New (to us) Farmall Tractors

Larry W Blum Jr · Sep 24, 2010

Hi all,

My dad recently bought five tractors in a package deal. Two of them were Ford N series tractors (which I'm sure you don't want to hear about here) and three were Farmalls. One was a Super A and two were Hs; a '40 and a '47. The '47 has a stuck engine and we are already working on that. The other two turn over real good but have no spark. All three Farmalls have magnetos versus distributors and we are not too familiar with them. The magnetos we have seen before all had contacts in them similar to a distributor but these just have a field generation coil with a condenser. We are in the process of getting a service manual which will probably have what we need but in the mean time can any of you help out the Farmall "newbees"? Here are some pictures:

This is when we got them home. All three Farmalls on one trailer borrowed from a friend of my dad with a tractor repair shop in Canoe, AL.

And here are some individual pictures:

I did notice that it looks like the newer H has Super H wheels on front and the Super A has one A wheel on front. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.

Dave_Id · Sep 24, 2010

Dig a little deeper in those mags, and you'll find points and condensor. Nice looking cache of tractors. Those H's are sure in nice shape.

sflem849 · Sep 24, 2010

Cool find. I see they are the standard rust color from the south. The H with the block heater is a strange sight for down there!

The N series. They are neat tractors with a stong history, but they are TERRIBLE to drive. What is with that clutch and brake location!?!?!

Larry W Blum Jr · Sep 24, 2010

Dave,

That's what we thought but under the spark plug wire cap is just a rotor button. There are two screws under it but if you pull them you find a gear and no points. The other cap with the four screws has a condenser under it with the electrical field generator. We even pulled the field generator on one of them and all that was under it was the rotating piece that passes the field generator to make it work. The only other thing is a plate on the back (engine) side held with two screws. We pulled it and all you see is the end of the condenser. (We happened to have a spare magneto from a Super A that looks the same as the others. This is the one we went deep into.) The ones on the Hs looked the same under the caps. What are we missing? Surely the contacts are not under the condenser! As you can tell we are more familiar with the Ford tractors. We already got the 8N that came in the package deal running and driving just fine.

ScottyHOMeY · Sep 24, 2010

Hi, Larry, and welcome aboard.

A couple of observations just from the pictures and the notes so far.

First off, one of your Hs, the one that was backed on and up against the front of the trailer, has a battery igntition, not a magneto. It's a little unusual in that it has the upright Delco distributor rather than the stock IH horizontal arrangement.

As to the magnetos on the other two tractors, the points shou,ld be right under the dust cover inside the cap, the dust cover being the next thing you run into after removing the rotor button. The condenser is better seen by removing the top cap and looking down. The wire that runs back to the switch to ground out your mag to kill the engine looks to be missing on the SA but is right there on the side of the mag on the other H. The stud that grounding wire hooks to is threaded onto the top end of the condenser. It runs laterally across the body of the mag. Removal requires pulling the mag, removing the cover on top to loosen the simple clamp holding the condenser in lace, and then removing a cap on the back side to slide it out.

I've got an idea everything's there. Hope this helps you to locate it all.

Larry W Blum Jr · Sep 24, 2010

(quoted from post at 20:44:27 09/24/10) Cool find. I see they are the standard rust color from the south. The H with the block heater is a strange sight for down there!

The N series. They are neat tractors with a stong history, but they are TERRIBLE to drive. What is with that clutch and brake location!?!?!

Sflem849,

We got one 9N and one 8N in the deal. The 9N has the odd brake/clutch peddle setup with the clutch and left brake on the left and right brake on the right but the 8N has the familiar setup with clutch on the left and both brakes on the right. The 9N is at a friend of my dad's house in Baldwin County, AL. We picked it up in Grand Bay, AL and dropped it off at his house and went right back for the 8N which we took home. We already have the 8N running and driving good. His friend said he would try to get the 9N running. He works on tractors a lot and said he already had a guy wanting to buy the 9N. All these tractors have been sitting for a while and will probably be fixed up for resale.

Larry W Blum Jr · Sep 24, 2010

(quoted from post at 21:28:42 09/24/10) Hi, Larry, and welcome aboard.

A couple of observations just from the pictures and the notes so far.

First off, one of your Hs, the one that was backed on and up against the front of the trailer, has a battery igntition, not a magneto. It's a little unusual in that it has the upright Delco distributor rather than the stock IH horizontal arrangement.

As to the magnetos on the other two tractors, the points shou,ld be right under the dust cover inside the cap, the dust cover being the next thing you run into after removing the rotor button. The condenser is better seen by removing the top cap and looking down. The wire that runs back to the switch to ground out your mag to kill the engine looks to be missing on the SA but is right there on the side of the mag on the other H. The stud that grounding wire hooks to is threaded onto the top end of the condenser. It runs laterally across the body of the mag. Removal requires pulling the mag, removing the cover on top to loosen the simple clamp holding the condenser in lace, and then removing a cap on the back side to slide it out.

I've got an idea everything's there. Hope this helps you to locate it all.

Scotty,

Yeah, I misspoke, one of the Hs has a distributor. It is the one with the stuck engine. As for the magneto tractors, there is nothing under the rotor button but a plate with two screws. If you remove the screws the assembly comes out with a large gear, no points. Both tractors are the same that way. We found the condenser under the four screw cap with the magneto electrical field generator but no contacts there either. As I said, we expected to find contacts but so far there are none.

Bkpigs · Sep 25, 2010

If you remove the larger plate with three screws behind the distributor cap (remember there is battery ingnition and magneto, both have distributors) you will find the points. Just from a quick observation it looks like you mag is an F4. If you do a search on Mag repair on this site you will find that someone (sorry can't remeber his name) posted a link that has the entire repair manual. It convers various makes and models of mags for that era.

D Slater · Sep 25, 2010

47 H may have the original front wheels and rims, the 40 has rear wheels and rims used 1955 or after.

Mike CA · Sep 26, 2010

All of them will be easy restores! That A is in great shape!

As mentioned, the Mag H has later casts in the back, but earlier wheels on the front. Kind of an odd pair. But as long as they work!

What are your plans with them?

Larry W Blum Jr · Sep 28, 2010

(quoted from post at 20:39:21 09/24/10) Dig a little deeper in those mags, and you'll find points and condensor. Nice looking cache of tractors. Those H's are sure in nice shape.

Dave,

We did finally find the contacts in the magneto. I didn't realize you had to practically dismantle the magneto to get to them. We got the contacts cleaned up on the early H and have spark now. The carb was full of goo and old gas plus the throttle and choke are stuck so we have to open it up and clean it all out. It doesn't look like the correct carb either since the mounting surface is smaller than the intake mount. We might take the carb off of the stuck H and clean it up and try it. Hopefully on the next update we will this H running.

New (to us) Farmall Tractors

Larry W Blum Jr

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Dave_Id

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sflem849

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Larry W Blum Jr

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ScottyHOMeY

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Larry W Blum Jr

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Larry W Blum Jr

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Bkpigs

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D Slater

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Mike CA

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Larry W Blum Jr

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