John Deere G (Clutch promblem)

I have got my dads old John Deere G over here. What I notice was that when you fully engage the hand clutch. Then you disengage the hand clutch it is hard because it does not want to disengage without a pulling force behind it. I did not know this and till I got it to my house. You are okay with it as long as you do not push it all the way in to a lock position. What I am trying to say if you are going to keep your hand there it will be okay. I am looking to buy the broken parts for this clutch so it will be back in working order OR is this normal for this tractor to do?

It is normal for these hand clutches to exhibit an over center feel in the clutch operating lever when pushed far forward. This is to allow the clutch to remain engaged without further attendance by the operator. However if it is misadjusted, one can have a great deal of difficulty in getting it to 'pop' back over center into the not engaged position. Too hard to tell from your description if this is the case here or you are just not up to speed on the way they are supposed to work. One can adjust these by removing the clutch cover which covers the flat belt pulley hole and then removing cotter pins one at a time to turn one of three castellated nuts either in one flat or out one flat and then reinstall the cotter key so as to avoid loosing track of equal and minor adjustments to all three long bolt ends found under the cover. The cover pries off with a large screwdriver. These castellated nut adjustments are best done one flat at a time and all three nuts in the same direction and then operate the entire tractor to evaluate the sharpness of the snap over effect VS the difficulty in releasing the snapped over clutch. Clockwise makes the snap over sharper and harder to release, CCW loosens the overall snap over strength as well as the clutch's power to transfer full engine torque to the wheels for proper plow pulling for example. Some always did require some decent body english applied to pop them in and then out again, and some were butter smooth with almost no popping sound and/or effort at all. As a guide, young teenagers were supposed to be able to work these clutches safely all day long. It becomes a judgement call and you are the judge. Welcome to the forum, hope that helps a bit.

You should always run a two cylinder in the "locked" position forward. Doing otherwise is like riding the clutch in your car- it won't last long!!

A G clutch should take a bit (or more) of snap to dis-engage, especially if equipped with the original lever. If you look at a 70 or a 720, they have progressively longer levers to gain more leverage. It is common to see a G with a later lever installed. You CAN get away with a bit looser setting if just doing parade duty, but if she's gonna work, you want that clutch set up nice and tight.

One last thing- a hopped G with gas pistons (pretty common) will need the clutch pretty tight, as that was pretty much the weakest link on a G. The replacement 70 had a tougher 6 plate clutch, the G had 4.

I'd strongly suggest you keep it the way it is, and learn to get used to it- but it is hard to gauge a clutch setting over the internet .

Thank you for your replies to what I think is a problem. I wanted to ask because hand clutches we never really had and till this one. Dad always had Farmalls this John Deere is the only working John Deere I have that is running right now. I do have a John Deere 70 D but it is not like this G. The clutch Fork Bearing and the fork shaft on this G seems to look worn with a lot of play I would say about 2 1/2 inches of play. If this was a car that would not be okay to have.since you really have to pull hard on it and hope it jerks out of disengagement. The 70 D bushing to the hand clutch has no big movement in it like this G. Is there a way I can repair the bushing in part #6 and part #3 in this picture of parts?

Wear there is pretty common... perhaps some folks here have a machining fix that may work.

If you think the clutch is too tight, remove the cover on the end of the pulley, back each of the 3 castle nuts off one hole and try it. If it still locks in, you should probably be OK.

There are a number of things that make the clutch on a G a little more finicky than on a 70. At this point we won't go into all that. I'd start by loosening things up and seeing if that is better for you.

It sounds to me like the toggles are worn or dry of grease. These parts are not shown in your drawing. They are commonly called the dog bones. There are three of them. Also if the clutch plates are worn down too thin it will cause the shifting fork to bottom out when trying to engage the clutch. It shouldn't be any more difficult to disengage the clutch than it is engage it. Too much free travel in the clutch lever should be corrected.

If your G/GM is before s/n 13904 and has not been fitted with the later clutch,
it will have the "Cam" type clutch that doesn't have the definite snap in
feeling that the later "toggle" type clutches have.
Adjustment of the "Cam" type is covered in Field Service Bulletin 74-S 15June1937.

There is a guy advertising on facebook that repairs those parts on A & B i think. Not sure if he does G yet.

They all wear here, it just depends on how much wear there is as to if you can salvage the shaft. Easy to bore the bracket and fit a bush, but the shaft if worn too oval needs more work.

Alternatively try a salvage yard for parts that are better than yours!

Good luck.
Dont forget to check the adjustment as advised above, the force to engage / disengage should be firm, lost motion due to wear does not help getting the 'snap'

I'm a bit confused here..... When you say it is hard to disengage without a pulling force behind it is where I get lost!

Most here (including me the first few readings) have interpreted you to be concerned with how hard it is to pull the clutch lever back. Poppin John is VERY correct, it makes a big difference which clutch you have! The older cam type or the later clutch dog & toggle type. They feel very different!

I'm however wondering if maybe your concern isn't more that when you pull the clutch operating lever back, (regardless of the snap) you find it hard to get the tractor to stop unless you're pulling something? Is maybe your problem more "when you pull the lever back the old gal tends to keep right on pulling"? Like yer on a horse that doesn't know what WHOA means? THAT could be something alltogether different! Just not real certain what problem you're having!

If it's a deal of when you pull the clutch back the old gal tends to keep marching, check out the three springs that are between the pulley and the adjusting disc! Those springs rust away becoming a shadow of their original selves. When badly rusted they can't do their job of pushing the clutch pack apart when you release the squeeze by pulling the lever back! When they don't open the pack putting air between the discs, the clutch pack drags and it tends to keep moving the tractor especially if you're in a low gear!

Not real certain if we're chasin a Racoon or a Possum here so a bit more or different description might help.

They certainly can be rebuilt to factory tolerances by various welding techniques. You'll have to remove #6 entirely and dismantle it too. At that point you can hand it off to a machinist if you're a bit short on those kinds of talents. And I assume you are, only because you are asking, a guy that has these talents is not asking - he is already doing. Main idea would be to build up #3 to like new condition and then repair the hole in #6 so a custom bushing can be fitted there to live with #3.

I would just lay bronze into #6 bushing hole and grind out the excess with a die grinder/dremel tool here. #3 may or may not get rebuilt depending on how bad it's worn. These repairs really won't make much of a difference in how it operates or how hard it engages or disengages, practically no difference at all other than the clutch lever position.

It does sound like the adjustment of the clutch is a bit tight if you are wondering if you can get it released. Backing off the three castellated nuts two cotter pin notches should make a noticeable difference there.

'If this were a car' - that's some funny stuff. If this were a car it would have been scrapped several decades ago and you would not be able to play with it today, that clutch as is will work fine for another 20 years without any rebuilding work done to it. There is no rush to fix it in other words - you could learn to weld in meantime.