I am just honestly at a loss of words that this happened right after I got the head re-installed. Just totally effing unbelievable.

It's a 12 volt system, and best I can make out from the stamp is it is a Delco 1107043.

The bolt hole that mounts the starter to the frame is no longer round. I have replaced the drive on the armature, but still little luck. The starter is not holding ground, or the flywheel is not engaged. Even tightening down that toggle bolt causes the starter to shift backwards toward the seat.

I was looking for a replacement shroud, but can't seem to find one for that particular starter. I see plenty of starters for 6 volt systems, but not much for 12 volt systems.

I think I can rebuild the starter, but that housing hole is going to have to be welded full, ground and re-tapped I believe.

Any suggestions on how to proceed. I will try to post some pictures later. Thanks again for any help offered.

John

It might be hard to see from this picture, but that hole is not right. The armature and internals could probably use replacing after all this time, that I can do.... I'm worried about that hole though.... it really does look oblong, even with the taper.

From time to time (since I got the tractor last year), the starter would lose ground. I would have to loosen that bolt, and re-snug it to get juice to it. Even when I got it locked down tight, it would eventually slip back - towards the seat, then it was wash, rinse, repeat. My neighbor and I had the same idea - tap it - but there does not seem to be enough metal - towards the taper - to put a proper tap.... it's really worn out in there. Maybe that's normal.... I just don't know without seeing enough of these things. I guess I could go with a 6 volt starter, they seem to be available.... pricey for the newbies though.

That hole looks like it has the remains of some threads in there.  The original hole is drilled with a taper to match the lock bolt and was never threaded.  Some one has attempted to modify that one.  You should probably try to find a good used nose cone with the proper tapered hole or you will continue to have problems.

Steve at B&B on this site can probably help you out with that and also a rebuild of the starter if it needs it. 

 

Ben

I don't think the hole is the problem other than the threads in the bellhousing, on the bolt and the hole should all be wire brushed bright for a good connection.  Just line the hole up and tighten it down as far as it will go and then tighten the jam nut.  I think a lot of B starters have holes wallowed out on one side like that.

I am using the proper starter bolt, as pictured above.

Should the starter, once tightened down, move? Because, no matter how tight I get the jam nut, after getting the bolt tight, it eventually starts working backwards and I eventually lose ground and I have to re-tighten.

I just check ebay to get a picture to post and see the brand new starter cones have a threaded hole. The only way that would work is if the torque tube was not threaded. All the starters I have here has a taper hole that the tapered end of the tapered stud locks the starter in place. With that large of a hole the tapered stud would never work properly.  You might get it to work by using a longer bolt without a taper that would go all the way thru the cone casting. I would then add a ground wire from a starter bolt the the torque or to where the battery ground bolts to the tractor. 

To use a new starter cones with the threaded hole and have success you would need to remove the threads from the torque tube or the starter could not pull up tight. 

This is the starter, perfectly aligned with the tube opening.

I have noticed that, of all the starter nose cones I have found, none match the one I have.

Yes, I noticed that when my neighbor and I found a bolt to mate up with those threads in the cone. It stopped back and forth movement, but it did not lock the starter down tightly.

Since I am having a hard time finding that particular nose cone, I think my neighbor and I will attempt to weld the hole, then retap with a slightly smaller bolt, to bypass the threads in the torque tube.

If I understand you correctly, the threads in the torque tube should not be there?

I am going to rebuild the starter. It would be nice to find that particular nose cone. I wonder why everything I have found does not seem to match up to what I have, even though some that are for sale say those cones should work with the 1107043.

Getting a little ahead of myself here, but thinking past this particular project if it does not end with success....

what would be involved to convert the tractor back to 6v, obviously the alternator has to go.

I don't want to go there, but it would beat resorting to hand cranking I suppose.

  

The starter may not set ALL THE WAY INTO THE TORQUE TUBE HOLE.. Seems to me that when i install the TAPER BOLT and it pilots INTO THE STARTER NOSE HOLE, that the starter motor may be 1/8 OUT from bottoming out in the torque tube.

All good points.  Look at the space on mine in the pic below.  It works perfectly and doesn't get loose. (I also wire brushed the inside of the starter hole on the torque tube and the outside of the starter nose where it rests against the hole for added contact).

I took this picture some time ago for another purpose, but you can see how far the body of the starter is from the hole.

That looks a bit similar to where mine ends up, after engaging it, over time. To everybody else that offered it, thanks for the advice/heads up with the welding option.

The problem I have run into so far, are the mating holes on the nose not matching the starter cylinder. On my cylinder, there are the two bolt holes, and a tab that have to line up with the nose. Maybe I just haven't looked in the right places yet, but I have looked at a few.... prices ranging from $50-75.

The search continues....

Thanks for clarifying that, I thought the same, but wanted to make sure I was understanding what the poster had said.

That hole in my nose is so deformed, that when I tighten that bolt it actually pushes the starter back away from the motor.... guessing around an 1/8"....

edit to add

when I install the starter into the tube- before threading the bolt, the holes line up perfectly and the tip of the cone is flush against the tube.

More pictures.

Im not sure you really have a problem.. CLean every thing up and set the starter in the hole, 1/8 inch from bottoming out... Install the taper plug and tighten it into the torque tube... it will pilot into the starter and BIND it into the hole.. What part of that does not work ?? ...... I have seen some distorted holes in the nose and threads in the nose and that normally is not a problem.... Yours appears the hole was moved FORWARD and had threads in it... If you screw the taper bolt into that area, the starter has to move FORWARD to get loose... you may have a little over 1/8 clearance between the starter and the bellhousing at the entrance hole... as long as the fly wheel engages, that is fine.

The hole is larger than the taper. If you go ebay Steve and type in Allis Chalmers B starter cone you will see the new cones have the larger hole with threads. To make those to work properly you would need to remove the threads in the torque tube to draw the cone tight in the torque tube.  Those would need to be drawn up tight rather than forced down tight as the old starter were.  

In that case i would warm up the nose with a propane torch, then weld the hole up and remachine for the taper.

I would guess that China had a better idea! 

The nose cone problem you are having is not new. There were a lot of these old Starter motors that had different indexed nose cones that were used for different applications. I myself had some problems finding the correct cones for certain motors over the years and I rebuild the damn things. A lot of my old suppliers are gone and it makes it tougher to find the CORRECT parts for certain units. Some I would have to index myself to make the cone work for the application. I've come across a lot of goofy stuff over the past 50 years I've been rebuilding Starters, especially these older Delco units, and even more so with other older brands such as Autolites, & Prestolites.

On some of the high torque pulling Starter motors I've built over the years, I would make the suggestion to the customer to build a support bracket to support the rear of the Starter to keep it from moving when my high torques engage to a high compression pulling engine. This keeps the motor straight and snug to where it won't move and all torque gets transferred to the engines flywheel when engaged. If you run into the problem of repairing the nose cone, you might want to consider that idea to help support the rearward weight of the unit and keep it aligned correctly. A rear support helps emensly with the poor pinch bolt design.  Of coarse, like anything else, designing a rearward support bracket depends on the application involved...   HTH

Steve@B&B

I would guess that China had a better idea! 

Different, but I'm not sure better.

There are a few nose cones on ebay right now and the vendors say they fit Bs, Cs, CA,s, WCs, WDs and WD-45s.

I don't know how that is possible since the location of the tapered hole has to be different between the smaller and larger engines. If you look at the threaded holes in the blocks, you will see that, in the case of the larger engines, the hole is exactly perpendicular with the crankshaft. It is not on the smaller engines. Assuming the housing is the same diameter, it would probably be fairly easy to machine a new tapered hole in a WD-WD-45 housing so it would fit either engine.

The original tapered hole is located dead center between the two machined surfaces.

Although the hole in jibintn's housing is really messed up, it appears to me that there is 

enough of the original hole left to allow the tapered bolt to be inserted far enough to still hold the starter in its correct position. Here is a picture of a nose cone which I think came from a WC. You can see that the tapered hole is located differently than the one on the B.

t

 

Thanks again to all of you. Lots of good information, ideas and suggestions. Got the innards for the starter today, going to completely rebuild it, thinking about how I want to go forward with the cone.

Welding the hole and re-tapping is still at the top of the list.

Heating that nose up before welding.... minimum temperature should be what since it's cast iron?

I've read 300 F, I've read 500 F minimum. Then letting it cool slowly, immersed in sand.

Thanks again. I'll keep y'all posted on the progress.

p.s.

I like the idea of a bracket, btw. Might be an option.

I think this is a good idea if you're not comfortable with the welding option.

If you use an internal hex plug or a pipe reducer, you will have the beginnings of your hole already.

On the other hand, there must be a guy (or two) on here that has a good B nose cone lying around that they could part with?

You dont really need the iron that HOT.. It can be "warm".. I use about 300 degrees. The idea to to BURN OFF any oil that is impregnated in the casting... Nice to use stainless rod, but i have had a lot of success with 7018 steel rod. You only weld short passes, maybe an inch long..  Chip the flux and peen the metal to relive stresses as you weld... GO SLOW... When done, cover with a heat blanket or maybe sand and let it COOL SLOW.

Spent a good part of yesterday rebuilding the starter. New armature, new brushes, new gear....

and nothing. My neighbor is coming over later today to put another set of eyes on the work, but honestly.... how hard can it be.

It won't even turn. Just a click on the solenoid, but not even a response from the starter, as though it's shorted.

Should there be continuity on the starter cylinder? I get continuity from the 12 volt stud to the rest of the body when I hook up the brush plate (the back plate) to the cylinder, e.g., the stators. All I did was replace the brushes, the armature, the stators and the springs. That's all that came with the kit.

since you have a STUD , you are using a SOLENOID... it is possible the contact inside is  burnt... have you tried jumping it ... going straight from the battery terminal to the starter stud ? ..... and you cant BENCH test it that way.

No, haven't tried to jump it. Not sure how to safely connect it. I tried and the battery jumper cables started getting warm, so I took them off. I've never done that before, so working a bit in the dark.

I bought a new starter, it's a 6v starter that is supposed to be a direct replacement for the starter I have on the tractor, the 1107043. I'm getting 12.3 volts from the battery positive to the top solenoid stud. Getting the same on the bottom stud. I get 12.35 volts to the stud on the new starter.

Just solenoid clicking. The same thing it did with the rebuild attempt. I'm trying to figure out what I'm missing here. I believe my old starter is a 6v starter as well.

This has to be something simple. Would the ignition be an issue? I wouldn't think so, if voltage is moving through the connectors and the solenoid and getting to the starter.

Anyway, that's where I'm at.

ok, nevermind got the starter to turn. Not sure why it wouldn't at the time of the last post. I didn't do anything else. Maybe cables

Thanks Steve, the battery is new, thereby clean.

I sand-blasted the old starter.... there was so much paint on the old one that I didn't notice that it had been "remanufactured" by a past owner. The post that is supposed to be engaged from the Starter Rod wasn't there, that I knew with comparison to newer pictures of re-man starters. I had been wondering why I didn't have that post cover, but it was of secondary concern, considering the other issues I have been dealing with.... and the tractor started reliably soooo.... on the backburner until it could no longer be left there.

My tractor did not come with a Starter Rod, but I didn't even know that til this problem came up. By that I mean that I did not know it was a necessary part of the tractor because the starter was not reliant upon it. Somebody removed it, sometime in the past.

Looking at the old starter, the post was a single brass/copper bolt, but threaded to the outside, not inside the starter as it was designed to be. Had I not sand-blasted it, I never would have seen the two threaded holes for the post mount cover with the spring button that is activated by the starter rod.

So I had a 6 volt starter that somebody home remedied sometime long in the past, during a rebuild. Everything became clear upon closer inspection last night.

So that is where I am. I have to hold that button in to get the starter to turn, but a starter rod is definitely a must.

What is the deal with the rims and bolts to the hub.... hard to see details in that photo.

Make sure the trans is in NEUTRAL when you push that starter button  !!!  Double check and check again !

yes, even though I know it is, I always check that shifter stick. The tractor looks nicer now, than it did then, with a clean head, cleaned up thermostat housing and cleaned up magneto case.

I should just go all in, but right now I want to get it back to starting reliably. I think I have some magneto work to do, it does not want to start after installing the new starter. My neighbor and I checked spark on each cylinder.... barely registering any at all.  I put new points and a condensor in, but still no spark. It is timed correctly, using this guide:

http://personalpages.tds.net/~thompson_wp/acb/magtiming/magtiming.htm" rel="nofollow - http://personalpages.tds.net/~thompson_wp/acb/magtiming/magtiming.htm

mdm1 wrote: Your starter was converted to a push button start. Nothing wrong with that. You will have to hold the button in to engage the starter. Maybe I missed it but did you bench test the starter?

Wanted to edit this, and apologize to mdm1. I read too much into your post (overthinking ), hope you didn't think I was contradicting your correct analysis of the push button. That was not my intent.

Actually, whoever did the conversion on the starter that came with the tractor, most likely eliminated the starter rod, thereby allowing turning the key to crank the starter without doing anything else. I tried bench testing the old starter, but could not figure out how to do it without the solenoid off the tractor. All I got was sparks, but nothing else, and that was after putting in new brushes, new stators and a new armature. I can't figure out what I did wrong. I had continuity from the post to the starter casing. I don't think that is normal, so if my thoughts on that are correct, something got shorted somewhere, but I couldn't figure out what.

My neighbor and I completely tore down the magneto today, and replacement parts have been ordered. Looking forward to getting it back together. I wish I could roll down to a store and get all of this, the same day I need it. Kinda sucks waiting on online ordering.

I have no idea why the rims are the way they are. That farmerized drawbar has been off the tractor since July. I had hoped to be on a plow project by now (and rebuild of the hyd pump if necessary), but this other stuff had to be addressed.

The tractor is back up and running. My neighbor told me something about a vehicle he purchased, but was having issues with. A Jeep, too and Jeeps can be more problematic (financially) than a tractor I suspect. 

All it needed was money.

The starter is fine, however, I do not like that starter switch. Even without over-cranking it, those contacts get pitted fast, and then the circuit is not completed and all I get is the solenoid click. For now, I took the switch off and just hold the cable to the flat head of the lug and it turns every time.

I looked at the contact points in the switch.... they did not look bad.... definitely not abused, pitting as I stated above, but minor. I fluxed the contacts really good and brazed some solder on both and it worked.... but only for a bit. I think I am beginning to understand why the previous owner (whichever one it was), re-engineered the original starter to have a longer lug with threads outside the starter body, bypassing that push button switch.

I may take it to a good alternator shop, and see if they can do that for me. For now, with the addition of the reman magneto, it fires up with 2-3 bump cranks, the way it's supposed to.

I have a compression test kit on the way, I want to check that to get a baseline and know what I may be dealing with in the block, but the tractor runs nice and sounds good.

What an adventure this has turned out to be....

edit to add:

Oil pressure hold steady at 20 when cold, between 15-18 at operating temperature.

Coming up on a year since I got this tractor. To date, I have about two grand into it. Five hundred of that came to me with the tractor/trailer trade. Even if, eventually, push comes to shove and I decide (or am compelled) to rebuild the engine, there is no way I could have got a newer modern tractor for the cost invested in this old B, especially considering that it will do everything I need it to do.

Good morning, Jim!

Yes, they take some work and money to get brought back to life, but as you noted, they're not nearly as costly as something new, hence, very worth it, provided you don't need all the extended features (useful, and useless) of modernity.

Howdy Dave, thanks for the response. Informative response in the other B thread, too. I love modernity, but only to a point.

my name is John, but Jim is a good name, too