kerosene/distillate A

I recently inherited my dad's Farmall A, I want to restore it. It seems to have been originally outfitted to run on either kerosene or distillate. There is an extra (4th) hole in the hood with no tank under it, but there is a fuel line and shut off valve just hanging there connected to nothing. As best I can recall it also has the crank for the radiator shutters. The tractor is in storage now. Here are my questions, how can I tell if it was intended for kerosene or distillate, and where can I find a replacement for the small auxiliary gas tank? I'd like to use it as a reserve tank.

There is no real Kerosene burner (memory serves, I hope) Distillate was cheap and called tractor fuel. Kero was far more expensive, and thus not used much if any. The volitility of either was about the same, so it was not adjusted for.
Tanks are hard to come by. I do not know why the tanks get taken out, but they do. Ebay has them quite often. JimN

the old distillate tractors had a heavier cast manifold. the exhuast circulated around the intake to heat it up to make the distillate burn.that small tank was for starting on gas, then when warmed up it was switched over to the other fuel in the big tank.

I never could see why they would pull those tanks off either, good to have a reserve at times. My F-12 dual fuel starting tank I have filled full with kero though just to keep it from rusting out inside. Kero doesn't go bad like gas does.

It appears that most of the non-gasoline burning Farmall A tractors in the US used distillate but outside the US most used kerosene. The latter fuel used a 4.4 to 1 compression whereas distillate was 4.7 to 1. In kiwi-land about 1950 just before rebate (non-road tax) gasoline became available kerosine was a about a third of the price of gasoline. Diesel tractors were starting to to become more attractive as the starting difficulties were being overcome but up til then most farm tractors were burning kerosene. I do not think distillate was ever available in New Zealand.

Cool info!! JimN

Thanks for the info everyone. I was surprised how quickly answers sprang up. I"m just getting started in researching this thing and I have a lot of questions. You will be hearing from me on those in the future! Other than Ebay, any ideas where to find the small tank?

Salvage yards across the country may have them.
Search for salvage yards in the search for box. JimN

Just an aside: When I was growing up (not sure I ever did), I put kerosene in my father's 10-20 "just to see what it was like." Man, what a pain! You HAVE to start on gas. You HAVE to get the engine hot (radiator water giving off vapor), you have to KEEP the engine hot (work, or radiator curtain or blind adjusted as needed). If the engine is allowed to cool, like when you want to take a short break, it will spit and sputter until it gets hot again. If you shut if off with kerosene or distillate in the carb, the motor won't start if it has been allowed to cool down. So, back to the old starting routine again (shut off main fuel tank, drain the carb, open the gasoline valve, start the engine, heat it up, shut off the gasoline valve, open up the main fuel tank valve). Oh, and I forgot to mention: Those drains in the crankcase are not just for checking oil levels. They are for draining part of the motor oil out every X-number of hours (maybe 10, but I don't remember for sure) because the kerosene or distillate has a habit of condensing a bit and running past the rings. Dilutes the oil, so you have to drain some of it out and top off with new oil.