John Deere 430 I just bought

[Amvcane]

John Deere made a wear plate which bolts to the tractor frame. M88755.
It measures about 2 3/4" x 3" x 1/8" thick. Simple to make on your own.

 

[arto98607]

Or get a strong cross linked piece of plastic that you've trimmed to the right width and hold it on place with a counter sunk bolt. You would need to check where steel is worn and remove any ridges if there are some, but the larger area and hard plastic would virtually eliminate all wear in that area. If it does wear you could periodically shim out the plastic pieces.

Yes, HST is the weak link in almost every tractor design life. Transaxle oil changes are the single most important service your machine gets.

it was mentioned the center region of the outrigger's path is where the wear is. Without seeing pictures, another strategy could be to weld up the wear grooves in the axle saddle and grind flat again.

John Deere made a wear plate which bolts to the tractor frame. M88755.
It measures about 2 3/4" x 3" x 1/8" thick. Simple to make on your own.

Thank you all,

These are all good suggestions for a high usage JD tractor of this vintage, however after taking a little closer look of the front axle outrigger bolt setup in my 430, I notice some wear but it's actually very small amount for 37 year old tractor (which has under 800 hours on the meter).

Looks like the wear is mainly on the adjustable outrigger bolt heads.

For me to put another 800 hours on this JD430 would take a long time, so it's best for me to just get the stuck bolt replaced, lube the surfaces occasionally and monitor the wear while at it.

 

[arto98607]

Update,

Here is a photo couple of days ago of my 60" mower deck with new paint job, rebuilt spindles, new pulleys, idlers & gearbox lower oil seal.

It is little older design (meant for JD400), but I bought it because it was virtually rust free underneath, the price was right and the vendor was ready & willing to ship to the West Coast.

The deck fits JD430 OK, but the both front & rear draft arms had to be modified little bit.

Looks like the gearbox in the 60" JD400 mower design is mounted couple of inches further back, which required little modification of the rear draft arm lateral support.
I don't think the JD400 60" deck design have the diagonal support bar to control lateral movement.


No problem at all getting parts for the deck.




PS. The deck could have been used as is without repainting, replacing pulleys, idlers etc. but I chose not to do it that way.

 

[arto98607]

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I remember some (not crazy) muffler warranty! (because it was assigned to me!) Design guidelines always warn about mounting mufflers and intake canisters directly to engines... especially diesels! But in small packages (compacts on down) you have to. I recalled some failed warranty parts and saw the muffler failures: cracks at the header-to-can joint. I had Test order in some snazzy high temp stain gages and gaged up a new muffler. Installed on the several 430's we owned in Engineering... quiet. Low strain, no issues. WTH? A guy in Experimental told me though, his personal 430 had already cracked several. So with his backing, I had his machine picked up and brought to JD, gaged muffler installed, and tested. You guessed it... that stupid thing lit up like a search light! I had the engine guys go over it too... nothing wrong! Turns out, some desiels have a certain shake that others don't. I reinforced the muffler design as much as possible but a small percentage of machines could still fatigue one within their life.

Thank you for a very informative reply!

............snip.............



It's noticeable that the muffler setup in this JD430 has been worked on at some point in time, and it is all intact now.
We will see how well it holds up in future...

Perhaps one of these would help if needed later?
View attachment 2312176 View attachment 2312177

Update:

I cut off a piece of the exhaust pipe and installed piece of flexible pipe in-between the two ends, we will see if this will prevent muffler breakage due to engine vibration?

This particular 1-1/2" Walker 36319 flex pipe is little more rigid than what I was hoping for!

 

[5030]

It might but don't hold your breath because it's the engine vibration that causes the failure. Had the same thing on one of my large Kubota's and I added some external gussets. to the muffler.

 

[arto98607]

Update:

Spent two hours yesterday on another test-mowing of yard and pasture with the JD430 - the biggest surprise is how good traction it has on wet ground, which is the opposite of what I was expecting!

No need to use the differential lock at all so far and I see no need to install the cast iron rear wheel weights at this point.

In my seat of the pants estimation the traction better than on JD300 which spins the rear wheel pretty easy on wet ground.

The JD430 is a real workhorse, but I wish it had a real engine temperature gauge.


Here is a photo of gauges someone posted elsewhere 7 -8 years ago.



I think addition of just analog temperature gauge is all I need at this point.


SW Gauges are little pricey but seem to last a long time, I've had identical one in another tractor for over 20 years and it's still like new.

 

[arto98607]

Here's how the new SW temperature gauge and sender look like.

It was showing steady 170*F (77*C) during field mowing while it was little above 70*F outside.

 

[5030]

Real analog gages are so much better than idiot lights or nothing at all. I despise idiot lights in general. Idiot lights are for just that, idiots. 170 is peachy in as much as a pressurized Glycol system can run at +200 (f) with no issue and diesels don't really like to run cold anyway.