Spitfiremk14
Member
We have a two John deere B's. One is a 1952 origianally equiped with the Wico XB distributor and the other is a 1949 origianally equiped with a magneto but now has a Delco distributor.
I will start with the 1952. It was running perfectly. It was driven on a ten mile drive with no trouble. Then kind of suddenly, power started to lag it ran rough, and finally it will only idle, firing randomly and about half the time only on one cylinder. We rebuilt the carb, replaced the wico with a brand new delco, and checked the aircleaner/intake passages. No difference. We have good flow of gas to the carb. All wiring is good. We then checked the compression and found that the valves were leaking and we only got about 50 (60 max) psi compression on both cylinders. I thought that maybe it just needed a ring and valve job untill the 1949 stated doing the exact same thing. It has had a new wiring harness (one wire alternator 12 volt) and a tune up. The compression on the 1949 is a little low, about 100 psi, and it does blow some smoke. Also there is a hole in the exaust manifold. On both they were running fine and the quit without us making any changes. the 1949 ran fine after we put the wiring harness on it. My gut feeling is that they are not getting gas properly, but I have no evidence to back this up, everything seems clear. We even tried switching the carbs just to see if we could learn anything. No luck.
Me and my Father are baffled. Can you help?
Ben
I will start with the 1952. It was running perfectly. It was driven on a ten mile drive with no trouble. Then kind of suddenly, power started to lag it ran rough, and finally it will only idle, firing randomly and about half the time only on one cylinder. We rebuilt the carb, replaced the wico with a brand new delco, and checked the aircleaner/intake passages. No difference. We have good flow of gas to the carb. All wiring is good. We then checked the compression and found that the valves were leaking and we only got about 50 (60 max) psi compression on both cylinders. I thought that maybe it just needed a ring and valve job untill the 1949 stated doing the exact same thing. It has had a new wiring harness (one wire alternator 12 volt) and a tune up. The compression on the 1949 is a little low, about 100 psi, and it does blow some smoke. Also there is a hole in the exaust manifold. On both they were running fine and the quit without us making any changes. the 1949 ran fine after we put the wiring harness on it. My gut feeling is that they are not getting gas properly, but I have no evidence to back this up, everything seems clear. We even tried switching the carbs just to see if we could learn anything. No luck.
Me and my Father are baffled. Can you help?
Ben