[AT] Make repairs or payments

[charlie hill]

Sounds like you are doing a fine job John.

Charlie

-----Original Message----- 
From: John Hall 
Sent: Sunday, January 28, 2018 4:50 PM 
To: Antique tractor email discussion group 
Subject: [AT] Make repairs or payments 

I've heard it said before, you are either going to make repairs, or make 
payments. Applies to anything I suppose, houses, cars, and especially 
OLD TRACTORS.

We've got two Farmall Super A's. Both run 15-20 hrs a year. One is on 
dedicated sickle mower duty (cutting hay), the other spends most of its 
time hooked to a PTO drive Allis hay rake. The rake tractor has been 
getting hard to start, so decided it needed a going over this winter. I 
pulled it in the shop for presumably a new battery and cleaning up some 
connections--starter would barely turn over. Well the battery is 9 years 
old and even though it load tested just weak enough to be classed weak, 
I didn't want to fool around with it so I bought a new one. Before I put 
in the new battery, I decided to test some voltage readings. I had just 
over 6 volts on the old battery, 6 at the starter, and 6 at the coil. 
The moment I engaged the starter, voltage to the coil fell to just over 
3 volts. We happened to have a newly rebuilt starter on hand (its been 
here for a few years actually) so I put it on. I think the old one is 
drawing too much current. I actually ran a temporary hot wire straight 
to the coil and it only dropped voltage to around 5.5 when starter was 
engaged. While I was at it, the hot wire from the starter to the 
ammeter, and the wire from switch to coil both had bad insulation. The 
wire to coil actually snapped in half when bent. So I made new wires 
there, and from the amp to regulator and back and replaced one wire from 
generator to regulator and wire from coil to distributor. Basically I 
left one wire from the generator to the back of regulator and the light 
wires. While I was at it I decided to check the plug wires---good grief 
the coil wire was practically gone. The end that went in the coil was 
broke in half and corroded worse than a battery cable. The spark plug 
wires looked like they had been arcing in the cap. Going to use a plug 
wire kit and make new wires--I'll take the time to solder the ends on. 
Going to put in a new cap and rotary button. The points and condenser 
are less than a year old, I'll leave them. Probably put in new plugs. 
Hopefully with an oil change this one will be ready to go. I'll check 
rear end grease levels as well and air up the tires.

Get this one done and there are only 4 more to go!

John Hall

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