Blackie Hubbard and Marc Bigbee were some of the greatest engineers Deere had in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, in the Des Moines works. They had great sense of humor. Dad told me that Blackie started at Deere sweeping floors and worked his way up to division engineer. I think he was there for 50 years. He ...

Ok, Here is the JDHW PEC Test Report on a little known JD project called Snow Buck. It was initially created by two engineers from the Des Moines works and set with Dad (Ron Leonard) to Horicon in 1973. It was actually used in a branch meeting presentation… Alas, Snow buck didn’t make it into produc...

Not Snowmobile Related but here’s one from 1966 when JD used to load an entire train with equipment to head South,.

See attached

From Dad’s collection (Ron Leonard)

More Easter Eggs on the way.

Found a design presentation from 1973 for a JD Sled that never got built and no one has seen in public!

Will post the song list if anyone wants it…

OK, I can't get the jpeg to upload.... assistance?

No simulators, no computers, just engineers figuring it out... So here's a "blueprint" from '78/79 looking at tracks, sprocket pitch, and different sleds. Hand generated data, analog math, and someone on a drafting board. And of course notes at the bottom. In the notes, you will see they w...

Moderator,

Can you move to the ETD section that is locked?

TY
Dan

Here's one from back in the day.... Here are the contract numbers for the ETD Contract Team from 1974!

It was hard earned money for sure!

Enjoy.

Dan.

Not too many people may have known my father Ron Leonard who managed the Engineering Department at JD Horicon works from 1973 to 1986. He is also the author of the JD Snowmobiles book that came out a few years back. He worked for John Deere from 1956 to 1997 starting as a design engineer on cotton h...

Sad news for sure. I remember being around him when I was a kid and at the races. Got the pleasure of sitting in on the interview he did with my father door mom for the JD snowmobile book at his home in Lake Norman,NC when he lived there. Traded some emails with him over the last year and Jon and hi...

Holly old thread resurrection.... We took that sled along with 8 or 9 other sleds out to Yellowstone on a Xmas family vacation back in the day. There is a photo floating around of it parked in front of the family motor home with all of us sitting on JD sleds. We put a few hundred miles on it and it ...

Asking price?

Find a good spring and axle shop and see if they can re-Arch the leaves. They generally heat them up in an oil bath and then bend them. Worked every time on my IHC Scouts and no reason it can’t work so long as the spring isn’t cracked or failed. It may cost more than finding a set of used springs bu...

The sled is a 1980 Model with some updates and the Engineer is a 1934 Model with some updates!