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Battery Box Reassembly

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By Robert Adams

The paint is dry on the battery box and tool box so I reassembled them to the tractor. The tool box was easy, just one bolt which I greased well. The battery box was almost easy. Since the ground wire from the battery attaches to the side of the battery box, I used a Dremel tool to remove the paint around the bolt holes in the box. A different bit was used to clean and polish the lock washers. One of them fell and is still hiding so a flat washer was drafted to replace it. Dielectric grease was applied to the bolts and washers before putting them through the bottom of the battery box into the tractor. Next the ground cable was removed and cleaned along with its bolt and nut. It will go on once the paint dries which I sprayed where the cable had been after masking the hole itself so a good contact could be made. The ohm meter was attached to the edge of the ground cable bolt hole and then to a bare place on a bolt elsewhere at the rear of the tractor. The reading tells me there is a pretty good ground pathway. Once the paint is dry where the ground cable goes, it will be put on with dielectric grease too and checked for continuity with the ohm meter. There is a wooden piece which goes beneath the battery in the battery box. I brushed it well with a steel brush and then primed it.

 

The negative battery cable goes from the battery, beneath the tractor platform, through a holding clamp at the base of the right side of the instrument panel, and connects to the started switch atop the starter motor. The cable I have is thirteen inches too short to go where it is supposed to so I will try to buy a longer one today along with a good six volt battery. Although I have not yet cleaned the commutator of the starter motor and the generator, I want to find out whether the starter will turn the motor (which I can turn with the hand crank).

 

The Cub still needs the valves checked for adjustment, the distributor needs a once over, spark plug wires may need to be replaced (I have a generic kit for that), and the commutators need cleaning. I bought a well used small fuel tank which needs some sort of fuel shut off. Somewhere in this process I will make a frame to hold the tank which will bolt to the hydraulic lift area. Most of the hydraulic lift and its pipes still need to be cleaned and painted. I think that is about it and the tractor will look good, smell good, and hopefully run well.

 

Tractor Boy

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