4020 Engine Rebuild Cost

What should it cost to rebuild my 71' 4020 Diesel, doing an out of frame, Rework Head, grind shaft, new bearings, pistons, sleeves, and gear that drives the injector pump. I am tired of dealing with a tractor that smokes and I am ready to fix it. There is nothing worse than having to smell that exhaust burning oil while trying to have an enjoying afternoon on the tractor. It already has new water pump, injectors and radiator.

GOOD LUCK with getting rid of ALL the smell... even the best-tuned 4020 doesn't have the cleanest exhaust there ever was!

I had JD shop do mine last year and it ran between $8000 and $8500.
Gunner

Put an extension on the exhaust stack and get the smoke above you. Putzing around will not do it any good either. Needs to be working/worked.

If it's got the little cd throw-away injector pump, that can be a lot of the problem, since it's a 71 that is most likely what is on it,converting it over to a good pump with new nozzles will change things dramaticly,,and one other thing, that model has a air filter in the upper neck of the air cleaner, most people don't know it's there, remove it and knock the paper guts out of it and put the elbow back on with a new lower(large) air filter you will be pleased with the results.

Wouldn"t the 71 for sure have the tall pump, the 69-70 had the stubby pumps that everyone seems to hate (I personally had good luck with)

The last one i rebulit cost about $4000 with out the injection pump. another 4020 engin came to $6000, the block all machined, new crank,cam, fly wheel and on and on. I wouldn't of spent any money on the tractor but the owner said fix it. I would be ready to drop some large amounts of money if i owned it. The engin has gone almost 40 years so expect some supprises, the engin came out with new JD parts and went this long why not use JD again and expect another 40 years. I hope i anwsered your questions

The small C-series pumps work just as well as the bigger D-series pumps. The problem is . . . repair parts were discontinued for the C-series in the early 1980s. My neighbor has a 4020 he bought new around 1970. It has still has the C pump the engine has been rebuilt three times. Still runs fine, but I did have to put new rack-and-pinion throttle gears in for him.

With full respect for your experience and knowledge, I disagree with the your comparison of the two pumps, the C series pumps were dicontinued because of poor preformance, around here tractors with those pumpe are discounted in value by "at least" the price of pump replacement.

What all did they have to do to it? Now that it is done are you glad you spent that much on it?

I think mine has the tall injection pump, which I guess it supposed to be the good one. I will check out the air filter as you talked about.

You will need to remove the hood to get to it, it is an elbow kinda houseing on top of the main air cleaner, I'm sure you can get a new one but they are pricey, I just clean the guts out of the old one real good and put it back on, you'll see what I mean when you get to it, a few years ago a guy came to me with a 4000, it smoked a lot and was hurting for power,,he had already rebuilt the injector pump and it didn't help, we pulled the "hidden" air filter out and it was plugged tight with feed dust, and such (not sure how it all got past the main filter,)we cleaned it out and every thing was good again,,hope you get the same results...

hi--good replies here. i just changed the air filter in a tractor i bought, it continously smoked. it made a big difference! cheap too. the only other thing ive done is dump some feul conditioner in.

Well, I guess we're going to have to disagree.
The CBC pumps are MORE reliable, not less. They have no internal plastic weight-retainer ring to fall apart - like the DB/JDB series does. The CDC is a different story but was not used on ag. tractors. Just industrial.
I worked in three Stanaydne-certified pump shops and had to deal with many of them. The earlier C pumps that Deere used were CDC models. They had many problems. After installing many, many update kits from Stanadyne, they finally came out with the new greatly improved CBC pump. It was, and still is . . . a very good pump. Just as long lived as the D, DB, DC, JDB, and DB2 series. In fact, just about always a longer lasting pump. The C pump format had limitations for expansion into other markets, and Stanadyne dropped it - along with all parts support. That was right around the time when Stanadyne starting making pumps for Chevy and Olds diesel V8s in cars and trucks. The 4020s I've mentioned only had the improved CBC pumps.
There were very few ag tractors that used the bad CDC pumps. Only ones I can think of were a few combines. With industrial stuff, the CDC pumps were very common.
400 wheel tractor, 440 skidder, 350 crawler, 450 crawler, 480 forklift, 540 skidder and 544 loader all used the problematic CDC pumps.
The improved CBC pumps were used on ag tractors included the 820, 920, 1020, 1520, 2020, 2120, 2510, 2520, 3020 and 4020.
Since you state the pump is not as good as the D series, please post some details why.

They did pistons, rings, sent heads to machine shop, needed exhaust valve seats reground, the cam teeth were sharp so cam was replaced. The crank was good and injection pump had been done not that long ago but pretty much everything else was done. I have it on my auger and it was 21 degrees the other morning and it started right up. Would not have started like that under 50 before. I really like my 4320, just ended up replacing that transmission pump for the hydraulics and had them replace the syncros at the same time. Just like a new tractor now.
Gunner

We will just leave it as a disagreement, but I have made a lot of people happy by changeing them over..I have a 2510 here in the shop now with a'C' series pump on it it's pumping a lot of white smoke and the throttle shaft is very loose and leaking, but it's not fair to pick on this one because it has been neglected badly, it sounds like crap,,but the engine is most likely in need of a major O/H,,I'm not sure if parts are available to repair the throtle shaft, it has a lot of lost motion side to side, it may never have been off, It came in for a front pump re-seal,,it needs a "lot" more...but probably won't have it done...

Yes, but parts have not been available for C pumps in almost 30 years. It has nothing to do with the design of the pump. It's the fact that unlike the DB and JDB pumps that have been rebuilt, over and over and over - the C pumps - if running - are still mostly original. Shops that still "rebuild" them are using used parts to do it.

Of course a tractor with a C pump gets the price lowered. You cannot buy parts for it (with a few exceptions). The Chinese are making a few now.

The C pumps greatly outlast the DB and JDB pumps between rebuilds. But . . . the C pumps cannot be rebuilt unless you find someone with new old-stock, or used parts.

That's why Deere Co. has been offering change-over kits for years - ever since C parts became unavailable.

The CBC was discontinued for one reason. It had reached it's design limit, and could not be expanded into other markets. The DB series was more adaptable, an could be made with two pump plungers or four (DC, DM4, etc. ). Also, the DB led to the DB2 that is used on GM V8 diesels, Ford-IH diesels, military Humvees, etc.

My neighbor has 30K plus hours on his CBC on his 4020. There is not a DB or JDB on the planet that can last that long with the original plastic weight retainer ring. 30K hours is equivent to over 1,000,000 miles on a car or pickup truck. And, you're not going to find a Stanadyne rotary DB2 pump anywhere that has lasted that long without major repairs. They tend to have a life of 150K miles max before the timing advance goes dead, or they leak.