odd things a person finds on tractors

This is the 8n with the hupp...also the one I was working on the lift. Opened up the lid to have a looksie and find this gem. 12v to 6v reducer. Can't say I've ever seen one on a tractor or anywhere for that matter. It starts and runs good so I'll leave well enough alone. The tractor is 12v and has another ceramic resistor.

" It starts and runs good so I'll leave well enough alone."

And the first time it doesn't, your life will be simpler if you pull both resistors off, put the OEM ballast resistor & a 12v coil on it.

See tip # 30.

The OEM ballast resistor has basically no resistance when cold which puts about 7 amps into the coil. As it warms up, resistance increases to keep the coil from melting.

The fixed resistors don't allow for max current at start up.
75 Tips

Lisa.......ooh-bouy......a 12-to-6 volt reducer. I see its fer a RADIO. Can you hear a RADIO over the tractor NOISE??? I can't and I wear hearing aides. Remember, tractor radios used to have VACUUM TUBES and they took a lotta power.

Modern 12-to-6 volt reducers (commonly called RESISTORS) are usually square WHITE rectangles. WARNING: burnie-burnie.....they are HOT.

Remember, early 8N's have the weird 4-nipple square can dizzy and require the MANDATORY "infamous" ballast resistor. It is usually mounted on the backside of the dash panel. It too gitts HOT.

As recommended, gitta modern 12-volt squarecan ignition coil. It still requires the infamous ballast resistor but does NOT require a 12-to-6 converting resistor.

FYI.......you do know that the weird 4-nipple dizzy is designed to be removed from the tractor to install/clean the points (0.015") don't you?

Just un-snapple the capple and walk to the kitchen table. After installation of NEW points, be certain to clean/polish the INVISIBLE contaminates from between the points. Just clamp a paper match book cover or tear a strip from HEAVY brown paper grocery sack and use that and PULL. Simple, eh?

Finger start the 2-bolts and install the rotor. Now rotate the rotor until the dizzy tang fits into the camshaft slot. Now tighten the 2-bolts and re-snapple the capple. Simple, eh? .......electrical Dell

I've got a feeling that your converter is so old, that a PO converted to 12 (did he) long ago but still had a 6 volt portable radio!!!

According to Dell, there were tractor 6 volt radios. I might have even had one that I put it in my '46 truck not knowing it was a tractor type.

I had a portable radio in 1956-60, a heavy, brick shaped little RCA Victor with a big fat 6 volt battery in it AND TUBES!
I could probably find a web photo of one.

I loved that radio.
My dad actually let me climb a telephone pole in the alley behind the house while he supervised, back when the poles had hardwood steps, and I nailed on a copper pipe to the top that he had pre drilled and splayed out then we took the wire into my bedroom. When I lifted the alligator skin lid on my little portable, two copper straps went to the lid antenna, so i could just connect my new yellow wire there and listen to Chicago.

In our one horse North Ontario town, you could only get the top ten hits on a saturday morning -- for an hour. By connecting to chicago, it was Rock and Roll all night long. Too weak a signal in the day. WLS in Chicago. Dick Biandi. Remember him?

With me it was always, "turn off that radio and go to sleep!"
way more than "turn off that light and put those comics away!"

Used a similar reducer on a 51 Chevy p-up truck. Only needed it for gas gauge & heater blower. Oil & temp gauges were direct mechanical type, changed lights & ignition to 12 volt.
Willie

That makes more sense, that he needed it for the old gas gage and/or heater.

Used one when I put a 283 in a 52 Chevy hardtop. Kept me from having to change dash lights and the radio (and stuff I can't remember). Oh the good old days.

Tall T, how old are you. when I was a kid in the 50's, we listened to WLS and WOWO at night on the radio at night. I am 62 now. and we were in NW SC back then also. Great rock and roll.
Richard in NW SC

Yep its 12v. No radio on it. I think it
was on there before the po bought it. This
is the one were selling so if we decided
to keep it it would be a complete rewire
correctly. Got another one in the shop
now.

(quoted from post at 17:57:18 11/02/14) Yep its 12v. No radio on it. I think it
was on there before the po bought it. This
is the one were selling so if we decided
to keep it it would be a complete rewire
correctly. Got another one in the shop
now.

Click to expand...

I would leave it B also... It would make a good bench test tool to pretest for spark before you installed a 6V distributor set up... I don't keep a 6V bat but got plenty of 12"s around so use a reducer for bench testing...

Similar devices were used on old VWs,but an inverter to change 6v to 12v,for modern radios,8-track players,etc. I had an old "48 Dodge truck,6v +g and used a 12v motorcycle battery for an AM radio. Oh,for the good old days.

There's nothing at all "odd" about it. I remember seeing them in auto parts stores in the 60's and into the 70's and have even used a couple.

JC Whitney probably sold them even after that, and I'll bet a little looking around the 'net would still find some for sale.

It is simply a set of individual resistors cast in a ceramic block, with one end connected to a common input terminal

Each resistor's value is based upon the typical Amp draw of what each accessory terminal is labelled, so the voltage at that terminal under load is close to the operating voltage of a "6 Volt" system.

Hi Richard,

Just turned 68 in Oct.
I was in grade 5 when Jailhouse Rock was number 1 and me and my school friends were trading Elvis Presley bubble gum cards.
I was ten when I put the copper pipe antenna up.

Terry

I have a more modern black box inverter in my '51
Step Van to run the tape deck, cause the van is still all 6 volt.

"In our one horse North Ontario town, you could only get the top ten hits on a saturday morning -- for an hour. By connecting to chicago, it was Rock and Roll all night long. Too weak a signal in the day. WLS in Chicago. Dick Biandi. Remember him?"

Oh yeah. Same thing in rural SW Minnesota in the 60's & 70's - WLS out of Chicago was the best. I hid my radio under my bed (old tube type) and wired a remote speaker that came from an old TV cabinet. I hid this speaker under my pillow, but once in a while the folks would hear it and holler.

Doug in east TN

Joyful times weren't they!

I'm betting you are a musician at heart.
It took me a while after losing myself in the '67 era, to find out that it was music that I was searching for all along but that I had lost sight of. I failed to grasp the significance of my devotion to music in my youth and the joy that it gave me.

Later my mother said, "I gave your sister piano lessons, but you were the one who should have gotten them."

Cheers,
Terry

tractor supply used to carry 6 volt radios

Just saw a 12v to 6v convertor at Summit racing yesterday - it's in their DX Engineering line of amateur radio stuff