[albatros_3]

I'm new here and I'm looking for advice with my VH70. Short story, My 93 yr old grandmother gave me her first rider, a 1970 JD 70 and I'd like to have it restored soon. It has been sitting in the back of a shed for as long as I can remember. So it has sat for over 26 years. It was parked when the rear drive belt broke.I need advice on how to proceed with the motor. I removed the motor, pulled the spark plug and sprayed PB blaster in the chamber and replaced the spark plug. The motor is full of oil and the cylinder appears to be near the top of the stroke. Should I disassemble the engine, clean and remove any possible corrosion, and replace the gaskets and seals or just change the oil and start it up? I haven't rotated the engine and I'm nervous about causing damage to the internals on a harder to replace engine.

Here's a picture of my progress.

 

[skidooruffie]

Hello Mike and welcome to WFM.
My advice to you is this, pull the head and check it out. if it looks good clean up the head, pull off the flywheel and clean everything up and replace all the ignition parts, they are still available. you may as well replace all the gaskets and clean up the parts real good and reassemble. the only 2 parts hard to find on these are the crank and block.

I have done a lot of work on theses and have taken machines that have sat for 20 yrs and just started them up with no problems.

Looks like you are doing a full restoration on it so I would change all the gaskets and clean it up good.

Thanks or sharing your story and keep the pics coming.

Shannon
Here is a pic of a 60 I did last winter, If you need any parts I may be able to help. Always glad to help save a machine with some history.

 

[albatros_3]

Thanks for the advice. Here's a picture of the tractor and my grandmother when I picked it up last year. It doesn't look bad, but the deck and left wheel were rusted out and the frame had some spots of bad pitting. I did a fair amount of blasting and used some body filler. The hood just required some repairs to the cracks.

 

[skidooruffie]

you finish that and make her proud!
I want to see that picture.