1944 John Deere 1 1/2 HP Magneto Removal

Everyone,

Saturday got a Hit and Miss engine, this is my first one, and have always wanted one. It's stuck and very original which is how I wanted to find one so I can take it apart and learn the 'inners' of them to better understand and tune them.

I got it home and spent some time on it yesterday and removed the crankcase cover and loosened the bearing/shim that holds the piston to the crankshaft. If it wasn't stuck I think you could just roll the crank off the other side of that bearing and then maybe the crank and flywheels just lift straight up and off the main case?

From there I thought you could remove the gears and get the magneto off and open up the governor cover as well and have a better view of everything.

I don't want to break anything and take my time and go through it and get it running to decide to paint it or not, etc.

Also with my John Deere tractors I buy the Operators Manual and the service manual. I see there is a 14 page manual for these engines, but they really don't go into tear down, more just a general overview of them. Is there anything like a service manual? And what manuals are suggested to buy?

Thanks, I will try to post some pictures from yesterday.

Go to the Lightning magneto site, he has everything you might ever need for a JD model E, including you can download repair, operators and parts manuals from his site.
Lightning Magneto

Magneto removal requires you to remove the governor cover. Left side of the engine below the mag. The mag is bolted onto the engine with two bolts up thru the governor housing into the mag. You need a thin wrench. may have to grind one down.

(quoted from post at 06:11:57 08/30/16) Magneto removal requires you to remove the governor cover. Left side of the engine below the mag. The mag is bolted onto the engine with two bolts up thru the governor housing into the mag. You need a thin wrench. may have to grind one down.

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Thanks for the advice, I got home tonight and took those six bolts of the governor cover, I can't believe how everything on it just wants to come apart, rusty inside but they break loose and come out nicely!

The flywheel was just right I could get to two bolts out for the mag so that is off.

I got ahold of Jim White and have his book coming. Am going to wait until that gets here, but now if that bigger gear was off (the one in the picture where the gear off the crankshaft mates up to the bigger gear) I think I could use a block of wood to drive the piston back and get that loosened up. But yet I thought once I could lift the flywheels and crankshaft out to then drive piston out. That bigger gear is froze up so don't want to wreck anything.