This might be a bit of an odd project for the quarantine time, but we did some restauration work on an old Deutz D4006 tractor.
Living on an old farm has it perks (like a lot of space for machines and a workshop) and sometimes brings other advantages with it, like having a tractor. But, this good machine is from 1972 which makes it older than both of us combined! Also, being a working horse, it has seen better times, with a lot of areas, which would need more than just a little touch up, so we decided: let´s use that time and bring some life back into this quite reliable machine!!
Big thanks to Helmuth by the way, who directed us through all the major decisions, as we are both no car guys. Without him, the tractor would still be disassembled.
The situation at hand
As one can see, the situation was bad, steel all bend and rusty, missing bolts, damaged paint jobs and some leaking oil.
As already evident from the pictures, we disassembled the tractor down to it´s biggest parts and got to work.
What have we done?
- Basically everything, which has been removed got a fresh paint job. If needed ground down to the bare metal and then a primer and the final paint. The floorpan has been powder coated, as the power coating will be a bit more robust than just some paint.
- Replaced all the old bolts and cotter pins with new ones
- Replaced cables as needed (especially the one directly at the battery) and put them in a nice sleeve
- Installed new lights (you can still by replacement parts, never would have thought)
- Had new front tires installed
- Readjusted the breaks
- Got new DEUTZ letters for the front
- Changed all the rubber where possible (the rubber bands holding on the top were also replaced, but have already broken. So we used some paracord)
Of course painting the the winter is not so easy, as we needed atleast 10 °C for the paint to properly dry, but a gas space heater and an electric 2 kw heater with a temperatur controller allowed us to keep the garage warm enought for this porpuse.
Show me what you got!
Enought talk. Feast your eyes on the finished tractor:
Conclusion
This was a lot of work! We did not expect “a little bit of painting” to be so time consuming. But in the end it was totaly worth it. Probably the first time, we saw some someone turning their heads when we passed them (or the passed us, the top speed is at 26 km/h)