John Deere MT restoration

[walleyery]

Good afternoon I am currently working on restoring my john deere MT that has been in my family forever and royally screwed up by hooking the battery on backwards its supposed to be positive ground I was not paying attention and hooked it up negative ground like all my converted tractors and then I tried to start it After noticing and swapping it back I now no longer have spark however the tractor will still turn over lights work how bad did I screw up i pulled the plug im not getting spark opened the cap dont see the points arcing. What would you test or replace first?

 

[GermantownGreen]

Good afternoon I am currently working on restoring my john deere MT that has been in my family forever and royally screwed up by hooking the battery on backwards its supposed to be positive ground I was not paying attention and hooked it up negative ground like all my converted tractors and then I tried to start it After noticing and swapping it back I now no longer have spark however the tractor will still turn over lights work how bad did I screw up i pulled the plug im not getting spark opened the cap dont see the points arcing. What would you test or replace first?

Points and condenser, coil too?
Not sure. Good luck.
Remember, no one is perfect in the tractor world.
We've all been there and bobo something in life!
GG

 

[Jim.ME]

Good afternoon I am currently working on restoring my john deere MT that has been in my family forever and royally screwed up by hooking the battery on backwards its supposed to be positive ground I was not paying attention and hooked it up negative ground like all my converted tractors and then I tried to start it After noticing and swapping it back I now no longer have spark however the tractor will still turn over lights work how bad did I screw up i pulled the plug im not getting spark opened the cap dont see the points arcing. What would you test or replace first?

I would say check everything. Those parts should work with either positive or negative ground, so I doubt just hooking the battery up backwards caused the problem. I suspect it is lack of power from the switch to the coil, maybe the points were dirty and about to fail anyway. Maybe the condenser was ready to go.

 

[Rich'sToys]

We had an MT when I was growing up. Seems if I recall correctly that there was an inline fuse somewhere in that system, that if it blew, the tractor would not run.

Sorry I can't be more specific. I was young, and never worked on it myself, but I remember Dad talking about it.

 

[ET]

Check for power to the coil. If there is power, file the points.

 

[HFP]

As others have said. Trace power through the system with a multimeter and test light. Clean connections and stuff up as you go. I bought an MT one time and it never seemed to charge right. You could jump it and it would run fine and start up and shut down all day with no major issues. Let is sit a week or two and you would have to jump it again. We had replaced the battery, with what was in it, shortly after purchasing the tractor so I didn't think that was it. I gave up and decided to try a new battery. This time I paid a little better attention. It had a 12V battery in it but still had the 6V generator. No wonder it wouldn't charge right! It is amazing it worked as good as it did. Moral of the story, we all make mistakes and in general these tractors are pretty forgiving. Keep working away at it.

 

[Rusty wheel]

You probably fried something in the generator or voltage regulator. go on line and read about polarizing the voltage regulator and what can happen when you hook up your battery wrong. Read how to change the polarity if you want to go negative ground. Easy to do.

 

[Jim.ME]

You probably fried something in the generator or voltage regulator. go on line and read about polarizing the voltage regulator and what can happen when you hook up your battery wrong. Read how to change the polarity if you want to go negative ground. Easy to do.

Voltage regulators do not get polarized; the generator is the component that needs to be polarized.