Hand Cranking

I'm trying to hand crank a Farmall 100. I've watched several youtube videos on the subject and it seems simple enough, but I'm having trouble and it has me spooked. When I try and put the crank in the 6 o'clock position, I sometimes get some serious recoil. One point it kicked over and the crank begin to spin with the crankshaft. Thoughts would be appreciated.

Hi you may be cranking anti clockwise. Usually the
engine has tapered slots that eject the crank when
engine responds. Ed Will Oliver BC

Check your timing if getting recoil, must be at 0 BTDC initial.

Crank should not spin with engine, as stated should kick out.

NEVER wrap your thumb around crank, and always pull towards you.

I'm cranking clockwise and I noticed the tapered slots when I had the radiator off. However, the shaft looked very rusted...maybe I should have sprayed some WD40 onto it?

While the mags start/impulse timing needs to be TDC for hand cranking, IF ITS TOO FAST SHE CAN KICK BACK grrrrrrrrrr

John T

Crank should be free in the mountings, both to rotate and to slide in/out.

Is the end of the crank, and the bolt it engages clean and lubricated? You want it to be able to kick the crank out as soon as it fires.

How is the ignition timing? When it spun the crank, did it go backward?

If it's a magneto, do you hear the impulse spring clicking? If not, it may not be retarding the spark for cranking.

If it's battery ignition, check the centrifugal advance, make sure it is working, check the timing. If too far advanced it will try to kick back.

I recommend using the starter. I had a C cause me 13 weeks off work and surgery on my dominant hand a few years back. Just sayin,,,,,,, gm

Always crank with hand cupped not with thumb wrapped around crank. Also lift on crank don't push down. This can keep you from getting a
broken thumb or wrist.

if its kicking back u have the timing advanced too far. it is firing before the piston reaches top dead centre and is pushing the piston back down. you need to have timing set to spec's. or you will get hurt this way. i always lube where the crank goes in and the pin at the crank end. makes life so much easier. proper technic is to pull up on the crank not push down as that will break your arm if she backfires. that little 100 is nothing much to crank. i have many tractors that i hand crank and not a one will backfire, but i have them tuned with timing set . dont trust someone elses tractor either.
a girl stalled her massey 55 at the tractor pulls, so i went to crank it for her. that thing spun backwards due to timing advance. and hurt my hand a bit. left that one alone and they pulled it.

I haven't hand cranked a tractor since I was a teenager, nor do I intend to.

I recall when I was a kid a neighbor suffered a broken leg hand cranking a CC Case. An RC Case was the last one we had that required hand cranking.

But, I agree with everyone else, if everything is clean and lubed the crank should automatically kick out when the engine fires.

Yup....make sure the crank is nice and straight, rust free, and a dab of grease. lift up only with a cupped hand and no thumb. DO NOT WINDMILL !!!!! Very tempting to do but don't. Did you put the choke on and 1/4 throttle. One time I tried to hand crank a CUB with a standard coil ignition. BAD MOVE. The battery was weak. Took the crank and went around a couple of turns and she kicked back. literaly lifted me off the ground maybe a couple of inches. I thought for sure I was broken! Thank goodness it just slapped the crap out of me. Man it hurt for several days. Hand cranking is for magneto only. If you have a very old car that you can set the timing like a model "A" Ford then you can. By the way, I pushed the CUB down the hill and got it started. Just wanted to try cranking it. Thinking about it, a good old model "L" Gravely with rope start, If the magneto on that machine is off it will try to suck you into the fan guard.

(quoted from post at 20:01:39 01/30/17) . One time I tried to hand crank a CUB with a standard coil ignition. BAD MOVE. The battery was weak. Took the crank and went around a couple of turns and she kicked back.

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A Farmall Cub broke my Dad's thumb doing that, he knew better.

Yes I came a little to close. It happens like lightning!

It is how the founder of Mack trucks son was killed. He was hand cranking a truck and it kicked back and hit him in the head.
His father was instrumental in getting electric starters in trucks and cars.

Those hand crank cars and tractors were just very dangerous. If a person isn't real careful they can get their arm broke or killed starting them.

Here is my take on hand cranking , If it requires hand starting and it needs repair work DO NOT BRING IT TO ME . I still bare the reminder of hand cranking . Many many years back on a warm Sept Saturday i was working ground at my uncle's one farm with a Oliver O C 3 pulling a four section spike tooth getting this big field ready for wheat and at the far south end there was a dead furrow . To keep the old O C 3 going you had to keep your right hoof pushed up against the throttle or it would slip back to idle , as i was making the swing to the left to head back north i dropped the right track into the dead furrow and my foot came off the throttle and she died . Not the starter was bad and the battery was dead and the gen did not charge but you could crank start it or coast start it and it ran well when running . well i had watched my uncle crank start it may ah times to get me going and i can do this as i am a big boy . Plus the fact to get any help i would have to go two miles to the field everybody was digging taters in . SOOOOOo put tractor into neutral , set throttle three clicks up (it would hold there ) get crank , make sure stop button was pulled out , Stick crank in Hole make sure thumb is NOT wrapped around crank , NOW PULL UP AS HARD AND FAST as you can . I can do this , So give hard pull up engines hits and dies do again , engine backfires and flings said hand starting device backwards and nails my right elbow then comes flyen out and laces me up along side the head making a nice deep gash next to my right eyebrow red warm liquid is now leaking and i am knocked half scenes less and now layen on the ground . when i sorta come to my Saxon temperament comes out and i am now learning new words and i take my revenge out on said hand starting devise and i turn it into A UFO and it ends up landing in the ten acre pound next to the field i am working in the deepest point of said pond . Now comes the long walk to the house leaking bodily fluids down over my white tee shirt , as i get close to the house my aunt sees me coming and she goes ballistic just knowing i am dieing . Well i probably should have had sticthes but she got the bleeding to stop and a bandaid to cover it and i got cleaned up with a clean shirt and she and i went to get my uncle and explain why you will never start the O C 3 ever again with hand starting device ever again . So he and i toook another tractor and a flexible starting device and got the O C 3 back up and running and i fiinished my job . The next weekend everything was fixed , repaired or replaced and you no longer had to either coast or crank or pull to start and even the lights now worked . And i will never ever again us a hand starting device . THEM THINGS WILL EAT YOU .

I grew up hand cranking, it can be done safely, do I like to do it, no, but know how.

I never liked those four or more cyl engines for hand cranking, however I have a soft spot in my heart for the hand crank John Deeres like I grew up on. As a matter of fact I still have the B I grew up on.

You want a Deere that is fun to crank by hand try a styled A. That's the one that you take the plug off cover of fly wheel and remove the steering abd use a tool and start it with steering wheel. You have to reach under block and open compression cocks.

Sounds like your timing might be a little fast which would give you the jerky cranking with your starter like on your U Tube vid. last night. I bought a crank for both of my Farmalls just because, although they both snap right over with the starter. Had a crank in my hand a few years ago and was going to give it a try when as a little kid I remember watching my dad and older brothers cranking an McCormick combine and a M once in awhile. Their advice was don't try this unless you want a broken arm. If you have an owner's manual or IT manual it tells how to time it, should be the same as a Super C,, A or B.

I only hand start tractors that were originally hand start only. If it has a non functional electric starter with a distributor that has automatic spark advance then that
is different. A lot can go wrong there. I have started several F-series Farmall's without an issue. Make sure the mag is retarded, grab the crank handle with your thumb
back, and pull UP swiftly. DO NOT PUSH DOWN or SWING THE CRANK AROUND!! Go to youtube and pull up some hand starting videos to see how NOT to do it. If these people
catch one in the melon and tip over it is natural selection!!

I will never hand crank a tractor again, did it when I was younger but can't risk getting hurt, i had one close call and that was enough.

A Farmall Cub is the largest tractor that I have ever hand cranked. You can jump start it at the starter off a 12 volt system or park on a hill. Remember, unless you have a magneto, the battery has to have some charge in it before it will fire.

I think there are a few cranks still up in the clouds somewhere from the Wisconsin engines used on various farm equipment.

my buddy's Super A , which by the way is all set perfect and starts perfect with batt, starts with crank with just a half turn and crank comes out in hand and couldn't be simpler. Now if someone doesn't want to make their tractor "right" then by all means just push/pull it if starter won't do it. Don't blame the "crank start ". Just sayin'

Back in 1978 while working for the County Road Dept. , one of my
jobs was to take the old CAT D-8 Cable Dozer around to all of the
Communities in the County and cut new Garbage Pits and backfill the
old ones. The old D-8 was started by a hand-cranked Pony Motor, and
the hand crank came out of the Hood at the rear of the Diesel
engine. This hand crank was unlike anything that I had ever used
before. I was familiar with hand cranking old tractors but those
cranks were always horizontal; this crank on the Dozer was VERTICLE.
Under the Dozers Hood there was a spring on the shaft of the hand
crank that kept the crank elevated off of the cranking cam on the
Pony Motor. In order to start the Pony Motor you had to push down on
the crank while cranking the crank handle, which necessitated that
you have a good grip on the crank handle and not 'open palmed' like
starting a tractor.

Well, I arrived at my first job site and went to fire up the Dozer
so that I could unload it from the low-boy trailer. I grabbed the
crank handle, pushed it down to engage it with the cam on the Pony
Motor, and gave it a crank - BIG MISTAKE !!! The Pony Motor kicked
back and dislocated my left thumb ( sure glad I was using my Left
hand, as I'm Right Hand dominant ) . I reduced the dislocation (
I've been medically trained in how to properly reduce dislocations )
. I rummaged around in the garbage pit and found an old metal lid
from a coffee can, which I then cut a hole in the center of it and
slipped it down on the handle of the crank. I was then able to 'open
palm' the crank handle while still maintaining a downward pressure.
- This solved the problem and I didn't have any more problems with
the crank handle.

When I finally got back to the Shop that day, I notified the Road
Dept. Superintendant as to what had happened and what I had done to
correct the situation. I filled out an Accident / Incident Report,
and stated on it the remedy. The next day we cut out a disc of 1/8"
steel plate, drilled a hole in the center, and permanently welded it
onto the hand crank handle.


Doc

Make sure the mag is retarded

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If it's not too much to ask, could someone explain what this means? I'm an amateur who has inherited a small tractor without an electric start.