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<p>Dad bought a new Allis C, one bottom plow, 2 row corn planter and
cultivator when he got home after WWII. Always told me he would
plow all day with the Allis then hook onto a harrow and harrow the
plowed ground in about half hour. Then he bought a used Allis C.
Plow with one and harrow with the other one I guess. 1948 he
bought a DC Case. The 2 Allis C's got to do the cultivating
then. 6 22 inch rows on one and the other one had a 2 row corn
cultivator. Also had a 5 ft belly mower for one to cut alfalfa.
This was before my time but when I was growing up in the 60's the
C's were still cultivating, mowing hay and the one would have
duals on it in the spring to pull the harrow before planting. The
DC Case had a loader on it by then most of the time and the new
big tractor was a Farmall Super M. Anyway about the charging
problem. Seems like we cranked them C's most of the time in the
morning but after cultivating till noon they would usually start
after lunch with the starter. If we ever killed it turning on
the ends and they were hot I would crank it like he told me a
quarter turn at a time and it would never start. He would show up
and tell me never do this as he would spin it with the crank and
get it to start. So when Dad retired the C's were still being
used cultivating and pulling wagons but he was pretty tired of
buying batteries so the crank got used most of the time.<br>
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<div>As someone who grew up during the late 1940''s and early
1950's and as kid I was watching life very closely and asking
a million questions. My father had many failings and we didn't
always get along well but I have to give him credit for
teaching me many skills and always being ready to answer
questions and trying to teach me anything he was able to.</div>
<div>The 1946 Allis Chalmers C that I own that was bought new by
an extremely close family friend of three generations has
almost since new been poor at keeping the battery charged. It
was almost allways used for a lot of short running jobs with a
lot of starts but short run times. When charging it usually
only threw a couple of amps and at times it just wasn't in the
mood to charge at all. His son had a "lot" of electrical
training while in the army during WW-II and he cursed it
constantly. <br>
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<div>Now this part may be new for a lot of the younger folks but
in about the first half of the last century reasonably priced
home battery chargers were mostly just not there. For many
years it was very common for folks to remove the battery from
their car or tractor and take it to a service station and pay
to have it charged. I can well recall going into service
stations in the early 1950's and seeing shelves sitting full
of batteries being charged. <br>
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<div>My father had a very good friend in the late 1930's who had
a service station in a small community about 8 miles from
here. When war was declared after Pearl Harbor in December
1941 and the country went into war production in early 1942
his friend shut down the service station and both of them
started working 12 hour shifts 7 days a week at Allison's in
Indy. I don't know what his friend did but my father was
testing aircraft engines. Since he was making very good money
he bought a lot of the tools and equipment out of the service
station from his friend. One of those items was a large
battery charger capable of charging 12 batteries at a time.</div>
<div>On another tractor note, that was the same time that he
bought his new 1941 9N and a batch of farm equipment.</div>
<div>Back to the Allis C, the family friend kept the C in a tiny
shed and his son ran an electric line out to it. Then he built
a 6 volt charger from a junk yard auto generator, a matching
voltage regulator and a smallish electric motor to drive the
generator. I recall being really impressed as a kid the first
time I saw it running. Then again in those days I was
impressed by about anything with moving parts that made
noise. :-)</div>
<div>That Allis still has major rounds of depression when It
doesn't want to charge... We replaced the generator with a
rebuilt one from TSC and replaced the cut-out with a
conversion kit that used a conventional voltage regulator and
did away with the original light / charge rate switch and all
wiring replaced. I can assure you that I have checked the
grounds, checked the grounds, checked the grounds until I am
blue in the face but it still lacks reliability. I think that
I will break with my normal approach and convert it to 12
volts and a smallish alternator. I'll just keep all of the
original stuff in a box on a shelf up in the loft. Over the
years I have usually just used the crank to start it if it was
weak but the family friend was elderly, very slightly built
and in poor health and that tractor does crank kind if hard.
He just couldn't crank start it.</div>
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-- <br>
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<div>-- <br>
<br>
Francis Robinson<br>
aka "farmer"<br>
Central Indiana USA<br>
<a href="mailto:robinson46176@gmail.com"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">robinson46176@gmail.com</a><br>
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