[Farmall] H Update

[Darrell Ratliff]

Carl,
    I suspect that once you re-charge the battery or fix your charging system the problem will go away.  You have probably operated the tractor long enough that the battery voltage is very weak and providing a very poor spark.

From: szabelsk at gdls.com 
Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2011 11:04 AM
To: Farmall/IHC mailing list 
Subject: [Farmall] H Update

Well I got around to checking the charging system and found that the 
adjustable pulley on the generator was simply turning on the generator 
shaft. Took the whole generator off and took it into the garage to see 
what was what. Noticed that the pulley had a lot of play on the shaft, so 
it was obviously badly worn. I was able to simply pull the pulley off the 
shaft with one hand instead of threading it off. Noticed that the drift 
key was slightly rounded off on one edge and that it didn't appear to be 
the right size for the pulley. It only protruded about an eighth of an 
inch out of the generator shaft, should have been more like three eighths 
based on the groove in the pulley. Looked at the center of the pulley and 
could see that the drift key had worn a groove in the inside surface of 
the pulley about half way around. Also saw that the threads of the front 
of the pulley were essentially gone. Figured I'd have to start shopping 
around for a new pulley.

Flipped the generator over and noticed that one of the brushes was sliding 
back and forth. The tension plate and spring were lying on the bench with 
one arm of the tension spring broken off. The armature was a little rough, 
probably from the brush bouncing around instead of being held tightly 
against it. Rework the spring to make a new arm and put it and the plate 
back in. It put pressure back on the brush like it should. Figured I'd 
have to also start to shop around for parts to do a good fix on this also.

Just about then, the county road commission came by and started to dump 
truck loads of dirt from one of their projects in the front yard along the 
driveway. Figured I needed the tractor up and running to start moving the 
dirt since I didn't want it sitting there when the snows come and I had no 
place to push the snow off of the driveway. It's also going to take some 
time to get it all moved. So I centered the pulley on the generator shaft 
and did a little welding, realizing that this was going to be a temporary 
fix until I found a new generator and pulley. Remounted the generator and 
put the belt back on. Started up the H and noticed that I was maybe 
getting a little charge, but not really much.

Spent most of the day moving dirt and managed to move a good bit of it 
until I ran out of gas. Refilled the gas tank and tried to start up the H, 
but the battery wouldn't do it. Obviously I was running off of the battery 
all this time and the generator wasn't keeping the battery charged. So I 
had to jump start it.

Went back to move more dirt and noticed that the H was laboring when I put 
it in gear, forward and reverse. In neutral, it ran fine. So now I have to 
see what is what with that issue while I chase down a new generator.

Hope this isn't going to turn into one of those scenarios where you keep 
fixing one thing only to have something else go bad right away. But it is 
a 70 year old tractor.

Carl Szabelski



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