MF 135 Electrical System

[Jim Wolfenbarger]

Me again. The newbie. I"m confused about the whole alternator/generator conversion. My tractor appears to have a generator but the battery is 12 volt and the coil is 12 volt. I guess from what I"ve read that the generator was used with a 6 volt system. Wouldn"t that need a 6 volt battery? Does that make sense? How do I know for sure what I have? I do know I have a voltage regulator behind the key switch.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Alternator or Generator, the 135 uses a 12 volt system..........JJ.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Originally a generator can be made for most any voltage from a fraction of a volt to 1000 volts. Just depends on having enough commutator bars and turns in the armature winding and shaft speed. The 135 was always 12 volts and came with a generator having a little gear box on its rear to run the tachometer. Mine works fine, though the new voltage regulator needed a tweak to charge properly and its been charging for me for the last 20 years even when running a 12 amp sprayer pump directly connected to the battery. I've not had to replace batteries more than once or twice in that time, and one of them I replaced turned out to be good enough to crank my old F-350 with a 390 under the hood for several years. The bad starting was caused by worn out brushes in the starter.

The tachometer drive limits one in changing to an alternator. It gets costly changing to an electronic tachometer and loosing the hour meter and such. Mine works, I'm not changing it. It does the work I wish it to do.

Gerald J.

 

[Jim Wolfenbarger]

Thanks guys. Maybe I"m just reading to many different people about 6v to 12v and assumed since I had a generator I had 6v which didn"t make sense to me with a 12v battery and coil.

 

[Anonymous-0]

You're just too young to remember when cars switched from 6v to 12v and still had generators.
No crime in being young.

 

[Jim Wolfenbarger]

That's true. It also reminds me of another question. Does the type of 12v coil I run matter since the tractor was originally 12v and not converted from 6v? I've read a lot about internal ballist and external resistors. Just wondering.