Farmall Cub

is it possible to put an hour meter on an early cub with a 6volt system and a magneto?? what would turn on and off the power to the hour meter since the ignition switch is actually just a switch to ground? can you do this with an early cub's electrical system?

Plumb a two post oil pressure switch in with your oil pressure gauge with a "T".

Connect your 6 volt hourmeter to one terminal of the pressure switch, the other terminal of the switch to a power source.

When the tractor starts, oil pressure closes the circuit starting the clock.

In my opinion, the only way to keep accurate track of time.

Many years ago when I made my living repairing equipment, I was working on a farm tractor that had an automotive analog clock crudely attached to the control panel.

When I drove the tractor in, I set the clock with my watch because it was off. Later I noticed it had stopped again. A little research discovered it was wired to the wrong side of the key, it only had power when the ignition was on.

I complimentarily re-connected the clock feed to a continuous power source, set the time and called it a day.

A few days after the customer picked it up, he called me asking what I had done to his hourmeter. Hourmeter, what hourmeter?

He proceded to explain the clock was intentionally wired that way. Everytime the hour hand pointed to 12 it was time to service the air cleaner and grease the machine. He would then place a tally mark somewhere in the cab to keep track of overall elapsed time for oil changes.

Fortunately he was able to undo my handiwork so I didn't have to run out to his place to correct it.

You find all kinds of crazy stuff out there.

Maybe a forum section devoted to weird stuff found on previously owned equipment would be cool like the distributor cap I recently found on a cub with 3 monster size holes drilled into it for ventilation.

Depending on what you want, you can buy these for $10 to $12 on Ebay and Amazon. They have one wire that wraps around a spark plug wire, and one that goes to ground. Powered by internal battery. Set the number of cylinders using one switch, and go between RPM and hours with the other. Search for "hour meter tachometer". Tachometer function is not real accurate if another plug wire is also close, but hour meter seems to work well.