Good Afternoon all! I apologize ahead of time for the lengthy post, but I want to try to get it all out there for others to better understand.
Backstory: I have a 1950 Farmall M that was given to me by my grandfather who used to farm with it. He actually even used to pull with it back in the day at a couple of fairs and I have his old photos and trophys. This tractor means the world to me. It sat for probably 15-20 years and last year I finally got it home and got it running again. My goal is to take it to the local tractor pulls this year in July. I have no intention of winning, but its in his memory that I want to do this.
Anyway, this tractor ran pretty well given how long it sat. I did the following engine related work to it last summer:
1. New cap and rotor
2. New points and condensor
3. Completely cleaned full tank
4. New plugs and wires
5. Oil change and new filter
6. Cleaned carb
7. New (shorter) governor spring [however as of today, I changed it back to the original spring]
The tractor ran well since then, but I believe the rings in cylinder number 4 are starting to go as I get a bit of white smoke when shes running. I also noticed that the spark plug for cylinder number 4 had some sort of an extension piece on it which I was told was to eliminate fouling of the plug. I had never seen that before, but a friend of mine apparently has. So I decided this spring to get her back in the garage for an in-frame rebuild.
I got the tractor in, ordered the piston kit, but was told they were on backorder until July a week later. With the pulls in July, I decided I was going to have to forgo the rebuild until this winter. So while she was in the garage I decided to do the following work:
1. Carb rebuild kit
2. New exhaust manifold
3. Cleaned slight sludge as best as possible from top of head
4. Oil change (already had it drained expecting a rebuild)
5. Took the generator apart since it didnt charge and noticed the armature was shorting itself on the field due to a bad brass bushing. Couldnt find the exact bushing I needed and decided to do a 12V conversion.
6. Installed Steiner 12V conversion kit [one-wire alternator, internally resisted coil, new one-wire harness from Brillman]
As of this morning I got the tractor outside and fired her up for the first time. She started immediately and rain pretty well. Still had the little puffs of smoke, but nothing terrible or out of the ordinary. However this leads me to my two issues that I need help with:
1. Installed the Steiner 12V conversion as well as new ammeter and wired it exactly as it was shown and the tractor will not charge. If I unhook wire from alternator, it is producing about 15V, but when I hook it back up it is no longer charging and the battery reads ~12.6-8 volts. The ammeter does not really show a discharge or a charge in either direction. Is there anything else I can do to try and figure this out? Are there any diagrams for one-wire alernators that are different than the one Steiner provides? Do I need a diode even though it is not a 3 wire alternator?
2. Another issue that is new is that when I shut it off with the ignition switch the tractor almost dies but then putts like an old hit and miss motor for another 30 seconds so. Eventually it had a final puff where the motor appears to run backwards for a second and I get a bunch of smoke out of the air filter intake. I have tried a bunch of things here to try and fix this like:
a) installed original governor spring
b) lower idle as low as possible
c) messed around with carb settings, even had the fuel screw completely screwed in and it didnt seem to change anything
d) unwired alternator and it still did the same things [this eliminate a backcharge from the alternator]
e) tightened all wiring connections
f) tried multiple different wiring methods involving the ammeter
Honestly I am at a complete loss. The tractor now smokes pretty good with it running, which seems to be caused from the 'dieseling' that it is doing when I try to shut her down. I read multiple posts about some people just living with it, but I just cant. I'm a guy that stuff like that drives me nuts!
The rebuild kit is now back in stock even thought I talked myself out of it for this year...but because of all of this part of me wants to just do it in case carbon in the cylinders could be causing this...could also just be because Im stumped and angry...
I appreciate yall taking a second to read this post and possibly help me out with it. If you have any questions, or need some more information, please let me know.
Backstory: I have a 1950 Farmall M that was given to me by my grandfather who used to farm with it. He actually even used to pull with it back in the day at a couple of fairs and I have his old photos and trophys. This tractor means the world to me. It sat for probably 15-20 years and last year I finally got it home and got it running again. My goal is to take it to the local tractor pulls this year in July. I have no intention of winning, but its in his memory that I want to do this.
Anyway, this tractor ran pretty well given how long it sat. I did the following engine related work to it last summer:
1. New cap and rotor
2. New points and condensor
3. Completely cleaned full tank
4. New plugs and wires
5. Oil change and new filter
6. Cleaned carb
7. New (shorter) governor spring [however as of today, I changed it back to the original spring]
The tractor ran well since then, but I believe the rings in cylinder number 4 are starting to go as I get a bit of white smoke when shes running. I also noticed that the spark plug for cylinder number 4 had some sort of an extension piece on it which I was told was to eliminate fouling of the plug. I had never seen that before, but a friend of mine apparently has. So I decided this spring to get her back in the garage for an in-frame rebuild.
I got the tractor in, ordered the piston kit, but was told they were on backorder until July a week later. With the pulls in July, I decided I was going to have to forgo the rebuild until this winter. So while she was in the garage I decided to do the following work:
1. Carb rebuild kit
2. New exhaust manifold
3. Cleaned slight sludge as best as possible from top of head
4. Oil change (already had it drained expecting a rebuild)
5. Took the generator apart since it didnt charge and noticed the armature was shorting itself on the field due to a bad brass bushing. Couldnt find the exact bushing I needed and decided to do a 12V conversion.
6. Installed Steiner 12V conversion kit [one-wire alternator, internally resisted coil, new one-wire harness from Brillman]
As of this morning I got the tractor outside and fired her up for the first time. She started immediately and rain pretty well. Still had the little puffs of smoke, but nothing terrible or out of the ordinary. However this leads me to my two issues that I need help with:
1. Installed the Steiner 12V conversion as well as new ammeter and wired it exactly as it was shown and the tractor will not charge. If I unhook wire from alternator, it is producing about 15V, but when I hook it back up it is no longer charging and the battery reads ~12.6-8 volts. The ammeter does not really show a discharge or a charge in either direction. Is there anything else I can do to try and figure this out? Are there any diagrams for one-wire alernators that are different than the one Steiner provides? Do I need a diode even though it is not a 3 wire alternator?
2. Another issue that is new is that when I shut it off with the ignition switch the tractor almost dies but then putts like an old hit and miss motor for another 30 seconds so. Eventually it had a final puff where the motor appears to run backwards for a second and I get a bunch of smoke out of the air filter intake. I have tried a bunch of things here to try and fix this like:
a) installed original governor spring
b) lower idle as low as possible
c) messed around with carb settings, even had the fuel screw completely screwed in and it didnt seem to change anything
d) unwired alternator and it still did the same things [this eliminate a backcharge from the alternator]
e) tightened all wiring connections
f) tried multiple different wiring methods involving the ammeter
Honestly I am at a complete loss. The tractor now smokes pretty good with it running, which seems to be caused from the 'dieseling' that it is doing when I try to shut her down. I read multiple posts about some people just living with it, but I just cant. I'm a guy that stuff like that drives me nuts!
The rebuild kit is now back in stock even thought I talked myself out of it for this year...but because of all of this part of me wants to just do it in case carbon in the cylinders could be causing this...could also just be because Im stumped and angry...
I appreciate yall taking a second to read this post and possibly help me out with it. If you have any questions, or need some more information, please let me know.