D-10 Series II Restoration

(If you would like to see some of our other restorations, click here.)

Our D-10 was the 4th and most recent restoration job that we worked on. I had done some various work on it in it before the painting part of the project. My brother and I took the head off, only because the head gasket went out, and had the head gone over and honed the piston sleeves before we put it all back together. There used to be a Woods 5′ mower deck mounted under it, and we used it for mowing the acres of grass on our farms. This made a great mower because this model has an independent PTO on it, unlike earlier models.

I believed we bought this tractor in the winter of 2007. It was at a small restoration shop in a town up the road from us. It was in pretty rough shape when we got it. I can’t remember what the price tag was on it, but we ended up trading in our Allis-Chalmers CA and paying couple hundred dollars yet for this tractor. There is a story about my Allis-Chalmers CA as it relates to the D-10, but I will cover later.

We used the mower in the condition it was in for 2 years. We were having issues with the rear axle seals leaking and the brakes didn’t work as a result of it (oil was dripping on the pads and wouldn’t grip). So I initially tore that all apart and put some installed new seals in Fall 2009. That took care of the leaking issue and the break issue. In Spring 2010 we started taking the tractor all apart and prepping the metal for paint. We didn’t have any mechanical issues to fix, because I had addressed those the previous year.

By the end of that summer, we had the tractor painted and back together. The only thing we are missing yet, which we didn’t have to begin with, is the snap coupler mechanism for the drawbar. We have actually looked into putting an aftermarket 3pt hitch on, that might make it a little more useful.

The D-10 is a super-sweet little tractor. We would like to get its twin sister, the D-12, and have them both fixed up together. They are fun to putter around with and take out for photo ops every now and then.