Picking up 1957 John Deere 420c crawler

well there's something me and my brother picked up the other day um I saved it from getting scrapped it belonged to a woman that lived down the road from us a little ways we noticed that it was like an old farmhouse that we uh looked at this thing for quite a while and they cleared out around it and then they started demoing the house and we eventually caught the owner over there one day and um asked her the story on this apparently it was blown to her brother and uh he bought it with the intention of going to restore it that was about 13 years ago and he ended up hurting his back really bad and never touched it since um it uh I have no idea if he drove it to where it sat if a drug it wears that I don't know if when the last time I actually run was it could have been when he got it could have been sometime before that but uh anyway she said um you know uh somebody I was going to come get it and hold off for scrap metal it's going to give her 200 bucks for it um but she said if we had interest in it and you know didn't want to scrap it she kind of hate to see it get scrapped but um she said come get it so we brought the trailer and uh gave her 200 for it and dragged up on trailer didn't even try to start it didn't try to turn engine nothing you know just didn't want to see it go to waste and I figured we'd deal with Russell later but um it was uh it actually rolled on trailer fairly easily try so the tracks weren't froze so I'm in uh it's been preserved fairly well like the cylinders on for the back hitch and for the blade have been taped up the levers for the hydraulic controls have been wired into where the valves aren't exposed on the breather and exhaust was covered and even the clutch pedal was tied down with a rope to keep the um plates from sticking everything moves pretty free all the brakes and shifters and everything um I said again hadn't uh really tried to spin the engine it's pretty hard to reach and narrow for anything I got to take the hood off or something reach in there see if the engine spins or just hook a battery to it um I was a jump pack to see if it spun but this is a six volt um so I got a old golf cart battery on charge I'm gonna throw in there eventually and see if it spins over didn't notice in this until we got it home although it wouldn't have been a deal breaker I'm not sure if this is a just a crack in the paint or if it's a crack in a block it does still have a little bit of oil in it so not really sure regardless uh it don't matter this thing come with a literally a truck bed full of Parts all the way down to a new block two new cranks flywheels it for the best we figure it looks like an entire another engine even come with seal kits repair manuals um I don't know um it looks complete from everything I see and be a nice project might not get it running right now but at least it'd be safe from scrap yard for now and it will run again one day oh by the way this is a somewhere in the mid 50s John Deere 420c yeah well knock on wood it's going easier than I thought [Music] also while we were there this was over there with all the parts for the uh crawler this was uh some kind of old International Harvester hit and miss engine um it looks complete as well I mean obviously it needs like a plug wire and stuff like that but you know it spins over fine and uh we ended up accidentally breaking the uh in off the rocker arm there when we was loading it in truck it slipped up tractor bucket and hit the back of the bucket and broke the rocker arm off but um it may possibly be able to weld out back just see if it does anything or just buy a new one but this pretty cool little engine as well that who knows hopefully it'll run again one day well got a battery hook to her um I don't expect much of this let's see what happens connection I guess oh well starter's trying but uh I think she might be stuck well got the hood snatched off of her and um going to uh do a little further investigating and to um see if the motor actually is locked up or not trying to get to see if I can where I can put a bar up on the front of it or at least pull the spark plugs out and look down the cylinder so I did check uh it's actually full of antifreeze it's got uh well it's still holding gas and the shuttle fouls off obviously that gas is far from good I'll drain that out but at least the tank is still holding gas I said I need to put a little bit of oil in it but um oh that was just overall surprise with how good the original paint looks up underneath where the hood was pretty amazing how well the original John Deere Green held up yeah oh like I was saying it uh the engine does appear to be stuffed like I said I still can't grab anything really super great on the front except for the fan to try to turn it um I pulled a spark plug out here I'm uh look down cylinder so don't look too terrible all the spark plug definitely does have some corrosion and rust on it I'm gonna pull spark plugs out shoot some penetrating oil down the cylinder so let it sit for a little bit and then uh I might pull the inspection cover off the bottom down there and try to grab the flywheel let's see if I turn that way because I'm sure this old starter doesn't really have that much ass to it and uh possibly I might take it off the trailer hook it behind a truck or tractor or something like that and try to pull start it but um first of all I'm just gonna it's getting kind of late day I'm just going to spray some penetrating oil and the cylinders and let it sit for a little bit so it's been like the next day and um the starter still wouldn't Bolt the engine over and uh I come over here this is underneath it I pulled the little inspection plate right here off then hoping I can get to the flywheel and maybe put a bar on or something like that and uh wedge it over try to get a turn and uh there's really no tea for anything on it to grab with a bar I guess they're on the uh back side um or the starter engaged it so that's not really that great at all but I did notice something else up underneath here the oil pan on it only has like four bolts on it so that tells me that uh it's kind of Point more towards there was something wrong with it and somebody just sort of stuck an oil pan on it with the intention of coming back to it and I just never did so uh I'm still going to try to get the motor to turn but this is sort of looking more like it needs something else so I went ahead since it was only four bolts in it and I pulled the oil pan off to the bottom of it and uh as you can tell the block must have had a crack in it because there is like this huge RTV patch over here on the inside of it my guess is he pulled this off attempted to patch it and uh never put it back all the way together while he's waiting for it to dry uh I mean everything else appears to be a decent shape the other pistons in the bottommost I don't look at a cylinders don't look too bad the motor is still stuck but hey having this all foil give me a way to attempt to break a loose yep there it is so one ahead since it was only four bolts in it and I pulled the oil pan off the bottom of it and uh you can tell the block must have had a crack in it because there is like this huge RTV patch over here on the inside of it my guess is he pulled us off attempted to patch it and uh never put it back all the way together while he's waiting for it to dry uh I mean everything else appears to be in decent shape you know the Pistons and the bottom upside on them don't look uh cylinders don't look too bad the motor is still stuck but hey having this all foil give me a way to attempt to break a list yeah there it is so y'all can eat me up if this is a terrible idea or not but I'm trying to break the Angelus and I can't for life and be fun anywhere great to grab it with with a bar or anything and uh so because I had the oil pan off I got the Jack going to a board right there push on the bottom of wanted to connecting rods and I'm gonna Ease on it and see what happens you know it might be great might be the end of it I don't know well I got some even worse news on uh one hand I got the engine Broke Free and turning over on the other hand I discovered probably it was part begin with if you notice right here hold on there's a wonderful crack in the crankshaft oh so uh yeah let's say this thing is probably just gonna be yard art for a little bit like I said I uh do have extra parts for it I would get them all put together one day I just don't have the time quite a moment but I'm gonna put all together one day and uh see if I have enough to build another engine for it so um this thing's not dead yet it's definitely not heading to the scrap yard and who knows I still might run one day oh well like I was saying before this is a this is definitely not the end of the road for this thing but it is the uh definitely the end of the uh work on it for the moment like yeah as you can kind of see around I've got way too many other projects to dive into this right now but like I said it's a you know somebody thankfully did preserve this thing like I was saying before you know the cylinders are wrapped you know different things were covered you know protect it and uh I'm glad they did that like I said this uh this thing will run again one day I'll go Lord willing like I said I'm gonna put together start collecting pieces and see about uh getting the uh my put together another engine for it see if I can get it rebuilt and we'll get a swap in here like I said uh I actually don't think this would be a hard engine to change at all it'd be unlike the tractor version there's nothing uh supported on the front so it should be just be taking radiator off and then separate an engine and throw another one on here and hope for the best the uh if I do take the engine off I probably will just turn the flywheel even by hand or something like that and make sure that you know the transmission actually does move before I go too carried away but yeah like I said I can't never be able to carry something like this to the scrap yard I just couldn't bring myself to do it but uh for right now it'll probably be put out in the yard and preserve the best I can until I can get around fixing it

Channel: Keith Rivers

Views: 46,285

Keywords: John Deere, Crawler, Tractor, Antique equipment

Id: n7j7h6Lvtrk

Length: 13min 30sec (810 seconds)

Published: Sun May 28 2023