Grandpa’s 1942 John Deere LA

This is a 1942 John Deere LA. My grandpa had bought this tractor from a guy many years ago. It didn’t have a radiator and there were a few problems with it. My grandpa bought two from the guy and always knew he wanted to give me this one. My grandpa started working on it but had quit for one reason or another. But on August 1, 2024 he decided that him and I were going to fix it up. I was very exited.

The first thing we did is figure out where he left off. As you can see from the before picture, below, there was a lot of work to do. But we learned we needed to put the radiator on and we also found the starter and generator my grandpa had recalled getting those professionally redone. So we started putting the radiator on. We had to make new gaskets and find the missing parts. We got the radiator on and next we tore apart the carburetor to clean it. We opened it up and there was plenty of dirt and gunk in it. We made a gasket for the carburetor and the next step was to put on the necessary parts for it to run. We put on the generator and a couple other things and made a makeshift setup to test to see if it would run. We then tried to pull start it with another tractor but it wouldn’t start.

We went through about a week of troubleshooting and learned that the gas line was clogged and the magneto was not tuned correctly. After we got that fixed we pulled it about 3 yards and it started immediately. I was very excited and then we drove it around and noted any problems we encountered. After that we parked it and fixed any problems or leaks and then we began to wire brush and paint the hood and other parts. We also wire brushed and primed the tractor for painting. We then painted the tractor and attached all of the sheet metal parts.

The tractor was officially finished around the middle of November. Then in the winter my grandpa bought me a snowplow for a Christmas present. I only got to use the plow once because it was kind of a lame winter. But it worked quite well. That is the story of how my 1942 John Deere LA got restored.

Photo 1 what it looked like before we started the restoration.
Photo 2 makeshift setup for testing.
Photo 3 finished with the snowplow on the front of it.

Cole Bradshaw
Grant, Michigan

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