Saturday afternoon-going down a TH-cam rabbit hole, I found your channel. If I may offer a story of my own regarding Gravely tractors, and it has to be a story, since both tractors "went to their reward" years ago. So a lot of what I am going to relate is based on my memories. My Father had two Model Ls. One he bought with the next door neighbor and the second he bought on his own. The first was brand new and the second was used. The first was lower geared, had a governor, and had lugged tires and the Gravely rotary plow. The second was intended for lawn mowing (we had a decent sized suburban lawn) and was higher geared, didn't have the governor, just a throttle control, and turf tires. I think he bought it with a reel-type mower. The governor mounted on the fan shroud on the same side as the carburetor and had a nylon wheel that rode on the cooling fan belt. Beyond that, I don't know much more. My Father only used the rotary plow unit, so I can't provide any feedback on how effective the governor was. He liked it though ...Not enough to retrofit the other unit. Both tractors had cast iron cylinder heads and older-style drop-in cartridge oil filters. One had a Wico magneto and the other had a Fairbanks Morse magneto. Both were the impact style so that you didn't have to spin the engine quickly to start it. Having said that, both were SOBs to start and I used to dread starting them. Once started, I kept track of the fuel in the tank and refuelled "on the fly" without shutting the engine off. I can still hear my Father screaming that I was going to torch the damned thing. ...Never did, though. I guess I may have been 12 years old or so and I came to truly hate that leather strap. It seemed as though I could barely crank that old beast over and without the impulse mag, would have never started it. And even when you got it started, the thing truly bullied a skinny little kid around. It was not for the faint-hearted (but it was a big advance over using a rotary push mower.) A big advancement came when he located a 48" or 52" three bladed Pennington mower attachment. One small issue-the 6 hp Model L engine (so he claimed from the manual) didn't have the muscle to drive both the mower and the tractor. Being a good old Northern Wisconsin farm boy and a WWII vet, it wasn't long before he acquired a 6 hp AKN Wisconsin engine off an old cement mixer, cobbled up a frame to mount this engine on the mower over the PTO input, and put a belt and pulley on the PTO shaft to connect it to the mower. ...So starting this morphodite became a ballet where I would disengage the PTO in the front of the tractor, belt the Gravely to life (amid profanity that made me feel like a real man at the time,) engage the PTO, push the PTO lever forward, drive the Wisconsin with the tractor, and start it. ...And with two muffler-less engines, I would take off and cut grass. In retrospect, I wonder why I never tried starting the Wisconsin first (it was a much better running engine) and using it to then start the Gravely. Likely, since no provisions were made to disconnect the Wisconsin from the mower, that would have made that procedure much more dangerous. And all the added weight made handling this beast even more difficult. I'd like to attribute my hearing loss to 50 years in a heavy industrial environment. This beast, however was likely an early contributor. Unfortunately, I have no pictures of this beast and although I miss my Father every day very much, I can't say the same about this tractor. This glorious experiment ended when my Father bought a 12 HP Sears riding mower with an electric starter. I, for one, never looked back.
Ether bunny needs to pay a visit to that "L" Model ! Maybe even directly into the combustion chamber via the spark plug opening ! But I'm very sure by now you have her up and running ! Pretty sure I've seen it running already ! And, ABSOLUTELY we both need to be building, or finding a starter kart !
I fought hand starting mine for a couple years! I would turn the motor as far as I could clockwise and then turn it back as far.counterclockwise as I could . In figured I was getting a running start by not having immediate resistance of compression stroke when I pulled. One day I m watching a video of a young girl kick starting an old Harley. She would get the engine to the highest point of resistance on compression stroke and then jump on it. I knew this from my years running old kick start British bikes. I thought why don't no try that with the L model.I don't have flat strap,just a rope with a knot on one end and a piece of dial rod on other end for my hand to hold. I turn engine clockwise until I can't overcome compression ,wind my rope on tight, and I brace my foot on wheel and pull hard and steady..When it starts to overcome the compression stroke I pull hard thru the stroke ! It has started every time first or second pull since I ve done this ! I used to take a half inch drive impact gun with a socket to start the beast . I quit carrying the impact gun! It sat for two months and just started cold second pull. Coughed on first pull ,I had too.much choke on. I also made sure my mag was sparking right before TDC . About once every 50 starts I ll get lazy and not pull thru the stroke ,and the old girl will pull back and stove my fingers up!
Saturday afternoon-going down a TH-cam rabbit hole, I found your channel. If I may offer a story of my own regarding Gravely tractors, and it has to be a story, since both tractors "went to their reward" years ago. So a lot of what I am going to relate is based on my memories.
My Father had two Model Ls. One he bought with the next door neighbor and the second he bought on his own. The first was brand new and the second was used. The first was lower geared, had a governor, and had lugged tires and the Gravely rotary plow. The second was intended for lawn mowing (we had a decent sized suburban lawn) and was higher geared, didn't have the governor, just a throttle control, and turf tires. I think he bought it with a reel-type mower. The governor mounted on the fan shroud on the same side as the carburetor and had a nylon wheel that rode on the cooling fan belt. Beyond that, I don't know much more. My Father only used the rotary plow unit, so I can't provide any feedback on how effective the governor was. He liked it though ...Not enough to retrofit the other unit.
Both tractors had cast iron cylinder heads and older-style drop-in cartridge oil filters. One had a Wico magneto and the other had a Fairbanks Morse magneto. Both were the impact style so that you didn't have to spin the engine quickly to start it.
Having said that, both were SOBs to start and I used to dread starting them. Once started, I kept track of the fuel in the tank and refuelled "on the fly" without shutting the engine off. I can still hear my Father screaming that I was going to torch the damned thing. ...Never did, though. I guess I may have been 12 years old or so and I came to truly hate that leather strap. It seemed as though I could barely crank that old beast over and without the impulse mag, would have never started it.
And even when you got it started, the thing truly bullied a skinny little kid around. It was not for the faint-hearted (but it was a big advance over using a rotary push mower.)
A big advancement came when he located a 48" or 52" three bladed Pennington mower attachment. One small issue-the 6 hp Model L engine (so he claimed from the manual) didn't have the muscle to drive both the mower and the tractor.
Being a good old Northern Wisconsin farm boy and a WWII vet, it wasn't long before he acquired a 6 hp AKN Wisconsin engine off an old cement mixer, cobbled up a frame to mount this engine on the mower over the PTO input, and put a belt and pulley on the PTO shaft to connect it to the mower. ...So starting this morphodite became a ballet where I would disengage the PTO in the front of the tractor, belt the Gravely to life (amid profanity that made me feel like a real man at the time,) engage the PTO, push the PTO lever forward, drive the Wisconsin with the tractor, and start it. ...And with two muffler-less engines, I would take off and cut grass. In retrospect, I wonder why I never tried starting the Wisconsin first (it was a much better running engine) and using it to then start the Gravely. Likely, since no provisions were made to disconnect the Wisconsin from the mower, that would have made that procedure much more dangerous.
And all the added weight made handling this beast even more difficult. I'd like to attribute my hearing loss to 50 years in a heavy industrial environment. This beast, however was likely an early contributor.
Unfortunately, I have no pictures of this beast and although I miss my Father every day very much, I can't say the same about this tractor. This glorious experiment ended when my Father bought a 12 HP Sears riding mower with an electric starter. I, for one, never looked back.
Ether bunny needs to pay a visit to that "L" Model !
Maybe even directly into the combustion chamber via the spark plug opening !
But I'm very sure by now you have her up and running !
Pretty sure I've seen it running already !
And, ABSOLUTELY we both need to be building, or finding a starter kart !
I fought hand starting mine for a couple years! I would turn the motor as far as I could clockwise and then turn it back as far.counterclockwise as I could . In figured I was getting a running start by not having immediate resistance of compression stroke when I pulled. One day I m watching a video of a young girl kick starting an old Harley. She would get the engine to the highest point of resistance on compression stroke and then jump on it. I knew this from my years running old kick start British bikes. I thought why don't no try that with the L model.I don't have flat strap,just a rope with a knot on one end and a piece of dial rod on other end for my hand to hold. I turn engine clockwise until I can't overcome compression ,wind my rope on tight, and I brace my foot on wheel and pull hard and steady..When it starts to overcome the compression stroke I pull hard thru the stroke ! It has started every time first or second pull since I ve done this ! I used to take a half inch drive impact gun with a socket to start the beast . I quit carrying the impact gun! It sat for two months and just started cold second pull. Coughed on first pull ,I had too.much choke on. I also made sure my mag was sparking right before TDC . About once every 50 starts I ll get lazy and not pull thru the stroke ,and the old girl will pull back and stove my fingers up!
What about the Little Wonder?
trackdog90 ahhhh stay tuned later tonight :)
And ??? Don’t leave us hanging
"SCREW THIS" my thoughts exactly about old model L pull starts
trackdog90 I agree with that. I wanna make a starter cart