I’ve been continuing to paint the final pieces, but haven’t gotten many good pics, so here’s a little eye candy for you from a few weeks back. White Diamond metal polish is some really good stuff!
![Finger Wood Gas Thumb Safety glove]()
![Helmet Automotive lighting Gas Personal protective equipment Fashion accessory]()
1971 Model 120 Restoration
Hello GTT community,
Sorry for the long post here but want to give a thorough intro. I’m currently in the early stages of restoring a 1971 JD 120 and decided it would be a waste not to share progress pics and things learned along the way with people who would appreciate it. I’ve had a hard time finding a lot of info on the 120’s since they were only a two year run, so I hope I can help someone else that runs into the same problem in the future.
Background: the tractor was purchased locally by my grandfather sometime in the early 80’s as a package deal with a trailer. It came with presumably the original mower deck and the original snow blade. He and my father used it to mow several acres of grass every week for decades until after my grandfather passed away and his land was sold. It was also used to plow a 1/4 mile long driveway of snow and was even used to push a lot of gravel around the property. The tractor was always stored outside and was definitely After the land was sold, my father and I continued to use it for mowing/plowing snow over the last 10-15 years, although on a smaller scale and less frequently. The last few years the tractor has sat outside with little to no use and my father recently decided to pass it along to me. The mower has been losing oil quickly for a while now, but other than that it ran fine.
To the best of my knowledge, this tractor has never been tampered with other than my father rebuilding the carb once and some other light maintenance. The engine has never been rebuilt until now and it has never been repainted in any way.
My goal with this tractor is to make it show room quality or as close as it can be to that with my skillset. I have plenty of other equipment to do the things it can do, so I have no need for a worker tractor, although I’ll still subject it to light use.
Pictures to follow
Sorry for the long post here but want to give a thorough intro. I’m currently in the early stages of restoring a 1971 JD 120 and decided it would be a waste not to share progress pics and things learned along the way with people who would appreciate it. I’ve had a hard time finding a lot of info on the 120’s since they were only a two year run, so I hope I can help someone else that runs into the same problem in the future.
Background: the tractor was purchased locally by my grandfather sometime in the early 80’s as a package deal with a trailer. It came with presumably the original mower deck and the original snow blade. He and my father used it to mow several acres of grass every week for decades until after my grandfather passed away and his land was sold. It was also used to plow a 1/4 mile long driveway of snow and was even used to push a lot of gravel around the property. The tractor was always stored outside and was definitely After the land was sold, my father and I continued to use it for mowing/plowing snow over the last 10-15 years, although on a smaller scale and less frequently. The last few years the tractor has sat outside with little to no use and my father recently decided to pass it along to me. The mower has been losing oil quickly for a while now, but other than that it ran fine.
To the best of my knowledge, this tractor has never been tampered with other than my father rebuilding the carb once and some other light maintenance. The engine has never been rebuilt until now and it has never been repainted in any way.
My goal with this tractor is to make it show room quality or as close as it can be to that with my skillset. I have plenty of other equipment to do the things it can do, so I have no need for a worker tractor, although I’ll still subject it to light use.
Pictures to follow
61 - 74 of 74 Posts
Project is coming along nicely
Thank you! I’m really enjoying working on it. Hope I can finish this one and not buy anymore. I’ve caught myself perusing Facebook Marketplace for other garden tractors already hahaProject is coming along nicely
Wow. Guess I got lucky buying mine for my inherited ’71 112 two years ago. It’s an original JD part. Don’t remember where I got it tho. I assume your 120 has the exploder steel gas tank mounted right next to the battery. As a kid (skinny kid) I hoisted the steel 5 gallon gas can up there many times. Not sure how I never blew the thing up. Question for you related to that: JD had to do a recall and provide a red plastic positive post cover that snapped shut. Do you intend to include that on your rebuild? I remember every time dad went to the dealer to buy some points or a belt they’d send him home with another one of them. There used to be several unused ones in the garage. I’m not sure if they are still there.The fuel gauge and cap are in pretty rough shape on this tractor. The float is barely attached and it doesn’t accurately read fuel levels. In addition to this, the plastic ring around the cap is broken in one spot and doesn’t screw down as it should. I’ve been unable to find any replacements online so I reached out to Hapco via email to ask about them. They were very quick to reply, but unfortunately they said the manufacturer destroyed the tooling to make replacements and they are no longer being made. Sad news for me as every single one I’m finding on eBay/Amazon/etc is sold out. I will continue the search and hopefully will find something before everything goes back together.
These cracks look familiar. You said it used to clear snow on a 1/4 mile long driveway. Was that with the snowblower? If the snowblower was in the raised position and the hood opened that leading edge would contact the chute and crack it.We’ve also started fiberglassing the hood. Upon closer inspection, it looks like the original owner may have busted up the leading edge of the hood at some point and used body filler to rebuild it. In the one photo below, that is body filler that is cracking and there’s very little fiberglass underneath it. They did a good job blending the paint, but they would’ve been much better off redoing the fiberglass. So overall the hood will take more work than originally anticipated. I will hand sand everything after building up the fiberglass to get the contours right.
Of course running into a pine tree didn’t help mine either.
Interesting…. I hadn’t seen anything about a red plastic positive post cover. The one on mine has definitely been gone for a long time and I guess I haven’t really paid close attention to that on other people’s builds online. I’ll have to do some research and see if I can find some info on them. If they came from the factory that way, I’d definitely like to put it back that way. Thanks for the tip!!Wow. Guess I got lucky buying mine for my inherited ’71 112 two years ago. It’s an original JD part. Don’t remember where I got it tho. I assume your 120 has the exploder steel gas tank mounted right next to the battery. As a kid (skinny kid) I hoisted the steel 5 gallon gas can up there many times. Not sure how I never blew the thing up. Question for you related to that: JD had to do a recall and provide a red plastic positive post cover that snapped shut. Do you intend to include that on your rebuild? I remember every time dad went to the dealer to buy some points or a belt they’d send him home with another one of them. There used to be several unused ones in the garage. I’m not sure if they are still there.
No snowblower, just the good old front plow. The only attachments we’ve ever had for this is the front plow and the mower deck. They both came with the tractor when my grandpa bought it, so I’m assuming they were purchased from the factory together and no additional attachments were purchased. The cracks on the front edge of the hood and the body filler were there since before our family purchased it in the early 80s, so it’s possible that the original owner just ran into a tree or somethingThese cracks look familiar. You said it used to clear snow on a 1/4 mile long driveway. Was that with the snowblower? If the snowblower was in the raised position and the hood opened that leading edge would contact the chute and crack it.
Of course running into a pine tree didn’t help mine either.
Was the end cap unpainted from the factory? Don't think I've ever seen one polished before. Looks good though!
I didn’t see any traces of paint on it so I think it was probably bare metal from the factory. Not sure if it was polished or not from the factory, but it did shine up pretty easily. The main housing had black paint all over it, so I know that came black from the factory, which was a little surprising to me since almost all of the restorations I’ve seen online have the starter painted silver.Was the end cap unpainted from the factory? Don't think I've ever seen one polished before. Looks good though!
Interesting.I didn’t see any traces of paint on it so I think it was probably bare metal from the factory. Not sure if it was polished or not from the factory, but it did shine up pretty easily. The main housing had black paint all over it, so I know that came black from the factory, which was a little surprising to me since almost all of the restorations I’ve seen online have the starter painted silver.
Don’t have any good pics, but this weekend we pulled the tractor to the local car wash and sprayed ‘er down. We brought it back and I’ve since gotten a lot of it disassembled. Today I was able to get the seat pan off of the frame.
We also put the flywheel back on the motor, only to find that we slightly mushroomed the end of the crankshaft when initially removing the flywheel and it’s mushroomed out enough that the nut will not go back on. So now we are going to try a couple different methods to fix the mushroom enough to be able to get the flywheel retaining nut back on.
In addition to the flywheel we put a lot of the smaller covers and the governor back on, as well as the oil fill spout and the starter.
Very productive past few days!
We also put the flywheel back on the motor, only to find that we slightly mushroomed the end of the crankshaft when initially removing the flywheel and it’s mushroomed out enough that the nut will not go back on. So now we are going to try a couple different methods to fix the mushroom enough to be able to get the flywheel retaining nut back on.
In addition to the flywheel we put a lot of the smaller covers and the governor back on, as well as the oil fill spout and the starter.
Very productive past few days!
61 - 74 of 74 Posts
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