Messing around in the shop

[Eugen]

Don't stop, someone is learning from your work. I'm finding this interesting. Now I'm feeling a little guilty for not sharing my stories and pictures on my project but I will when it warms up and I get back to working on the 446.

Please do. I too got more work to do on my Case tractors and attachments and will post when I do.

[JSinMO]

Thank you fellas, sometimes it’s nice to know you haven’t wandered too far off the reservation! It is satisfying to me to be able to contribute what I can.


@keith You have nothing to feel guilty about. I enjoy seeing what all you guys are working on, but sometimes it’s just not convenient, or you just don’t have the time to post. Right now I’m able to do it but sometimes I might not have the chance. Just the way it is.

Since I’m ignorant on the subject I did some reading last night on the single wire, self exciting alternator. Apparently after they sit for awhile you have to give them a kick in the butt to get them working again!

So I tried to give the noisy bearing a little lube. I don’t know if you guys are familiar with it but I’ve used Ballistol lube for years and I really like it.

The directions say to start the engine then make a momentary connection from the battery lead to post one under this plug. Sounds simple enough!

Well it did start charging!

But it didn’t last long. I started getting all sort of crazy reading from it so I guess I confirmed it’s shot.

So I decided to unhook it and give the tractor a test run on the battery alone. Naturally I bumped the wire to ground when I took it off, glad I wired a fuse into the system!

Well it drove like crap! No power, sputtering it finally died and wouldn’t restart.

I swear I’m just about to shove this thing down the hill and push it into the Mississippi River! I confirmed it’s back to an inconsistent spark. I don’t think I’ve ever had this much trouble getting a running machine to run right.

The only part of the ignition I didn’t take apart is the distributor and you can’t really do anything with it on the tractor, so I pulled it!

Didn’t really see anything profound so I went over the connections and gently cleaned the magnetic ring and pickup.
Put it all back together and started the tractor. Now it’s running perfectly! Good power and it starts easy. So now with the exception of the alternator, maybe, possibly, I hope I’ve got this figured out!

[RoamingGnome]

Congratulations on being able to keep patient and work your way through things...
Nothing worse than intermittent problems - especially electrical ones, just something about that magic smoke hiding in the wires waiting to escape...

[keith]

I've had similar non working parts that just needed a quick cleaning to come alive again. Congrats on your persistence to a good ending.

[JSinMO]

Well today’s adventure is a bit of a hodgepodge. I walked into the shop the other day and was welcomed by the sound of a hissing air compressor!

First order of business is to replace this regulator, it appears the diaphragm gave up. That’s the second one I’ve put on. I guess that’s what I get for buying cheap junk. Not being one to learn a lesson I put another cheap one on! we’ll see how long this one lasts.

With that done, let’s see if we can finish up the old Ford.
I ordered a one wire alternator from O’Reillys and put it on.
Dang, it’s the shiniest thing on the tractor!

I slapped the belt on and tightened everything up and gave it a try. It started right up! No cranking and cranking. I don’t know how accurate the cheap volt gauge is, but we are charging!

I went for a test drive and made a couple of passes grading the driveway with the blade.

The tractor ran great! I shut it off and restarted a couple of time and it kicks right off now! So what’s the final assessment? I think it needed everything I did to it. Cleaning up the starter really seems to have helped it crank faster. And cleaning up the distributor, and pulling back the advance a bit seemed to really help too. I’m going to mark this one down in the win column. We’ll see how it does as time goes on.

Time to move on to something else. I’ve got one more mower to look at, let’s go get it with the 446.

With the ground a little more firmed up and chains on the tractor it yanks things around much better. No spinning tires now!

This jewel is a David Bradley model 917 sickle mower.
David Bradley was owned and sold by Sears & Roebuck way back when. Hopefully you can make out the info on the serial tag.

Unfortunately I can’t seem to find any information on this. Searching the internet brings up a lot of walk behind garden tractors and their implements but nothing on this. I’m guessing it was made somewhere between the late 1940s and mid 1950s. I’m thinking there probably aren’t that many left in the world.

It appears to be a simple but strong design. Belt driven off the PTO, but with an internal clutch instead of a pitman stick like my John Deere models.

Checking the settings on it is pretty much a rinse and repeat like the other I’ve done so I won’t go through that here.

I’m really debating what to do with this one. I know it functions and will cut hay, but with no information, and certainly no parts availability other than common things it’s really on my mind that it should go to a David Bradley collector.
On the one hand I’m a firm believer of more is better, but on the other hand how many sickle mowers does a guy need?

This may be one of those rare instances that I actually let something go!

I’m open to your thoughts on it, or if you know someone that is into David Bradley sent them my way! If nothing else it would be really nice to get some info on it.

That’s about the end of another productive day in the shop, thanks for coming along!

[Eugen]

Jeff, I'm glad about the season finale on the Ford! I was worried if it kept that attitude up you'd get the shotgun out.

About the sickle mower, isn't it nice to have options? I am personally much like you, if it was cheap to get, it's hard for me not to have doubles and triples of tools and everything else. The line I draw is at the . Happiest to have one!

But if you perhaps were in dear need of a tool or some other attachment for your other tractors, maybe the funds from selling the mower would be welcome. Either way you go, it cannot be wrong. Thanks again for taking us along!

[JSinMO]

Jeff, I'm glad about the season finale on the Ford! I was worried if it kept that attitude up you'd get the shotgun out.

I think I was close to doing just that for awhile there!

I’m definitely thinking along the same lines as you. There are some other things I would like to do and selling would help fund that. I might wait till spring to make a decision. If I sell it some video of it working would probably help.

[JSinMO]

You guys might remember a few weeks ago we were supposed to get some snow so after work I thought I’d get the tractors ready. That’s what started the 2N project. Well here we go again!
We’re supposed to get snow tomorrow, probably not even enough to worry about, but I figured better safe than sorry.
I went up tonight to get that sickle mower off the 446 and stage the tractors.

The Ford started right up and ran good.
The 446 is about as reliable as they come and it started right up too. But then it died. If you remember it did this once before but then was fine, so I chalked it up to a one off I don’t know what happened.
Not this time. It wouldn’t restart just crank.
So I looked it over and found I had no spark. I must’ve really pissed off the electric gods somehow, first the 2N now the 446!
I pulled the plugs and watched while I cranked. I could get spark then nothing. ( on a side not I see these are Autolight 216 plugs the same as just put in the 2N, I’ll have to file that away for later use)!

I started thinking about maybe I had problems with the points, or maybe the coil is going bad. I checked connections and then it started! As soon as I closed the hood it died, what in this world?
Take a look at this picture.

Can you see that red wire running across the coil? It goes to the headlights and it was shorting out the ignition! I could wiggle it and get the tractor started, then wiggle it again and it would die. You guys just had a conversation about how that wire should be routed. Guess what I’ll be doing this weekend?
For now I unplugged the lights and coiled up the wire and now it’s running fine, disaster averted!

[Eugen]

As I was reading your post I started thinking about either a bad connection somewhere or a bad wire. Glad you found it and the fix is easy!!

[Toolslinger]

First thought was it was the same intermitant spark I was seeing with a sketchy coil... Glad it was simple. There is simply nothing worse than intermittant electrical.