Better Starter 1066

[Redisright]

Does anyone offer a better starter for 66 series tractors?

 

[stronger800]

No reputable rebuilder in your area? Around here, it’s the way to go. Local guy fixes them up and makes them way better than the rebuilt one you buy at a dealer. Where are you located?

[stronger800]

An original red starter is highly desirable to him.  

[Farmall Doctor]

What could possibly be better than a Delco starter??

[hillman]

1 minute ago, Farmall Doctor said:

What could possibly be better than a Delco starter??

Lucas🤣

[Farmall Doctor]

2 minutes ago, hillman said:

Lucas🤣

….You are lucky I didn’t spit my morning tea out on that one, old chum… haha

[Jeff-C-IL]

Guys seriously.    I've wondered the same thing....back when we had our 1066 and fed cows everyday and changed the starter or solenoid every year or so.  Is there a modern gear reduction starter available to fit these tractors?   It could be a great upgrade.

[stronger800]

My 1466 sat outside, under a barn cleaner shoot hooked to a spreader, got started 2x a day, every day, for over 25 years. Maybe one starter rebuild so far in its life.    And that’s on the original style 3EH’s.  Watch it won’t start today now that I said that. 

[Redisright]

I was wondering if anyone offered the gear reduction one.

 

[Farmall Doctor]

Gear reduction starters still require a solenoid... just saying.

[Sparky]

5 hours ago, Jeff-C-IL said:

Guys seriously.    I've wondered the same thing....back when we had our 1066 and fed cows everyday and changed the starter or solenoid every year or so.  Is there a modern gear reduction starter available to fit these tractors?   It could be a great upgrade.

You're doing something wrong if you had to replace a starter or solenoid every year or so...

 

Travis

[Rusty_Farmer]

under sized cables and poor grounds will kill a starter every time.

[stronger800]

I think fuel quality, fuel pump condition, head condition, and motor condition in general all effect starting (obviously) and probably contribute to “starter/battery” problems more than some realize too .  35 degrees today and the 14 fired right off.  806 got about  20 minutes worth of love from the extension cord. 

[catman13]

you need to run both of your battery cables to the starter , attach ground to the starter mount bolt if you can, it should end most of your problems and use like 4 gage or heavier wire , my local rebuilder told me this

[606 diesel]

I think IH used single aught or 0 for battery cables on the 2+2s and the 86 series I replaced one on our 2+2 the other day and used double aught or 00 which is even larger yet. It should be good for a while now.

[Ian Beale]

19 hours ago, hillman said:

Lucas🤣

https://www.hemmings.com/stories/article/the-lucas-jokebook

Seems you people own it.

In my experience Lucas was no worse than others - the (IIRC) Prestolite alternators made under license in Oz were absolute winners in that contest

[Red Flyer]

5 hours ago, Ian Beale said:

Lucas🤣

Glad someone explained that to me.

[Diesel Doctor]

These tractors would start at -30 below with just a whipf of ether.

IH is known for having the best, "Starting", tractors and engines.

But just like everything, they will not run forever, with little maintenance.

 

[JaredT]

Our 966 is just shy of 8k hours, had the starter "rebuilt" at the Chinese shop, last two years. Found a local guy that now rebuilds everything for us and supplies all of our batteries, only using American parts, if you want cheap call someone else. Starter has 2k hours on it and hasn't missed a beat. Cheap rebuilds are exactly that. 

[kracked1]

The biggest problem with those starters is low voltage to the solenoid. There are way to many connections between the batteries and the solenoid for engagement signal. Put a ford starter solenoid as close as possible to the starter. Run a wire from the solenoid post from the battery to one side of the ford solenoid. Run a wire from the other side to the small engagement terminal on the starter solenoid. Then hook the original engagement wire from the push button to the ford solenoid engagement terminal. You will end your starter problems. This was a bulletin from IH. The original push button circuit was prone to poor connections and the factory solenoid took a huge amount of poer to hild it in. Once it had low voltage it wouldnt hold in solid and would start burning the contacts and soon you had a no start issue. And when the solenoid had poor contact inside the starter was running at low voltage and it would start self destructing. Did this to many tratcors back in the day.

 

[Jeff-C-IL]

The original starter solenoids were silver plated, many of the replacements (at least in the 90's) were not.   The solenoids would not last.   This is where I learned about turning the posts on a solenoid, a good silver plated sol. with the battery post turned 180 would outlast the replacement you could get.   

I'm sure a lot of it was cables.  The old 3EH series connection was a PITA.  Also much of it was daily starting a tractor sitting out in the feedlot in 0 or lower weather, not plugged in cause there was no AC there.  I got real sick of taking all the shields off in the year-around cab to get to the cables/batteries/starter.   I eventually added a heavy cable out the side and a big stud under the cab to clamp a booster cable to.  

[Diesel Doctor]

If you are having electrical issues with anything, you can usually trace it back to low voltage.

Good batteries and cables is a must for not only the starters but for all electrical stuff.

Many a glow plug controller, on a 6.2 diesel, was killed by bad batteries, cables and low voltage.

[dale560]

5 hours ago, Diesel Doctor said:

If you are having electrical issues with anything, you can usually trace it back to low voltage.

Good batteries and cables is a must for not only the starters but for all electrical stuff.

Many a glow plug controller, on a 6.2 diesel, was killed by bad batteries, cables and low voltage.

Exactly. Ninety percent of the low voltage and bad batteries were due to loose alternator belt or bad belt. The best improvement they made to that series engine was the serpentine belt drive. It spun the alternator and water pump.  The dual thermostats ,improved cooling ,  better fan belt was a big Improvement. The problem with low voltage and 6.2s. The glow plug controller sensed if engine was running by alt voltage. Any low voltage it would try to turn glow plugs on. There were changes to system in 83, 84 and 85 adding switches and changing controller plus relay.

[Binderoid]

On 11/20/2021 at 8:04 AM, Farmall Doctor said:

What could possibly be better than a Delco starter??

I love Delco stuff, but the starters they used as OEM on the GM 5.7 and IH 6.9 Diesels... they just weren’t reliable for some reason. By time the first generation 7.3 came out, Mitsubishi had to come to the rescue, then became the standard replacement through service parts for the 6.9 . 

[Diesel Doctor]

On 11/26/2021 at 5:16 PM, Binderoid said:

I love Delco stuff, but the starters they used as OEM on the GM 5.7 and IH 6.9 Diesels... they just weren’t reliable for some reason. By time the first generation 7.3 came out, Mitsubishi had to come to the rescue, then became the standard replacement through service parts for the 6.9 . 

I had the original starter on at 250,000 miles. But I had overhauled it every 100,000 miles.

All three bushings were replaced with new brushes was usually done.

I had to replace the shift lever between solenoid and drive as it wanted to stay engaged once.

And one new solenoid.

Not bad for that many miles.

If you wanted to kill them quick, take off the brace from the brush end to the block.

Throw that away and you could start buying nose cones.  It was there for a purpose.