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6 Volt starter on Farmall 100

A

Anonymous-0

Well-known Member
What will happen if I run a 6 Volt starter off a 12 Volt battery? Will it burn out immediately? Thanks for any help Phil
 
NO, it wont burn out immediately, I did that on several starters that never had a problem.

HOWEVER it can possibly (although some may never have a problem) be a bit tough on starter drives.

When using a 6 volt starter on 12 volts, heres something exact the opposite one normally would do that can reduce any (may never even have any however) potential starter drive problems. That's to use a lighter duty starter and ground cable. Perhaps instead of a No 0 or 1 or 2 cable USE A NUMBER 4.

John T
 
(quoted from post at 06:49:08 08/29/14) What will happen if I run a 6 Volt starter off a 12 Volt battery? Will it burn out immediately? Thanks for any help Phil
Click to expand...

I have a 240U that had been converted to 12v... same basic C123 engine as the 100. I always had a little problem with the starter not engaging every time, and as time went by, it got worse. Finally, the starter quit and I took it to my local auto-electric shop for repair. My thinking was the "not engaging" problem was the drive was getting worn. That was only part of the problem. The guy said it should have had 12v field windings installed when changing to 12v, because the starter would spin too fast too soon before engaging and that was hard on the drive and starter ring on the flywheel. For about an extra $75 he fixed it and changed to 12 windings... made a world of difference, not only in the drive engagement part of starting, but the engine fired quicker. Best $75 I ever spent... entire rebuild was about $175 or so, but worth it.
 
No, it should not burn out immediately. If it does, it is because your starter was no good to begin with, not because of 12V.

You CAN burn the starter out by cranking and cranking and cranking and cranking and cranking and cranking and cranking and cranking and cranking and cranking and cranking and cranking and cranking and cranking and cranking on the engine when it won't start. If the engine does not fire after 10 seconds of cranking at most, you have a problem that needs to be fixed before cranking on it some more.

Typically the battery cable issue John T indicates takes care of itself. People always use the same crappy crusty old battery cables you had before, and they add enough resistance to the circuit.
 
Is this the reason that, after a use of a month the starter commenced to grind when I started the engine. Looking into the starter hole I saw some grinding away of the teeth.
 
The type of drive your starter uses depend on a fast start of armature rotation to get the drive to engage. It has an inertia type drive with a helix spline to move the drive into position in the ring gear. The armature has to start very quickly so the drive will slide down the helix and engage the ring gear before it starts to turn with the armature. If the armature starts too slowly or the helix is sticky the drive will start to spin before engaging the ring gear.Running at 12 volts actually makes this type of starter engage better. The down side of the more rapid rotation is that it puts more stress on the spring in the drive when it has to start to turn the engine. On the other hand the same drive is used on an M and many of them have been used for years with 12 volts and have not and broken springs. It is highly unlikely you will ever see it happen on a 100.
 
MAY WELL BE. Like I indicated, the starter itself can do okay but starter drives (and even flywheels) can have a problem when you put 12 volts on a 6 volt starter. However, I've had some that never caused a problem????

The engineering correct answer is have a shop convert it properly (new fields etc) to 12 volts but I never did that myself.

NOTE if the tractor has a mag Ive seen problems where the timing (due to too fast rotation) is on the run time advance and that can be hard on starters and/or cause kickback since she's trying to start at 20 BTDC versus TDC as they should .......

John T
 
Thank you, everyone for your help. I think I will take the starter and get it converted over to 12 volt. It starts right up (within 2 seconds) but it grinds.
 
Will work fine, I would recommend updating the starter drive to the new style, they bang a lot less on the ring gear.
 
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