JD60 Clutch again...IT'S ALIVE!!!

Hey guys, I wanted everyone to know (with your help) I finally figured out what I was doing wrong on my JD60 clutch! Special thanks to MachineryMan1945, Pappy, and Tim S for their inputs. And a big kudo to Mike M, who mentioned exactly what I was doing wrong, I just didn't realize it. I knew it had to be something fairly simple, but I just couldn't get it until Mike M chimed in about torquing the tension nuts. In his comments he related "Lock the clutch in (lever forward) tighten all 3 of them until about 10 foot pounds....." Wait a minute....lever FORWARD?! Each time I put it together I had the lever pulled back!! Holy crap what a difference that made. :^) I'm happy as a lark now. I'm still gonna have a former JD mechanic look at it, but I'm confident there is nothing super wrong with it at this point. And it seems to have good 'snap'! Thanks guys!

UncleCarl

Glad you got it going.

Make sure it doesn't engage when you pull the clutch lever back real hard. It's a fine adjustment on some tractors, and very dangerous if not corrected.

Okay thanks PJH. I've picked up some hints they can be touchy. And dangerous. I'll keep that in mind.

You will find adjusting these clutches, now that they are sixty plus years old, is not an exact science. Everything is worn just a little bit. So you often have to split the middle when adjusting to get them to snap in but still release. Just a little too tight and they will not disengage.

Funny one on this. Local fellow here has a lot of old JD tractors. Big nice Morton machine shed with them all inside. He was adjusting a clutch and thought he had it correct. He staggered parking his tricycle tractors facing two one way with the one in the middle parked the opposite way. Back tires interlocked. He was working on a JD 70. He went to park it and it would NOT disengage. It would not "snap" out. By the time he got it shut off the tractor had pushed the two neighboring tractors out through the shed wall. So there he set with three tractors half way out the wall on his NICE shed. After that he set the clutch adjustment really LIGHT. He told me he did not care if they slipped a little under a heavy load they would at least STOP!! LOL

Glad you got it figured out and working right, have made the same mistake as well as others that were my fault not the tractors. Thankfully we have guys here that really know what they are talking about and are willing to help others, can not tell you how many times their knowledge has helped me solve problems. Good to hear you got her fixed.

(quoted from post at 05:40:12 12/17/18) Glad you got it figured out and working right, have made the same mistake as well as others that were my fault not the tractors. Thankfully we have guys here that really know what they are talking about and are willing to help others, can not tell you how many times their knowledge has helped me solve problems. Good to hear you got her fixed.

Click to expand...

Be sure to check the flywheel end play....this is causation for a lot of clutch adjustment problems and the proper adjustment of the clutch brake to stop pully side motion as well as rotation. These units are fairly simple one the operation is understood. One of the weakest points is the dog over ball operation where the unit sockets get worn as well as the balls on the rods...however with proper adjustment and not overloading these units work good. Principal of operation is somewhat timeless with agricultural machinery.

Don't worry I did the same thing as you when I first adjusted the clutch on the B. Took me a little while to figure out what I was doing wrong but then I happened to read the manual a little closer.

Your story reminds me of a guy in our neighborhood who grew up on the old Farmalls, but for some reason always wanted a JD 70 diesel. He found and bought one in pretty nice shape and putted around the neighborhood a while to hear it run. He drove up to his nice machine shed and got off to slide the door open, failing to take it out of gear before he got off. You know the rest of the story. I think he later determined that it had a broken clutch disk that got lodged and put it in motion. Instead of going through the shed wall, it just got up against the outside and kinda ground it's way down the long side of the building, twisting and bending everything it touched. At the time he was pretty ticked off at everything John Deere, but I recently talked to a mutual friend and he said that he still has the 70.

Lots of folks think it's really convenient to just pull the clutch lever back and jump off to open a gate or barn door, without taking it out of gear. It's a bad habit for safety reasons, not to mention the unnecessary wear on the pulley bearing.

Years ago, my father-in-law and I got together and traded his two A's and my B for a real nice 50. My B ended up in Missouri, and I later heard that the new owner was ran over and killed by it. He'd left it running in gear, clutch lever back, and it snuck up on him and got him.

BTDT too ! lol. another fun one is when you end up with the timing 180* out or the plugs wires crossed.

Lol. Yeah that was the first thing I found out when I got the old girl running!

620 John---manual? It says that in the
manual? I must've missed that for sure!

Yes. When my mechanic comes out I'm gonna
have him look at that. I also noticed some
mild fine shavings in the yoke area when I
took the lever off last nyt. Not sure what
causes or what to do @ that.

Thx Dan. I'm learning the vast resources of the peeps on this site. Have helped many times.

Wow! Holy snot! Yes ill definitely remember that! Thanks

Wow! You guys stories are kinda starting to scare me. But it's good to know. Thanks. Always take it out of gear and lock the brakes!

Here is another tid bit of info on the outer dust cover installment. That cover has 3 spots in the outer lip that are flat. These flat spots match up to where the adjusting bolts are at and NOT WHERE THE HOLD ON CLIPS ARE. The clips need to snap up over that lip in order to hold correctly. And the flat spots make room so the area around the adjusting bolts clear.

Yes! That was one thing I actually was aware of lol. Thanks for the reminder.

And after you take it out of gear and set the brakes remember to engage the clutch. Sometimes you get distracted and don't get back for some time. Engaging the clutch will prevent unnecessary wear on the pulley bearing.

Got it. Thanks Pete. I'm learning a lot about this stuff as I go along.

I think I read it in the B service manual or the A owners manual.