I was changing points on a '49 Ferguson and my nephews were saying i had the coil wires backward. It was changed to 12 volt 40 45 years ago. It has a negative ground and positive to the starter relay. Plus side of coil to the points and negative to the switch. No one can tell me this is wrong because it's been that way for decades with no problems. All over the internet i see positive to the switch, minus to the points. Either they work both ways or everyone except me is wrong. It's the internet so the person behind the keyboard knows everything lol.
So what is your opinion on ballest resisters after conversation to a 12v like on a 2n or 9n. Does leaving them in line with your new 12volt coil have any advantage on amperage or you just as good going strait to positive off the switch? I have heard leave them in line even if your coil has internal resistance and heard throw them away. What is your opinion?
That one is kind of a 50/50 hit or miss. Sometimes it works perfectly fine leaving them on sometimes it will not. Honestly the best method we found and simplest is to just leave them in place after a conversion and see what happens. If they are going to be a problem you will know fairly quickly. As I said some have no problems, then again I've had some that won't turn off because of the resistors and some that have charging issues. Believe it has something to do with the total value of all the resistance in the system that affects it so in short if you have them leave them and try it first if you have a problem then take them off and try it one way or the other is going to work
It eventually will ruin it.. but no way to tell how long that could take. If anything the lifespan has been reduced. Again no way to know by how much. Electrical parts a fickle
Sir, Great info video for "points owners" , however, 12 v Neg ground converters frequently go all the way to Electronic Ignition - if not at first then often soon after. This would have been a golden chance to also show that last step to a modern ignition system upgrade. WELL DONE otherwise. - Joe -
Thankyou Thankyou.. We may do a E ignition vid at some point. We have some gripes on going electronic though. Mostly due to cost and the lack of fine tuning with them. Not that they are that expensive, but one example would be that the majority of E kits do not have individual servicable parts. (Pertronix is probably most common brand). So on average the Ekits are around $100us give or take. Points are on averge $15us give or take. When points fail, its only $15ish to fix. When Ekits fail, you practically buy a complete kit to fix it at $100. Also our biggest issue with an Ekit is no adjustability.. you can only set base timing. You can not adjust dwell, or gap. You loose the ability to set your power and amperage on the business end. Great for power units or single speed engines, but in our opinion a waste on a fluctuating engine like a tractor
Good video. It's important to note that there does exist 6V Negative ground and 12V Positive ground tractors that came that way from the factory. For example, my 1959 Case 300B is 12V Positive ground and my 1949 Case SC is 6V Negative ground, both verified against factory service manuals.
