1975 JD300

[Jloe]

Greetings! Just wanted to share some photos of my father-in laws sled that he bought new in 1975 from the John Deere dealership in Rosetown, SK, Canada. Been sitting in his quonset forever and have no idea the last time it ran. Plan on rebuilding the Walbro carb/fuel pump, clean out the fuel tank (smells really gross) and see if it will go. The sled is in super nice condition and I don't think he ever even opened up the owners manual cause there are no greasy fingerprints from flipping pages anywhere to be found lol!. Father-in law, who will be 83 in June, was a grain farmer and he thinks he may still have the original bill of sale with his income tax stuff from 1975 which would be pretty cool, (yes, he keeps everything lo!) Also, being that the sled does not have a speedo, and with 3 original cans of oil left over from what I'm assuming to be from a case of 12, the sled might have approx. 600 miles on it? Thanks!

[Cdnturboz]

Looks great!

[AirborneX4Special]

Beautiful.

If you're ever on Vintage Sleds, you might consider tendering that machine in the Find of the Year contest .

[jep_800]

Fantastic time capsule! I agree, you could show that as an original especially with all your extras in the display and do pretty well at vintage shows.

IF you plan to get it running, the very first thing any of the guys on this site will tell you is replace the crank seals. Those will always be the first reason an engine will overheat and cause cylinder / piston failures.

Jep

[nick80lf]

Sharp sled

[Jloe]

Thanks guys, appreciate the positive comments!
My thoughts were to polish it up, get it running and hopefully sell it to someone who has the time to baby this thing, taking it to vintage sled meets, vintage rallies, etc. I will admit, the more I'm getting into this sled, the harder it is for me to let it go!
Regarding the crank seals, is it possible to change them out without a complete engine teardown? Did a compression test, and both cylinders are a strong 125psi with no bleed down, would that be a good indication that the crank seals are good as well?

[snowmoer]

Wow, that is one clean sled. Great find.

For the oil, those came in 6 packs. When you got a case, they came in 4 - 6 packs per box.

[jep_800]

James,

Yes, you can replace crank seals without splitting the cases. Several techniques have been used with things like drilling in a couple of screws and using a pulling device to yank the seal out... or start a cut into the seal and use a prying device or large screwdriver for leverage to pull them out. The key of course is to not go too far so as to damage the bearing behind the seal.

Follow the SM2100 manual on how to install new seals with a non-split engine.

Now, if you are in fact just showing the sled, and you start it every once in a while but not actually riding it, you could probably get away with not doing the seals. Sounds like good compression and no leak-down. The moment you do a vintage trail ride and put some miles down will also be the moment you wished you had changed seals, so just keep that in mind.

Great sled!

Jason

[Jloe]

Thanks for the response Jason in regard to replacing engine seals without splitting the case, where can I find a copy of that SM2100 manual? I'll consider looking at doing that for sure. Also, good info on the case size of the oil Dan, thanks for that, I'll have to ask father-in-law if he remembers buying more than 1 case of oil, if that's the case, pardon the pun, the sled has maybe 3-400 miles tops then, I'll report back. Now still struggling to get this thing to fire. Replaced the spark plugs and confirmed engine has good spark, tore apart the Walbro carb, cleaned the dickens out of it and installed a new fuel pump kit, replaced the in fuel tank filter/check valve so fuel is now pumping up to the carb. Noticed on disassembly though that the aluminum pump leaf was missing the end with the two small tabs, no idea where that went, only thing I can figure is that my nephew who was working at a local John Deere dealership at the time, determined to get grandpa's sled running again, took it apart and maybe it broke when he was cleaning the carb, IDK, cause it was just laying in there attached to nothing. Anyway, bought a new one, put back together actually got the sled to fire and run for a short time, but then it died. Proceeding to pull and pull and pull some more, I noticed fuel basically pouring out the exhaust so that's not good. Took it apart again and noticed the the Umbrella Check Valve looked quite deformed and was missing most of the stem. I ordered a couple of new ones thru New Breed Snowmobile Parts, and am currently waiting on those to arrive, then we shall try again. Really hoping that's the issue with the fuel pouring out.

[Cdnturboz]

Take a look at this link and select the year of your sled:

https://vintagesnow.com/John_Deere.html - here is the one for your style: https://vintagesnow.com/John_Deere_files/sm2100.pdf

Should be able to find the info on replacing it .

On the flooding my recent experience in rebuilding a Walbro is that they’re a bit finicky to get the lever arm right - the aftermarket rebuild kits change how high you set the level. 400Brian can probably shed more light on the topic than me.

Edit: the stem of the check valve needs to be trimmed as well:

[400brian]

Yes, the tail on the umbrella valve is just there for installation. Once it is pulled into place, you snip it off.

As for the fuel running out the exhaust...it sounds like the metering arm needs to be lowered a bit. We have a Walbro tutorial in the FAQs .

As for the service manual, go here : https://vintagesnow.com/John_Deere.html

Very nice sled by the way!

[Jloe]

Great, thanks for the good information guys!! I'll report back with hopefully some good news. Funny, I had a dream last night that I got that sled to run, and it actually ran pretty good being a dream and all, maybe it'll come true lol!
Cheers!

[Mark633CSi]

That is so nice!! Great find!! You guys have a TON of snow now to ride it!

[Jloe]

Update on trying to get this sled to run, finally some Great News! Had to tear down the carb a couple times to adjust that metering arm like cdnturboz and 400brian suggested, and after that, she started first pull and stayed running, idling perfect, I was kinda beside myself in disbelief lol! But, I was still skeptic that like the last couple times, it wouldn't start again after the engine warmed up, I waited a couple hours, started first pull, let it sit overnight, started first pull with no choke. It's like this sled suddenly thinks it's fuel injected. Sled is kept in a heated garage so maybe that has something to do with it, but whatever, I'm pretty pumped that it's working, no fuel leaks and the fuel lines stay full so the fuel is right there when it needs it. Pretty snappy for a whopping 27hp engine lol! Now I've had second thoughts about keeping it, but I'm thinking someone else may appreciate this sled more than I. Any takers? lol! Feel free to private message me.

[Jloe]

So a while ago I was trying to figure out how many cans of oil came in a case to help me determine approximately how many miles might be on this sled, due to no tach or speedo. Snowmoer mentioned that the oil came in case lots of 4 or 6, so I figured maybe around 500 miles on the sled, but that didn't make sense cause my wife said they used to drive that sled all over the fields when she was a younger gal, so it had to have more miles on it than that. So now my father-in-law actually found the original sales receipt for the snowmobile and for a 24 pack of oil both dated October 27, 1975 and he said he only ever bought one case of oil.
So, there are three unused cans of oil, they used 21 cans x 60ish miles per tank maybe, puts the miles in the 1200-1300 range to be fair.
Can you imagine paying $10.00 for a case of 24 pints of oil??!! LOL! Attached copies for interest sake.