pony motor rebuild kits

What source is available for a pony motor rebuild for a 720 d? I see an advertisement in Green Magazine for a rebuild exchange on A PONY motor, but not aware of source for parts. Is mother Deere an option?

There is a company in North Dakota who makes lots of replacement engine parts. They advertise in Green Magazine. H&J Machining 701 652-3289

There may be some gasket sets from JD (AF2243R). A quick Google showed only: http://www.plainsequipmentgroup.com/buy-parts/John-Deere-Part-AF2243R-GASKET-KIT-1920531/

But the hard parts are LONG gone (and were around $100 per piston and $100 per connecting rod, twenty years ago)! In fact I complained about that somewhere on this forum - and the late JR Hobbs stole my comment, printed it as a fake "letter" to him in Green Magazine, even appending my degree to my initials, and proceeded to mock me for being an allegedly rich doctor. (After I complained, the editor apologized privately, but he never did).

Anyhow, when I rebuilt my 70D pony, I got several used pistons and connecting rods cheap from (I think) Biewer's in MN, cleaned them up, honed the sleeves and put in rings. A small engine machine shop did the valves/guides. Still burns a bit more oil than I like to see in the exhaust, but I saved a crapload of money and it turns over the big diesel with ease..

I recommend the exchange cranking engine offered by Foreverdeere (Ryan Lind). They will have several to choose from and will run it on a test stand for you as they did for me. Just gave them a call early in the week, drove down and stayed over night near by, picked up the rebuild and had the tractor running in about a week.

Very nice looking tractor.

Thanks for sharing your photos with us.

H&J sells a rebuild kit with everything if you want. Gasket sets are available from deere last I knew. I got a new set of rods from Murphy's who makes performance parts for deeres. They were $350 for a set of rods, compared to $400 from H&J when I did mine 3 years ago. I bought a new set of rods, because that is the biggest issue with the pony. They wear out and break. Other than that, I used parts from 2 pony's and made 1 good one. There may be some NOS parts on ebay also. About a year after I did mine I found some NOS rods for $75 a piece which is a pretty good deal.

I agree , exchange starting engine from Ryan.

My 2 cents on the subject. If you have zero compression in one or more cylinders...do the exchange. No compression means broken rods, pistons, wrist pins, rings , chipped sleeve bottoms and possibly an internally cracked block. If you just have low power and excessive blue smoke I would rebuild your engine and be sure of what you have. All the parts needed to rebuild are available as new parts, NOS parts and good used parts. The best place for these is Hank in Carrington, ND. Many of the people who rebuild pony engines buy from him and just mark up the price. Many of the parts are also available on Ebay. You can resize your rods if they're not too bad, or you can buy NOS ones for ~$75 each. You will also need to rebuild the water pump as long as the engine is out of the tractor, plus replace the crankshaft seals . It usually takes me 1.5 hours to remove a pony engine working by myself , lots of things to dis-connect. If you do an exchange figure your carburetor is worth $125, starter $150 and a good coil box $250. In our area, you can buy complete (engine,clutch,transmission) used pony engines for ~$500. Engine of unknown conditions sell for ~$250. Gets down to your budget and time constraints. No constraints......the exchange is easiest.

If you have a black dash 720 diesel and do an exchange..make sure you get a serialed number pony engine that has all of the engineering improvements that were incorporated from the the early 70 diesels up to the 730 diesel models.