Farmall H Kerosene Question

Recently found out that the Farmall H I just purchased was set to run on Kerosene. (Thanks to those guys who replyed to that post) I cannot find the auxilary gas tank on the tractor. There is a hole in the right side of the hood, could this have been where that tank would have been located? Also, is it possible to switch this type of farmall over to run strictly gasoline? I have not had any problems starting up with gas in the main tank. I have read other disscussions on this board about the motor and checking the oil and mine does not have those 2 bolts that everyone talks about to use when checking the oil. My block has a dipstick. Was this from the factory? I havent received my owner's manual yet so I'm not sure if it will explain any of this in it or not but I'm anxious to find out all the info about this motor. There is also a lever on the bottom of the dash that has a rod that runs all the way up behind the oil filler cap. What would this have been used for? Thanks!

the hole in the hood was where the aux tank was. it held about 7/8 th of a gallon of gas. if you have a dipstick, it is prolly an aftermarket or a motor off of a power unit. the lever on the lower part of the operators station running up to the front was to open and close the radiator shutter to adjust engine tem for the kerosene or distillate. there should also be a big " box" on the manifold just above the carb with a lever to adjust temp there too if it is an original kerosene or distillate manifold. no problem running a distillate motor on gas.

It may have at one time been a kerosene tractor, but over the years it has been overhauled/head machined/kero manifold replaced because it cracked/froze/burned out. If you ever dealt with a dual fuel tractor the last thing you want to do is go back to that "wonderful" time. You will never work it hard enough to make switching it back to a kero burn practical. Find a tank to fill the hole and continue to burn gas.

I agree with Gary about those "wonderful times." I once tried kerosene in a 10-20, back when kerosene was cheaper than gas (it's not anymore, if you can find it). You have to make sure there's no kerosene in the carb (that's why there's a little drain cock in the side of kerosene carbs). Turn on gas. Start engine normally. Warm up. Use shutter as necessary (heat gauge will show right temp on the letter-series, I think; on the 10-20, you just looked for steam coming out around the bolt in the radiator cap). The oldest IHC tractors had a curtain instead of a shutter, with hooks to go in holes in the radiator housing. Shut off gas. Turn on kerosene. Get to work right away to keep the motor hot. If you had to stop, to rest, visit the bushes,or adjust something, you had to pull up the shutter to keep the engine hot. If the engine idles for long, it will spit and sputter until it gets hot again. To turn off engine, you could either shut off the kerosene and let the engine stop for lack of fuel, or you could do that and then turn on the gas so you could restart. Cold start on kerosene is either impossible or very difficult (I only tried this just once, and that was enough; I don't have enough experience to comment much on this).I didn't know anybody in the 40s who ran kerosene in 10-20s, F-20s, F-12s or F-14s. It was just too much trouble. Of course, an engine with low-compression (about 4 to 1) for kerosene won't put out as much power on gas as an engine with a higher compression (6 to 1 or maybe more), but then many of those old birds had such big engines that it didn't seem to matter. The kerosene manifolds on many tractors had some provision for switching from "hot" to "cold." I seem to remember that some of the 10-20 or 15-30 series had a kind of valve that you had to unbolt and turn around if you wanted to burn gasoline exclusively, but I can't swear to this. The F-series had a lever that moved a valve (it always froze up if it wasn't moved once in a while). I think the letter series had a lever ON the manifold that had to be moved by loosening a large setscrew and moving the lever. Haven't seen these old girls in quite a few years now, so maybe somebody else can comment if I'm wrong on the letter series arrangement. Kerosene condensed in the cylinders and diluted the oil. The instruction books tell you to drain the oil down to the lowest petcock on the crankcase every so many hours and then refill. I always hated those petcocks, and they usually got twisted off eventually because somebody would take a wrench to them to tighten. When the little knob got twisted off, you ended up using a pipe wrench (no "Vise-Grips" back in the 40s, that I remember, anyway) to check your oil.