1964 D10 Series III ready to work

We finished up Kim's D10 SIII yesterday and today fired it up. The first failure was the paint I chose for the muffler trying to get a semi-gloss. It wasn't rated high enough and boiled off. Had to punt and painted VHT flat black which works great even on the manifold throat. Aside from that, it runs great. I put an Electronic Ignition in it and fires as quick as you turn the key. Charging is excellent, though I need to run it more because it seemed a little high; it did sit for 4 months and I did all the wiring tests (cranking it, running the lights etc) while it sat.

It's another "working restoration" which seems to be all I can accomplish. There are four pretty nasty runs in the clear and a few spots I scraped it in reassembly, plus my body work on the hood didn't fit perfectly over the center channel, but it has a good look from 10 feet to the untrained eye. It's going to be Kim's bush hog tractor and will never see a show (like any of them unless we decide to put on a show at one of the warehouses during one of the town festivals, one of our warehouses is on the main drag, and we thought that might be fun and a treat for the townspeople and tourists).

With the marginal skills I have (especially painting), there is a little letdown when I finish a tractor knowing where the serious flaws are, even if they are all cosmetic. At the same time, I feel good about the grill rework, fixing all the oil leaks (it leaked like a sieve before), the rewire since it was all shot, and especially the AC badges. They were surprisingly difficult to get a crisp look on the lettering up close. It turned out those aftermarket badges we sell aren't right for the Series III. The font is different so if I messed up the badges, there was no fallback. I didn't discover it until I put the badges of my D12 next to these. Looked at the D17D and D15D and sure enough, all the badges on the earlier machines were a completely different font. The aftermarket badges are the earlier font.

Anyway, it's done and now the D17D is going to come into the shop for it's rebuild, been really looking forward to that project. The D10 is unfortunately stuck in the shop for now, my trailer is all torn apart out front and I have to finish that before I can move it out of the way and field test this one.

Since it's Kim's tractor, I'll probably repost about it in tractor talk after we get some pictures of it working, but I couldn't wait to tell folks who appreciate ACs.

It's a beauty!

If you need the shop room, I could "store" that one for you. If you know what I mean.

Beautiful tractor. D10's were always a favorite of mine.

Those of us who are also do less than
perfect work once in a while appreciate
the pictures and the honesty.
That little tractor looks great.

Thanks for the comments guys.

On the offer for help with shop space, thanks, it's always good to have extra options .

On the mess ups, what happened was, I mixed a very thin/hot batch of clear and my focus was all on the hydraulic cover since I'd taken it back to bare metal twice due to mess ups (bugs once, then resanding with paper I'd been using on the pipe which left small dark spots due to not cleaning it well after sanding, then hitting it too soon the third time, a frustrating comedy of errors) and just had the hood and outer fenders to do a final coat. I was shooting outside because the main shop and my painting bay were full of curing parts. I shot everything and didn't realize I'd thinned way too heavily (mixed it as I would have this last winter). After a short time, the hydraulic tower started showing signs of lifting from the lacquer thinner reducer and I was totally focused on that problem. I just put the fenders and hood away quickly to get them out of the flying bug risk, and didn't look at them for a couple of days. I set them vertically and one of the fenders and the hood had nasty runs, really a mess but I didn't see it until I started assembling and then assumed I could sand and buff them out. By that time, it was way harder than I expected. I spent a day on one of the runs cautiously taking the highs spots down and realized I was going to start over if they were coming out because this was a poor use of limited time. If we were restoring it for people to see, I would have gone the extra mile and taken them back to bare, based again and re-cleared.

I may still fix the runs using a trick I learned on guitar refinishing. Once they are really cured, this can work. You take a piece of sand paper, and punch out round dots with a gasket punch, then super glue those to small wooden dowels the same size as the punch. This can be put in the drill and you can do a pinpoint grind on a run without impacting the surface around it, then after it's leveled, you buff with finer grits and finally polish. This depends on the blob being REALLY hard because the inner part may remain soft for weeks. If it's all in the clear, this works pretty well but requires patience I'm not usually noted for. Making all the dowels can be more work than just wire-brushing off the paint and starting over with metal.

That looks fantastic. Should make yall a very good work tractor also.
They are meant to work and not just to sit and look at.
Great job.
Richard in NW SC

You got that right. It's fun to finish em and stare at them for a night, but the fact is, once a tractor has been gone through and you know what your dealing with, then it's useful. I think the most important thing about restoring, is that you know the machine, and you have confidence that when you punch the starter, it's going to start, not catch fire and not have to be towed back to the barn (knock on wood).

I do a lot of knocking on wood around here. LOL

Wow,Wow,Wow,Look at blinding reflection.Scott

Unfortunately, when I look at it, all I can see are the four runs I got. They seem to get bigger the more I look at it. Where ever I've actually sanded and polished, the shine does look good. That is so much work though.

Chris, you need to kick yourself a little less, I like it. We?re more critical of our own work than others!
I like it!

Thanks, good advice too.

BEAUTIFUL job what size tires are on it?

Thanks. 11.2-24 rear and 500-15 front. We wanted a larger profile for the fronts but they no longer make them in tri-rib, and it would have been nice to have the higher profile 24s like the D-12, but the rears were brand new and came on the tractor.

Looks good.

That the one you where asking about the restore of the badges on?

Yes, that was it. It's a tedious process. It was one of the most time consuming single jobs of the restoration.

I sure would not be taking second seat on that one. Looks very good for a 45 year old tractor. Good work hope she enjoys it.

Yes, she's already really excited about it. I worked it today and found some leaks on both remotes, one around the upper governor bushing and discovered the sediment bowl was causing some binding which was causing just a little valve seepage, so she can't start using it yet. I should have bugs out of it tomorrow. In the meantime, I have a line on another SIII with the mid-mount cultivators, this one came out nice enough that I think I'm going to have spring for it.