Blog

We just noticed a post on Yesterday's Tractors the other day that mentioned PopinJohn Company moving. Yes, we are moving our home and the business to upstate New York over this winter season. I'm not retiring or quitting. Just shifting gears and getting more help. PopinJohn is growing! We will be sending everyone our new address and phone soon now. I'll also post on YT and also the ads in GREEN magazine and Two-Cylinder will have the new contact information. The Arkansas phone still in use will be on forwarding to our NY number later this winter. Sure hope we don't lose anyone.

First of all, the carburetor must be TOTALLY disassembled to be cleaned properly. This includes removing all brass plugs, steel plugs, ball plugs and fittings as required. Just “running a wire” through blind circuits may get the tractor to run after a fashion, but we have found that circuits must be brought back to their original sizes to restore the air/fuel balance designed into the carburetor, whether one or two barrel. Some of the items listed are in duplicate on a two barrel.

Here’s a list of what we clean:
Bowl air vent circuit
Economizer air vent circuit

It is helpful to remember that most farm tractors built before 1950 were designed to run on “low-cost” "distillate" fuel, usually called “All-Fuel”. Today’s close cousin is Kerosene, not number one Diesel fuel. There IS a difference.

In our experience in today’s times, most collector/restorers are using gasoline fuel in their tractors. Further, it appears that in most regions of the country, gasoline blended with ethanol is what is available. The higher the concentration of ethanol, the more fuel volume is required.

INSTALLING A WICO X or C MAGNETO
ON A HORIZONTAL TWO CYLINDER JOHN DEERE
(note: updated May 08, 2009)

Result: Spark will occur and fire the left side spark plug (flywheel side) on the compression stroke when the LH Impulse marking on the flywheel passes the three o'clock position. Most models have a matching mark (or tab) on the crankcase.