Just a couple points to share.
I purchased an eBay radiator kit for ~$140. It was definitely not nearly the quality of the old one I replaced, but for the money, it was a good value. The only significant problem I had was the new radiators front PTO clearance was not nearly a high enough arch. I ended up using two large nuts as spacers under the radiator to raise it enough for the front PTO which drives my FTL hydraulic pump to have clearance.
Raising up the radiator half an inch made it so I could not use the fan shroud without it hitting the fan and the neck of the radiator sticks significantly out the top of the hood. Also the new radiator came with two hoses and the top hose was too short to reach forcing me to reuse the old hose which will need to be replaced soon.
I plan to keep the old radiator and have it rebuilt and swap back in the future, but for now this will get me by.
When I started looking closely at the wiring, I noticed that the battery was installed with a negative ground even though I still had the original 6 volt positive ground / generator set up. On top of that I also noticed that the lights had been wired with 22 gauge wire. I'm amazed the thing even ran and understand why the previous owner had just replaced the six volt battery before I purchased the tractor a month or so ago.
I did not intend to rewire the tractor since I wanted to wait until I converted to a 12-volt system with an electronic ignition. But when I saw the rats nests and the condition of the system I realize that this was not an option. Big thank you to JMOR for a good quality drawing of the original positive ground 6 volt system. That drawing helped significantly. I cut out all the lights wiring and remove the lights for now, and rewired the system with appropriate gauge wiring based on JMORs drawing. I also replace the ignition switch. Hopefully I won't have problems with starting the tractor when it rains like I did in the past. Battery is set up with the correct positive ground system and Generator appears to be working again based on the amp meter. I still have a small concern about the cut out relay as I only have the generator wire running back to the bottom side and then the top side running back to the terminal block. I'm not really sure how the cutoff relay works without having a third prong to activate the relay so I just rewired it the same as the original wiring since this portion of the wiring still appeared to be original from 1946.
When I buttoned everything up on the tractor, it fired up right away. The starter seem to turn much faster and the amp meter displayed charging, which never was the case previously. A fourm like this makes working on these tractors so much easier with a lot more confidence. Thanks to everybody and especially in this case, JMOR.
I purchased an eBay radiator kit for ~$140. It was definitely not nearly the quality of the old one I replaced, but for the money, it was a good value. The only significant problem I had was the new radiators front PTO clearance was not nearly a high enough arch. I ended up using two large nuts as spacers under the radiator to raise it enough for the front PTO which drives my FTL hydraulic pump to have clearance.
Raising up the radiator half an inch made it so I could not use the fan shroud without it hitting the fan and the neck of the radiator sticks significantly out the top of the hood. Also the new radiator came with two hoses and the top hose was too short to reach forcing me to reuse the old hose which will need to be replaced soon.
I plan to keep the old radiator and have it rebuilt and swap back in the future, but for now this will get me by.
When I started looking closely at the wiring, I noticed that the battery was installed with a negative ground even though I still had the original 6 volt positive ground / generator set up. On top of that I also noticed that the lights had been wired with 22 gauge wire. I'm amazed the thing even ran and understand why the previous owner had just replaced the six volt battery before I purchased the tractor a month or so ago.
I did not intend to rewire the tractor since I wanted to wait until I converted to a 12-volt system with an electronic ignition. But when I saw the rats nests and the condition of the system I realize that this was not an option. Big thank you to JMOR for a good quality drawing of the original positive ground 6 volt system. That drawing helped significantly. I cut out all the lights wiring and remove the lights for now, and rewired the system with appropriate gauge wiring based on JMORs drawing. I also replace the ignition switch. Hopefully I won't have problems with starting the tractor when it rains like I did in the past. Battery is set up with the correct positive ground system and Generator appears to be working again based on the amp meter. I still have a small concern about the cut out relay as I only have the generator wire running back to the bottom side and then the top side running back to the terminal block. I'm not really sure how the cutoff relay works without having a third prong to activate the relay so I just rewired it the same as the original wiring since this portion of the wiring still appeared to be original from 1946.
When I buttoned everything up on the tractor, it fired up right away. The starter seem to turn much faster and the amp meter displayed charging, which never was the case previously. A fourm like this makes working on these tractors so much easier with a lot more confidence. Thanks to everybody and especially in this case, JMOR.
