Need some help. A friend has become limited in his mobility and asked for my help getting his 1952 Ford 8N started. The tractor sat for a couple of years. He picked up a new battery and I put it in for him. He said that he was told the tractor had been converted to 12 volt. When I went to install the new battery I was surprised to find that it had been wired to positive ground. Now, I have to be honest, at this point I was questioning whether I had noted the position of the old battery correctly. I knew that positive ground had been used sometimes because I had a few British sports cars as a kid. Anyway, I know nothing about tractors. We installed new battery and would crank but not start. Found ignition switch to test faulty, and just hot wired it. At this point using a test light I found we had a steady light at the distributor side.( side mounted distributor).We got a tune up kit, installed new points,condenser,rotor,cap and plugs. Started bright up , yeah! over the course of the next few days we started it maybe half a dozen times. Installed a new on/off switch and moved it out to the road to be For Sale. A few days later we tried to start again, it coughed a couple of times and then nothing. We thought we had flooded it so waited till another time. Another couple of days later, tried to start, still turned over, but would not even cough. Checked with light again and found power to one side of coil , but not other and no power at distributor side. Installed new coil, same problem. Installed another new condenser, same problem. It seems as though this tractor had a partial 12 volt conversion. The wiring is stil as original with an external voltage regulator and what appears to be a generator, not an alternator. There is no ballast resistor in line the wires ran to a terminal block as original. I'm stumped and really know nothing about these tractors, other than it is an awesome piece of machinery when it runs. Thanks for any help.