[AT] Adding electric starter

[Ralph Goff]

On 2/9/2017 4:26 PM, John Hall wrote:
> Electric start on a Gravely is the ONLY way to go!
>
> I've seen photos of a few starter add-ons to old tractors. Most look
> like they were done in a farm shop with minimal equipment. Its one of
> those things where necessity was probably the mother of invention. Never
> seen one using the rear PTO, think I have seen it done on the belt
> pulley before.
Speaking of belt pulley starting reminded me of how my brother and I 
used to start a tired old Cockshutt 40
over 40 years ago. We were using it to pull a bale trailer hauling bales 
for a neighbour. It had a typical small
and well used 6 volt car battery on it that would just give one 
reluctant revolution of the starter at a time. So
we found we could give it a little help by standing by the belt pulley 
with it engaged. Wrap right arm onto the pulley
and pull at the same time as pushing the starter button with your left 
hand. It helps to have long arms. I know some will
call it dangerous but we never had an incident or even a scare using 
this method. It was just the little extra boost
that the tired battery needed.
My dad used to start these tractor with the crank but I think the crank 
lugs were broken off this tractor.
The ironic part to this story is that we were using our 40 because it 
was the "easy starting" tractor compared to
the neighbour's DC4 Case which at times was impossible to start and thus 
unreliable on the job. The old 40 never failed us.

Ralph in Sask.