petcocks on 1948 John Deere B

pugsy · Sep 20, 2015

When I lay under my 1948 John Deere B, on the bottom of the motor there are two petcocks. When I open them with the motor off a little bit of black looking oil dribbles out of them. They are side by side. I found them while I was changing the oil and oil filter. What are they? What do I do with them? They both have little handles.

El Toro · Sep 20, 2015

Are the petcocks on the oil pan? Post a picture of them. Hal

Gene Davis (Ga.) · Sep 20, 2015

Those are compression reliefs. You opened them so you could crank it by hand when the
electric start system failed. An adapter came with the tractor when new that you used by
taking the steering wheel off, inserting the adapter in the shaft hole, then you removed the
small center cover of the flywheel cover. You then stuck the adapter into the center of
the crankshaft engaging the cross pin in there and turned the steering wheel to roll it over
till it cranked. Very much trouble, but that was the emergency starting procedure when you
did not park on a hill, or have a way to pull it off. The pre-1946 tractors had these
petcocks on the side of the block by the spark plugs.

Dalex · Sep 21, 2015

No , they are in the block , there is a hole drilled thru the block to relieve compression ...

pugsy · Sep 22, 2015

thanks...I had no idea what they were used for

pauldeere · Oct 1, 2015

There are two petcocks on mt 1955 Model 60 located under the engine, as Gene said to ease starting by hand. However did not realize
that Deere put petcocks on B's.....I had a 1950 "B" that did not have them...

Leroy · Oct 3, 2015

They just put plugs in the holes on some of the tractors, you had to use a wrench if you needed to take them out, probably what you had. Your 60 might also have had just the plugs and changed over.

petcocks on 1948 John Deere B

pugsy

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El Toro

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Gene Davis (Ga.)

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Dalex

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pugsy

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pauldeere

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Leroy

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