'52 starter cable

Lynn Patrick

Well-known Member
My '52 Major has been converted to a more modern start system using a starter button & 12 volt solenoid. Originally I believe it was a manual switch activated by what looked like a choke button & wire.
Is the original style available anywhere? What's it actually called?
Thanks!!
 
I bought a new starter for mine last year and did not use it. I managed to repair the
old unit. Cost was about 250.00 English pounds.

Solenoids are available, not quite the same quality as the original. The original on my
tractor did about 50 years but the new one I got only lasted about two years but its
life could have been reduced by the faulty starter motor. Pull type solenoid was about
5.00 English Pounds

I got a choke cable and cut it to length, that works well but you have to find a joiner
to connect the cable to the solenoid.
 
Mine had the pull cable w/connector still in the dash & I saved it, so all I would need is the actual switch.
I just think it would be cool to have it back to original! I have much more modern Fords, but this thing is such a blast to play - I mean WORK - with!
 
I'm not near the shed now to take a look so I might be getting tractors mixed up, but I believe that has the choke-style cable as mentioned that runs to the
starter switch (or 'solenoid'- not really a solenoid, but serves the same function) on the left-side, just past the steering column and beneath the battery. Is
yours still on there? It's pretty common for any of the old, high-current, manual starting switches to have the contact surfaces fouled. For the push-button
style like most other tractors, this means people having to press really hard to achieve contact. For the pull-type like the Fordson the cables break from
people pulling too hard to try and get a connection. That's why most have been swapped out to a newer 12V solenoid.

If this was the case with yours, the original might still be on there. You can usually bend open the tabs holding the two halves of the switch together, clean
up the contact surfaces with some emery/scotch-brite, put back together and be good as new. Then it's just a case of running the battery cables as they would
have been originally - from battery to one terminal on the old switch, from other switch terminal to terminal on starter. And of course a universal choke cable
as mentioned.

Be careful running the cables to/from the old switch. When I bought my second major one of the problems was the battery draining (or so the old owner thought)
and difficult starting. There's something near the old switch (can't remember what it is now - a bracket? or part of the frame?) that comes very close to where
one of the cables connects, and the cables were installed such that one of the copper lugs was just barely touching and arcing/running to ground.

Not sure what your setup has for a solenoid. If it's an external one you can get rid of it completely. If it's on the starter, you just have to run the cable
from the switch to the solenoid terminal closest to the starter (effectively bypassing the new solenoid)

If you don't have the old switch, should be readily available from a tractor salvage yard. Plenty of Majors in the yard near me.
 

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