How to start an old John Deere A

I'm going to show you today how to start a John Deere Model a this video might be of interest to you if you've never started one of these and you have a need to it's kind of becoming a lost art form because it's such an old tractor so this one is a 1950 model so most of these are gonna run into or in their seventies as far as how old they are so if you don't have the original operator's manual which most people do not you might not have a clue how to start this so I'm gonna show you how to do that so first things first obviously you want to make sure that the engine has fuel in it you'll see these two caps up here on the hood wise f2 so this was originally an all fuel tractor there's two tanks there's this one which is a small tank and this one kind of takes up this area here and it's a larger tank the idea behind these was back in the day fuels other than gasoline were cheaper to run so you would only start the tractor on gasoline then you would switch it over to a fuel like kerosene or diesel and it would run on that after it was warm if you're doing that you need to make sure you have both types of fuel in there but really today it's common that anyone would just run gasoline only typically it's not uncommon to find that these smaller tanks here have rust in them so you probably don't want to use that and if you're doing just straight gas just make sure that this tank is clean inside this one is I don't know if you'll be able to see you're not but we've got gas in there the other thing in there the other thing you need to be concerned about is the fuel shutoff this is the fuel bowl which acts as a fuel filter and we'll go to the other side of the tractor that's where the actual valve is that you would turn over here hopefully you can see this is the valve you want to make sure that that is open so you turn that counterclockwise to open it and in this case this one is already open next your tractor might have this valve here which is what lets you switch between fuel and the tanks right here is the lever that it controls that valve you'll see there's different positions here hopefully you can see that there's F G and oh-oh as for off G is for gas F is for fuel fuel is referencing the big tank so here's a little better look into the operator station this is where you're gonna be looking you know if you're seated on the tractor on this tractor you can see there's a key there not all tractors are gonna have a key but this one does because it has a coil and the ignition system and that's what turns the coil on and off you've got your throttle lever on top and this is a radiator shutter lever on the bottom most tractors this one is inoperable because the radiator covers have been taken off but that would open and close them in this case this one is one of the tractors where that's been taken off over the years they seized up from rust for the throttle pull it back as an idle push it forward for full throttle also you want to look at your transmission to your selector depending on the model of tractor you have and what year it is this pattern might be different right now I'm a neutral that's where you want to be when you start it over here is a PTO selector it goes left and right on this one I pull it over this way and that turning that ensures the PTO is off over here in this long handle that's the clutch currently it's engaged when you start your tractor so that you're not turning over the whole transmission you want to pop this backwards so that the clutch is disengaged also on this tractor this lever here is the choke control so to pull it out is when you choke it push it in is when you open it up not all these tractors have that in the same spot some have them down lower but you can follow the linkage see how it goes to the carburetor and you'll be able to identify which is the choke lever on yours one last thing this pedal here is the pedal which engages the starter so this is what you're going to use to engage this electric starter on the tractor if yours has electric start all right so now at this point you know enough to hopefully get your tractor going here's what we're gonna do now that we've pointed out all the necessary items that you're gonna need to know about we're gonna start using them for the key I'm going to turn it on there's just an on and off position so on/off this is also what you're going to use to turn the tractor off so mines turned on now that means I have power going to the coil it's not uncommon to see people come to this side of the tractor turn on the ignition set your throttle and choke where you want it and engage the starter here with your hand that works you need to be careful though if you do because if attract tourism gear as soon as it starts it's gonna roll over run over you a lot of people have died from this so be careful about that just because that things in neutral doesn't mean that it's actually in neutral this is a 70 year old tractor there could be something wrong in that transmission so be conscious of that each one of these tractors depending on how the carburetor is adjusted and just the general overall health of the engine is going to determine how you need to set your throttle and choke they're not all gonna be the same but I can tell you what I do on the ones that I start I take my throttle handle push it back to idle I pull it out a little bit between maybe a quarter and a half way and then on the choke I know on mine this thing is gonna start fairly easily by just having it out a little bit you might have to figure that out on yours and figure out what the sweet spot is so now that I've done that I'm gonna go ahead and start it that's how it's done let me know in the comments if this helped you out thanks for watching

Channel: Tractor Hoarders

Views: 54,903

Keywords: john deere, deere, john deere a, deere a, john deere model a, deere model a, how to, start, old start, cold start, how to start, learn, wont start, not running, diy, repair, fix, model b, deere b, john deere b, john deere g, deere g, deere model g, john deere model g

Id: 4fHCqe0w2Vg

Length: 8min 1sec (481 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 15 2020