JD A Starter

JD A 1951 model: I am having trouble getting the starter to go through the left hole to the flywheel. I have the two wires on the copper tongue and the wires through the top hole. They are new wires and don't bend very easily. Any suggestions would be appreciated. THANKS!

"I am having trouble getting the starter to go through the left hole to the flywheel".

You have lost me, the starter goes in from underneath the tractor by removing the thin rectangular steel plate by removing 4-6 cap screws. Then wires are fed down behind the fly wheel along with the starter operating rod.

"[b:654c4848f0][i:654c4848f0]having trouble getting the starter to go through the left hole to the flywheel[/i:654c4848f0][/b:654c4848f0]"



Take a look at the photos below of a few steps to install a starting motor.

Tie a rope through the starting motor shift lever.



The purpose of this rope is to guide the starting motor shift lever through to top hole.

“[b:654c4848f0][i:654c4848f0]I have the two wires on the copper tongue and the wires through the top hole.[/i:654c4848f0][/b:654c4848f0]”

Make sure to disconnect the battery cable from the battery.

Make sure to turn OFF the ignition key if your tractor has one.

Thread the rope through the hole with the battery cable and other wire.



You might consider using a small floor jack to raise the starting motor into position.

Pull the rope to help position the starting motor.

Pull the rope to raise the starting motor shift lever to clear the area between the bottom hole and top hole.



Align the holes for the cap screws, replace the cap screws to secure the starting motor, and remove the rope.



Hope this helps.

Install starter then connect wires, careful not to bend copper strap when righting bolt for wires.

You mention that the wires to the starter are new, but you didn't mention what size they were, especially the size of the cable that attaches to the battery.

There is a school of thought, when it comes to the size of the cable to the battery, that "bigger is better" because bigger cables offer less resistance. While true in theory, there are other qualifiers. If you were to take 8' pieces of 6 guage, 4 guage, 2 guage, 0 and 00 wire and lay they and measure the resistance, the difference would be hardly noticeable. That changes once you pass current through them as a by product of current is heat and that increases the resistance. But there is a relation between current and wire size where a certain amount of current can pass through a certain wire size with little to no detrimental heat gain. This is why in house and shop wiring, 14 guage wire can't be attached to a breaker larger than 15 amp, 12 to a 20 amp, 10 to a 30 amp and so on. To carry the analogy a step further, you can put a 12 or 10 guage wire on a 15 amp breaker, but it offers no additional electrical benefit and is harder to work with and costs more.

Same is true with cables for starters, using a larger cable than needed for the current draw of the starter, makes it much harder to thread through the routing on the tractor. The engineers at Deere designed the cable routing with the appropriate cable size in mind. You put on one that is oversized, you gain nothing significant electrically and you will find that it might not bend easily enough to fit in the space provided.

Something to consider.

Hey,
I guess we've all done a bunch of these over the years. The starter is heavy and it's a hand full to get in place. Be sure you have the cutout the right way so your not hitting the flywheel. Once it's through the hole it will stay up there by itself while you line up the bolts. Use a line up punch to help locate the bolts. I've found that if your using a new cable make sure to duplicate the bends that were on the old cable. I've used the cables from Brillman that are made for the tractor your working on. They are not that crazy expensive and are the right size to fit the clamps and the right ends as Deere intended. Makes life much easier. Good Luck!
John