going out on a limb here I just poured a little bit of foam filter oil this is super thick stuff probably like 50 weight or 70 weight into that cylinder maybe it'll work its way down past the Piston see all these Rings a little bit let's work it in a little bit oh yeah look at that so it's definitely the Rings just worn out I'm wondering if we pour a little bit of that in each of these cylinders maybe we can get the fire up I mean it's like molasses look at that I'll pour oh I don't know two teaspoons in each cylinder crank it over with the injectors out and then we'll see what we got well I let that soak in I was taking a look at these injector seals and these are in pretty good shape but this is definitely somewhere where compression could Escape I'm gonna take a little bit of Emery cloth and really like a wire wheel would be nice on a drill but I'm gonna just polish these up and get those nice and shiny and then I'll coat them in oil when we put them down that way they'll seal up good and man those bees are going crazy today I hear lots of buzzing they do have these seals too and I'll use foam filter oil on this to make sure it seals a little bit better but injectors are back in and we're hooked back to 12 volts instead of 24 because I don't want to blow that starter I've got the jump pack on there too which is at 50 I'm feeling pretty confident I don't 20th start attempt but you saw that compression let's give her a crank with some starting fluid and I'm sure some of you guys are thinking oh you haven't changed the diesel out or get some fresh diesel if it won't start on starting fluid it ain't gonna start on Fresh diesel It's just not gonna happen all right that might have been just one off but let's let's give her a go it didn't sound good I'm getting somewhere though [Music] look at that John Deere lips again [Music] I am so glad I didn't give up when I saw that no compression you know the oil trick is what did it yeah she needs a rebuild but let's get these Hydraulics moving and try to not blow our face out with hydraulic oil again [Music] we gotta get some cooling water going too foreign I feel horrible about what just happened a hydraulic hose sprayed out and it went all over the tide oh man that is such a bummer I'm gonna have to wipe that off [Music] [Music] okay that was fun [Music] luckily the oil didn't shoot the front of the hive just the top and aside they got a nice new waterproof coating on it and they'll be all right probably should have had him move that the other day before I started it where do we go from here I have no use for a machine this large and I have no space for it but I do want to see it go to a good home and be used forget if I mentioned earlier but I paid a thousand bucks and then I did throw this on Facebook Marketplace for 1500 not running after I couldn't get it running yesterday I'm like let me put a feeler out a ton of people want to come get it for 1500 but now that it's running and I can demonstrate that it functions it's worth more than that however I have a local friend who said he'll give me two grand for it which I think is a very fair price considering all the work it needs and since he's local I'll be able to verify that it's not going somewhere and just going to sit there for many years he plans to jump on it right away uh maybe I'll give him a hand with the engine rebuild or at least pressure washing it so let's get it ready for that trip over to his location he's about 20 minutes away foreign [Laughter] [Music] [Music] yeah Pro status [Music] got the implements all rigged up that way in case it doesn't start back up we can still get it on the rollback let's see if it will start though it's been sitting for maybe 30 minutes they might even just need a starter motor and he could probably get a lot of life out of this engine still or if we had a big suitcase battery I'll have to message Optima and see if they have any larger batteries since we're kind of been doing a lot of diesel stuff lately these certainly aren't really designed for the job but each of those I just tested them last night 1100 crank cold cranking amps each so 2 000 cranking amps and I did check all the cable connections too I loosen these clean the ground and also cleaned up the positive on the starter making sure we had a good connection but you can hear the struggle when it's starting maybe that starter is just on the way out just notice this has got a thousand watt coolant heater on it plug-in I don't know if that would have been of much help but maybe for tomorrow a few days later and she's ready for bath then transport foreign [Music] that came out looking pretty good now we'll go over and grease all the fittings some of them are going to be tight like this one though might have to get there some heat okay oh she's gonna be happy this thing's probably got 100 grease fittings on it oh yeah we're standing up with a low compression that's gonna sometimes slow the crank down too uh you would think slow compression faster it's quite the opposite actually it doesn't act like he doesn't have the compression pushing the Pistons back down [Music] foreign touch overweight on this truck but he's confident it should be fine oh now she's wanting to dig there we go slide it's probably tires right now those aren't squatting at all before foreign [Applause] [Music] we're gonna get that hoe down a little bit almost at 14 feet right now [Applause] and here we are over a month later ready to close this video out I did give Jake a call ask his progress on the John Deere I was hoping he had him on a job site and I could cruise over there and maybe get some clips of it but he said he's still got it in the storage yard he's done a bunch of Maintenance to it replaced a whole bunch of the hydraulic hoses he did the all the fluids all the filters uh throttle cable he got a key switch for it a few other odds and ends and he said it fires up with starting fluid he's not going to do an engine rebuild on it anytime soon he's in the process of trying to get a trailer large enough to be able to tow this thing out to sites uh the takeaway from this video is when you know do a compression check first if you've had a diesel sitting for a long time pop those injectors out see what you're at if you can hold your finger over the injector hole not good and pouring the oil down there I wish I would have just done that in the beginning would have saved a lot of time I was out there cranking and cranking thinking why won't this start up one at least starting fluid it's just felt like it was right about to fire up but wouldn't anyway if I did that let it sit overnight it would have filled in all those those ring areas and the you know grooves in the cylinder and whatever it would have started up I guess it would have been a much shorter video anyway thanks so much guys for tuning in to this kind of stuff uh you know keeps me fueled to keep doing it big thank you to the guys that have bought hats and such if you have any ideas for future merchandise or any other kind of thing you know shoot me an email any comments thumbs up all that stuff helps out the channel hugely and uh check me out on Instagram same handle or Facebook uh no nonsense know-how and follow me on there that helps out big time too and yeah thanks for all the support thanks for watching No Nonsense no wow see in the next one over out

Channel: NoNonsenseKnowHow

Views: 1,051,880

Keywords: NNKH, NoNonsenseKnowHow, mechanic, No Nonsense Know How, will it run, will it drive, heavy equipment, sitting, abandoned, sitting for 30 years, cat 977, will it run diesel, diesel, chevy, letdig18, andrew camarata, camarata property maintenance, caterpillar, heavy equipment will it run, will it run?, driving, dozer, hamiltonville farm, will it start, marty t, dozer sat, bruce wilson, heavydsparks, sparks motors, tractor, farming, earth moving, old cat, john deere 310, backhoe, loader, fire

Id: zWgj9AqL57Y

Length: 32min 49sec (1969 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 27 2022