Great news: Dad's SC is mobile!!!Dad acquired a 1950 SC a couple of months ago. After some initial engine work to get some confidence we had a viable engine, he decided to go ahead with stripping and painting. Within the matter of a couple of weeks, he had the old girl sandblasted and repainted at my brother's body shop. I was pretty much the motor man, so I was pretty apprehensive when it cam time to crank the old girl over this past Monday. This tractor had sat outside for about 15 years and had some water in the engine and clutch compartment. In the initial checkout, we discovered she was not locked up, but had NO compression. All the exhaust valves were leaking badly, probably due to water getting in the manifold. Dad took off the head and had the valves and seats ground. One of his local tractor experts looked in the cylinder holes and found nice honing patterns still there. He convinced dad to give it a try without tearing the bottom end apart. Long story made slightly shorter: she started after a few cranks Monday without any noises or smoke! We had her out on a few long 4th gear rides that afternoon and dad was feeling pretty great about things. Did I mention this was his dad's tractor? He took it on a ride out past the graveyard "to show dad". It was a great day! Now that I have you guys all misty eyed, some observations and questions. I had asked this group earlier about the wiring diagram showing this tractor as having a negative ground system. The consensus was that with exceptions, all Racine tractors were negative ground, and all Rock Island tractors were positive ground. Some of dad's local experts said all of these tracors were positive ground. Well, I was in charge of wiring this thing (there was nothing left of the old wiring), and I had to make a decision. An electrical expert on the Ford 8N group had said at one point that starters didn't care, so I went ahead and wired it as a positive ground setup. I intentionally left the generator output wire disconnected until I got it started. After she was running, I attached a meter to the output and saw that it was 7.5 volts negative with respect to the generator case. Has to be a positive ground system, right? So, I put the generator in the system and all seemed well, except the ammeter needle jumped from a 5 Amp charge level to 15 amps occasionally as the tractor was tooling down the road. This made me wonder about a possible two position light switch scheme as is common on some other tractor makes. Well, the generator has one output terminal on a box mounted to the side of the generator. No other terminals are visible. Upon taking the old, falling apart light switch apart, it is obvious it was only a light switch and was not made to regulate the generator output. Does this sound right? So, is the fluctuating generator output anything to worry about? Finally, how do I tell if this is a Racine or a Rock Island tractor? The serial number is 540067SC Well thanks for putting up with the long post and for any answers you may provide! Gary B
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