1950 farmall c 6 volt to 12 volt

[pickle]

i have a 1950 farmall c and its my first tractor and im slowly bringing it back to life.its almost finished just a few more things. but im kinda confused about the 12 volt set up thats on it. it has a 12 volt battery,12 volt coil,by the way, (the coil has two little screws and ones positive and the other is neg. well the positive side is run to the distributor and the neg. side is to a wire that runs to the front dash) is that correct??? it has a distributor,points. 12 volt lights,6 volt generator,looks to be a 6 volt 4 prong voltage regulators, 6 volt starter,6 volt light switch i think. it gets hot when on for a little while.im just concerned that im over working something or over heating something.when the tractor is running,i pull the neg,side of the battery wire off and the tractor shuts off.is that normale? the on and off switch works too.the tractor starts up with just a flicker of the switch(or pull rod).runs great. nothing feels hot and i dont see or smell smoke.? is this a different way of wiring 6 volts to 12 volts??? is this safe for my tractor??? am i going to burn up my 6 volt generator??? can i leave it like this??? or am im ok and just need to work on something eles??? please help!!! Thanks, Kris

[Gary Dotson]

It would seem that when your tractor was converted to 12v, they only did the job half way. Your coil is presently wired for positive ground, no problem if the rest of the system is set up that way. The 6v generator may charge the 12v battery but not with a 6v regulator, hard to say how long it will survive, though. The starter should work ok, as long as it's not overworked, the switches and other items should be fine, they don't care what the voltage is. When you disconnected the battery, with the engine running and it died, it was telling you that your generator was not working. That's a bad habit, by the way. I think your best approach might be to follow through with a full conversion. And welcome to the forum!

[Eugene]

Red identification tag on generator = 12 volt. Black id tag = 6 volts.

If the generator and regulator are still 6 volts - the easiest and cheapest method of finishing the 12 volt conversion is a single wire alternator. There are several discussions, with photos, on the single wire 12 volt alternator on this board.

Battery positive or negative grounded? If you do the single wire 12 volt alternator conversion you need to negative ground the battery. Then change the ignition coil wiring around.

Remove the ignition coil and check the inscription. If the coil has an internal resistor - good to go. Frequently the coil will say something like, requires an external resistor. In that case use a Chrysler ballast resistor.

There is an on going discussion on this board about keeping things original, i.e. maintaining the current generator/voltage regulator system or converting to 12 volt alternator.

[Matt Kirsch]

Odds are the generator/regulator do not work, and the previous owner was just recharging the 12V battery overnight once in a while to keep the tractor running.

If you don't run the tractor very long or very often, a 12V battery will run it for a long long long time.