prettybunnys comments on Tractor Repairs

submitted 2 days ago by Bluewing@lemmy.world to c/dull_mens_club@lemmy.world

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I have a JD 4720 Tractor that I use to do heavier work around the 5 acre yard. I have a loader on it and I use a 6 way blade to move snow come winter.

This past May, one of the two blower fan motors quit working while clearing the last snowstorm. I could smell the angry pixies blowing out the magic smoke inside the cab and then it quit altogether. My cab windows frosted over very quickly and I had to finish with the heat off and the door open to prevent the frost build up.

I put the repair off for the summer and finally got around to trouble shooting and getting parts for the repair about 2 weeks ago. I needed to remove the cab roof to get at the motors. After looking up the part number from JD, those blowers are $500 a piece. There has got to be a better way.

I tried to locate the 3 speed resistor, (.75+ .75 216/22) used for the motor. JD does NOT sell them. They are unavailable anywhere on the North American continent. But I could try and get one from the factory in Italy, or oddly enough Ukraine. Not likely.

I could actually take the resistor apart very easily by removing 2 tiny screws. On the inside, there are 2 resistor coils and with some serious searching and a couple of dumb questions ID'ed as a thermal fuse soldered in to 2 terminals. I got a good lead to DigiKey and I found the correct one under mini fuses. I ordered a pack of 5 pieces on Wednesday. Got them this morning and had one soldered into the resistor before dinner. And everything reinstalled and buttoned up 2 hours later. Everything runs like new again.

I changed what was a $500 repair down to an .83 cent repair. And yes, there is a pour of well earned bourbon today.

[–] prettybunnys@piefed.social 7 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Ukraine is THE center for “jailbroken John deer equipment and repairs”

The whole war thing kinda put a damper on them exporting that BUT it made them better known for it.

I’d anticipate a homegrown JD competitor after the war.

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[–] Bluewing@lemmy.world [S] 2 points 1 day ago (4 children)

All things are possible, but I kind of doubt it. JD is far too big and has a dealer and parts network second to none. That's the hardest and most expensive part to build and maintain. It's why I own JD. Not because I like the color green, but it's the nearest dealership, a mere 100 mile round trip, and I can call and know they will have the part I need and when I need it. Any new manufacturer will need to match that level of service and do it everyday.

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[–] prettybunnys@piefed.social 2 points 1 day ago (3 children)

You should look into the Ukrainian JD tractor scene.

Throw in the bleeding edge automation and robotics they’re currently designing on the battlefield and I’d put my money on a Ukrainian tractor firm punching up into the big boys.

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[–] Bluewing@lemmy.world [S] 1 point 1 day ago (2 children)

Yeah, tech is cool and all. And jailbreaking has been used by farmers in the US for a long time also. They ain't tech stupid. But you still need distribution and parts availability. Farming is all weather dependant. If any of your machinery breaks when the rain is coming, you need those parts and you need them yesterday. If you can't get them until next week or longer, that can cost you 1000s of dollars a day. Which can be the difference between paying your bills or not.

That's what they will need to overcome. And building out dealerships and parts supply to match JD takes decades and even generations to do.

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[–] prettybunnys@piefed.social 2 points 1 day ago* (1 child)

👍

I feel like you’re just poo poo-ing what I’m saying without taking a second to look into what I’m saying.

The reason the Ukrainian scene exists is because of the breakdown in supply to them by JD.

Be it due to cost or availability.

But yeah. Everything you said about JD is exactly what I’m saying they have had to do for themselves and I’d bet they exit their period of war with a reinvigorated tech / manufacturing sector.

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[–] Bluewing@lemmy.world [S] 1 point 1 day ago

An invigorated manufacturing sector is a post war thing for the winners of said war. Not so much for the losers. And there is nothing like a good war to speed up human knowledge and advancement. I hope Ukraine wins their war. I understand perfectly the conditions the Ukrainians are working under for foreign made parts. Here in the US, we are working under nearly the same conditions. Except with less shooting at the moment. Terms and conditions apply. And subject to change at a deranged whim

Farmers around the world are some of the most self-reliant people you can meet. They have little problem figuring out workarounds and modifications to equipment and even designing new things from scratch to meet their needs. So what the Ukrainian farmers are doing ain't new nor remarkable to other farmers around the world. Every farmer does similar things out of sheer self-defense to keep farming. It's a mindset and culture unique to farmers for the most part. It's what pushed me to figure out how to make my repair cheap and easy. And now that I've seen what's up with this blower motor, I know how to repair the resistor coils too.

That Ukrainian listing for the 3 speed resistor leads right back to the Italian manufacturer of said part. It isn't a Ukrainian made part. And thanks to Trump pissing off the world, I'm not even sure I could buy one from SPAL directly in Italy either. And their website isn't setup for consumer use. I think they are BtoB only. So I didn't pursue either option.

In any case, that resistor is for a 16 year old machine that is no longer in production for a number of years now. And JD has moved on to different HVAC designs that they DO sell parts for. It's just that none of them crossover match to my tractor. So I can either chose to buy new old stock at high prices or be smart and fix the underlying problem. So just like the farmer I grew up as and did as a second job, I chose substituting my time and labor and cheap parts for a repair I will probably never need to do again before I die. Well, maybe I will need to do that other blower at some point. Those parts do tend to simply age out after enough years.

Interestingly, there was a design change over for the blowers mid production run of this tractor for some reason. They went from a unitized 2 blower design to two separate blowers like I have. So that's different yet. Plus 4720 now refers to a sprayer at first search and not my tractor anymore. The parts are still there, but it's the second result now.

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