Mark, great info from my friends and we usually pretty much agree on this stuff, so I will just answer in my owm method n you can go from there..
My question is... What the easiest way to figure out if its negative or positive ground and if its 12v or 6v?
Wellllllll its now whatever ground as you connected it......The next question would be what was it prior???????
Many 6 volt tractors (say an A or B or C or H etc) were originally Pos ground which is a good starting assumption. After you installed the battery, if you turn on an electrical load such as lights or ignition (unless a mag) if the ammeter swings over to - discharge the way you grounded it is "probably" as it was before. HOWEVER if it swings to + charge you have it opposite how it was before ASSUMING the ammeter was correctly wired for the prior ground.
The thing is if you reverse polarity the ammeter leads need swapped or else it will register bass ackwards.
Other grounding hints may be the way the coil is wired if its not a mag and iffffffffff???? it was wired correct to match the polarity. For best performance the coil should match the battery polarity which would be the lil + terminal receiving ignition switched voltage with its other lil - terminal to the distributor and opposite of that for Pos ground...
Hints for what voltage it was prior is what voltage the coil is (unless a mag) and if its a 6 or 12 volt and if perhaps theres an ignition ballast resistor, unless a mag of course
As far as jump starting, if you jump the starter only i.e. on the starter side of a mechanical push start switch or solenoid or right on the starter post itself, you shouldnt hurt anything else as the jump isnt connected to the rest of the tractor electrical system. However if you jump the battery then it does connect to everything and could burn 6 volts lights IFFFFFFF they are on and it could eventually (but would take a while) overheat the coil if youre jumping a 6 volt coil tractor with 12 volts. But a jump only and then having it run on its own correct voltage battery wont overheat the coil if its correctlty sized... Of course the rest of the tractor needs enough in house battery energy to power up the ignition unless its a mag
If its a 6 volt tractor Id install a new batery at Pos ground,,,,,,,,,POLARIZE THE GENNY,,,,,try n start it n see what happens and what the ammeter shows......
QUESTION It didn't occur to me until I started to write this that I didn't polarize the generator but I don't know if that would cause something like this.
If its started and the gennys polarity is opposite that of the battery,,,,,,,the VR can be damaged and it could cause erratic voltage readings temporarily at least
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