1972 Ford Industrial 3500 tractor newbie questions

[rmeav8er]

So I've replaced all my fluids and started to clean decades of built up grease. Holy leaks Batman. It may be easier to tell you what's not leaking. There are leaks on the brake cross shaft that are pretty significant. Already ordered the seals to knock that out. There is gas leaking around the carb, oil coming from the hydraulics around where the backhoe connects to the tractor, and leaks both between the engine and bell housing as well as from the weep hole in the bell housing. Because it looks like oil and not hyd fluid, I'm guessing it's a rear main seal and will require a split to fix it. That's not in the cards right now so I'll keep adding fluid and use it. Thankfully there is only one hydraulic cylinder that is leaking and it's not very bad so I'll live with it for now. Have a couple hoses leaking and replaced what is the first 2 of what will probably end up being about 8 or so hoses. The previous owner worked it hard and didn't put too much preventive maintenance into it. Thankfully my local dealer can make hoses and they are reasonably priced.

At some point the front axle was removed and the 2 spacers that keep the axle from moving back and forth were lost. This created about a 3/8 inch worth of fore and aft play in the axle, jacking with the steering. Got those replaced and hopefully it'll drive better. Lots of bolts were either loose or missing. Scavenging what I can from the donor tractor so it's close enough. I'm enjoying the fixing aspect and want to really dig into it but need to make it operational and worry about the pretty later.

The controls for the backhoe are very loose. I'm guessing it's just years of use that have worn down both the levers and the the rod that the levers ride on. Any tips on tightening all that up? I'm thinking trying to get some bushings that will fit in the now oversize holes that slide over the rod. Not sure if it's worth it since it may be easier just to replace everything.

 

[rmeav8er]

Fords built between 1965 and 1975 were 12V negative ground and factory equipped with generators and voltage regulators, not alternators.

How do generators work if they are not alternators? when I took the multimeter to check the voltage, it just gave me an error. I'm used to working on cars and you can just put the multimeter on the battery and if it's reading 14 volts, your alternator is working correctly.

 

[raydean]

Thanks RickB. Very helpful!

 

[raydean]

Thanks rmeav8er. Very helpful.

 

[Tinhack]

How do generators work if they are not alternators? when I took the multimeter to check the voltage, it just gave me an error. I'm used to working on cars and you can just put the multimeter on the battery and if it's reading 14 volts, your alternator is working correctly.

Maybe you had your meter on the wrong scale. Or the battery is just plain toast.

Generators produce DC voltage. Alternators produce AC voltage. Alternators require the voltage to be converted to DC for use with batteries. Both require some voltage regulation. This can be internal or external. Alternators are generally capable of higher output current.

 

[rmeav8er]

Battery is good and I know how to use a multimeter. While technically an alternator creates AC current, all alternators on vehicles then have a built in rectifier to turn that current into DC. A single wire alternator (which is what is on the tractor) should be pushing out somewhere in the neighborhood of 14.5 volts DC which in turn charges the battery. When I checked the battery before running the engine, the volts were about 12.6 but once the tractor was started, I only got an error when checking for DC volts, which is where my confusion came in.

 

[Tinhack]

You asked how generators worked so I wasn't sure you knew what "current" was. That's why I used voltage. Figured you knew what that was since you were checking for it.

Take the alternator off and take it to AutoZone. They'll check it for free. Maybe someone tried to rebuild it and got the polarity reversed. Just a guess since I don't know what "error" means on your meter.

 

[Tinhack]

Just thought of something. One wire alternators typically won't put out anything until they reach about 1000-1200 RPM. If the tractor was at idle, it will look like a dead alternator. Perhaps that's the "error" you see. It may look like a short to the meter. (I don't know what kind of meter you're using.)

Another possibility is that whoever replaced the generator with an alternator used the wrong one--Maybe it's a positive ground alternator. That was quite common in the early 70s Plymouth/Chrysler. One thing for certain, an alternator was not used on that year tractor. The photo of the tractor with a flat left-rear tire has a generator.

 

[RickB]

A non-functioning one wire alternator should read battery voltage at that single connection. I too have no idea what the 'error' message on the VOM means.

 

[rmeav8er]

I haven't had time to go back out and check it this week but I'll check the RPM idea. I really doubt it's a positive ground alternator but reversing the leads on the multimeter should identify that. This tractor was running when I got it and the battery takes a charge with the lead coming from the alternator to the positive terminal on the battery. I'll check it and post some pics if I still can't figure it out.

The tractor with the flat tire is the "free" parts tractor that came with my 3500. There are a few things interchangeable but not very many. The engine should be the same but everything from the bell housing back is different. Tried to swap out the foot platforms and the bolts don't line up. About the only thing I can use is the carb, starter, and hand throttle which I already had to swap out. The rest will be scrap at some point. Even the engine is really junk unless I want to do a full rebuild. I did a compression test on both tractors and while all 3 cylinders checked out good on the 3500, number 3 cylinder on the parts tractor was about half the pressure of the other cylinders. The parts tractor has a different generator, PS setup, HYD pump, etc.