John Deere 330 maintenance and a few photos from a friend

Posted By on May 19, 2020

OldJohnDeereYanmarFuelFilteJohnDeere330DieselWood17102

As mentioned on Sunday, the delayed Amazon shipment of the Kubota fuel pump set my maintenance and repair plans back a bit, but I did get around to replacing the previously substituted fuel filter in the John Deere 330. We mostly use the old John Deere diesel tractor for trailer duty (and snowblowing), but ever since I degraded the fuel lines and original factory filter housing up when running 100% biodiesel and homebrew cooking oil, I’ve been using cheaper disposable diesel fuel filters.

JohnDeereFuelFilterReplacem

The previous repair was a glass tube type (above right) which I really liked for its design, simplicity and machining, but never trusted. I’ve always felt that the filter medium wouldn’t keep micron sized grit from getting to the injection pump no matter how many times I replaced it? Still, I’ve used it since 2014 on this 35 year old workhorse … which once caught fire due to an electrical short!

This year with the Kubota diesel fuel pump problem and buying 4 disposable plastic filters, I’ve decided to use one of them on the John Deere. Next time I’ll probably re-plumb and go back to the original Yanmar since I finally cleaned it up. No matter the system, getting clean filtered fuel to the engine is the key to keeping these engines alive and I sure do love these long lasting and strong running diesels for tractors (and of course I like them on sailboats, generators, skid loaders, cars, trucks and SUVs too!)

Last week I also had an enjoyable exchange with Mark Jones, a good friend who live in Georgia. He is retired and we share many of the same hobbies and interests … only he is much more talented. He also occasionally reads my ramblings – perhaps that makes me bias?

Mark offers excellent advice too, so his thoughts are always appreciated, as is his friendship. Since he recently moved into a new house, one of his goals was to turn his one-car garage into a workshop and get back to woodworking again. He has had plenty of experience with tools and is comfortable working in smaller spaces (Mark and Dar lived on a sailboat for years). So for me, it is not a surprise to see him thrive in a garage/workshop and adding casters to make double-duty carts and stands. I love seeing his workshop come together and wanted to archive a few photos he set me. Nice job Mark, be careful what you send me as I’ll probably highlight your mistakes too!

MarksDrillpressStandMarksTendonCuttingJig

MarksDoubleDutyPlanerGrinderCart

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