1947 John Deere A

Hello i just picked up a 1947 John deere A and noticed ther are 2 gas tanks. One smaller one and a larger one ive read many people saying ones a back up or for kerosene and some saying diesel. Im new to JD have only worked on Farmalls and Fords. Any help would be very helpful before i trash my motor doing something wrong.

That was what they called an "all fuel" model, designed to start on lighter gasoline (small tank" and after warmed up turned valve over to cheaper ker. or distillate "tractor fuel". Must have been one of the last "hold out" farmers ordered it that way because '47 is when JD updated to the "late styled" models and raised compression and most were all gas models after that.

can you still run it on just gasoline all the time? if not what can you do to change it over to just run on gasoline?

As said below, it was to burn distallate, a fuel that disappeared a long time ago. It will run fine on regular gas. Odds are it was updated with higher compression pistons somewhere along the way anyway.

Distillate was a little before my time...

If it is in the kerosene/diesel family, would that tractor run on diesel? How was it ignited, spark I assume? How did it work?

It won't run on diesel but an all fuel model will run very well on #1 fuel oil. This is the kind of fuel that you use in an oil fired home furnace. You must have a tractor that still has the hot manifold. If you look in a tractor parts catalog you will find pictures of the hot manifold and cold manifold.

It will run just fine on gas. Ron Mn

Thanks!

A properly warmed up John Deere A All Fuel model will run on diesel but you have to
have the hot manifold and keep the engine warm. Radiator shutters help. Gas is a
lot easier.

lot of them was run on kerosene. have to close shutters on radiator. should have shutter control on dash. and shutters should be on radiator. start on gas get close shutters get hot then switch to kerosene or all-fuel.

We just mixed some Diesel fuel into the gasoline when we filled up. Didn't do it scientifically, just hosed in some Diesel. Didn't seem to make much difference to the G that we had. The small tank was for gasoline to get the tractor started and then switch over to "tractor fuel", which disappeared from the marketplace. We actually used that small tank as a reserve tank. When the main tank went dry, you knew it was time to switch to the small tank, raise the implement and head for the nearest fuel supply or you were going to be walking. That G would empty the main tank in 4 hours.

Now I am going to confuse you even more. The 47 year was split between two versiond, the earlier being a angle type of frame and was only made as an all fuell model meaning it was designed to be used on herosine but started on gas and the small tank was for the gas. Then mid 47 year they went to the pressed steel frame and still kept the all fuel model but very few of them were built, they at that time brought out the gas only tractor that was 38 hp instead of the 29 hp in the all fuel tractors. Now the first gas tractors they kept the 2 tanks using the small one as reserve (the all fuel tractor if you ran out of kerosine you could go back to the starting tank and go back in for refueling. Later they went to a single larger tank on the gas tractors and forgot about a reserve tank. That was about when they went to the single lever tranny and slower speeds, yours would have a 2 stick tranny and a low gear equal to the second gear in the single stick models. Now question is do you have a angle frame or pressed frame? Then you can follow up on if gas or all fuel to know what tank was for what. As for telling you if the pressed steel frame would be gas or all fuel I do not know how to do that. But you NEVER put diesel in one as it is too oily that it will foul out the plugs like if you were burning a quart of engine oil an hour. The kerosine or as was called distulate did not have that oil feel. Had 38 A, 46 B, 49 B, 50 AR & 51 A. The 38 & 46 were all fuel and the 49, 50 & 51 were gas tractors.