farmall a will not fire

Here's a mag that's been converted to a distributor. You wouldn't have the cylinder shape ignition coil shown in the picture. You should have a grounding post on the mag for stopping the engine. I would disconnect that wire from the mag for now. Then see if the engine will start. Hal

The push pull switch is different for the two. For coil ignition, it has two poles on the bottom, and the switch make and breaks the connection of the voltage to the coil. The switch for the magneto has only a single pole and grounds out the magneto when pushed down. A wire runs between the switch pole and a screw on the side of the magneto) to kill your engine when pushed down.

To make the two-pole switch work for a mag, you could run the wire from the mag to one pole of the switch, and run a wire from the other pole to a good ground. It'd work but it would work backwards, , i.e., down to run, up to stop.

these pictures are of my tractor ok apparently it is a magnito. the picture of the wires showes two wires attatched to nothing, the tractor ran like that. then i put the toggle on off switch ont the wires i got some smoke. then the tractor would not start it just cranks. the picture with the pencil pointing i think it is a fuse could i have blown that but there are no wires attatched to it

Magneto alright. Looks like it got set up 180* out of time (or the cap on backwards) but if that hasn't been disturbed since it was last running right, leave that alone for now, it's not part of your problem.

I'm a little curious about the splice in the ground wire off the side of the mag, as it looks like a new eyelet on the end the long part of the wire would have reached so why the splice. But maybe not. Does the wire with the splice run directly back to your on/off switch? If so, it's operating as a magneto. If it runs to a coil or anywhere else, then things change, and we'd need to know that to be able to help.

Hard to say what's happening on the back side of your ammeter panel. The rest of this pararaph is pure speculation. As for the two loose wires, the one on the right appears to run to ground and the other comes out of your harness. It could be possible that they hooked up to a switch with post-type terminals to operate your lights. (That filled in larger hole in the middle is where the stock-type light switch would mount. As far as the gizmo your pencil points to, is the darker area something that's raised up and mounted to insulate it form the panel. I'd almost hink it would have to be. Could have been a fuse or a resistor in there. It's definitely jury-rigged, so it's hard to tell hard to tell. For us to be any help sorting that out, you're gonna need to get a multimeter after it and trace where the wires go (they might run up to the voltage regulator and, if so, to which terminal?, and for continuity between the various terminals and mounts on the panel to ground. It could be just about anything there.

Your next to last picture is your generator, with a voltage regulator (as opposed to a simpler cutout relay) mounted on top.

The last pic -- The toggle switch I would GUESS would be for your lights, but I've got serious questions out that being the case. No guidance there, either, until yu can sort out the continuity

As far as the push button switch, it's of the type (though not original style) that would work on a battery ignition, but would need to have one side wired to the side of the magneto and the other to ground to work.

Two suggestions. First, rest your panel on a thick rag to insulate it from ground, and tape off those loose wires to make sure they aren't touching each other or the panel. Hook one side of your push-button switch to ground, and the other to a wire running directly to the screw on the side of the magneto. (Use the wire that's there ONLY if it runs directly between the switch and the magneto and NOWHERE else!) Keep those wires and the body of the switch away from ground, too. With the switch open, try cranking the engine and see if it will run. If it will run, see if it shuts down when you close the switch. That would be one problem solved if ti works.

Second, if we're to be of any help sortin' out the rest of it, you'll need a multimeter to try and trace the loose wires to see where they go (maybe terinals on the voltage regulator?) and check for continuity around those two gizmos on te back of the panel, to see if any part of them connects electrically to the face of the panel. It's siple looking eough, but you've got a bit of a rat's nest going there.

If all small wires are removed from the mag, and it still has no spark. it needs to be repaired internally. (if you are not friendly with geared mechanisms, and setting and diagnosing electrical systems, I would have it repaired. Magman on this forum does exactly that for a good price.

There should be no connection between the charging, lights, and battery systems, and the mag. It is stand alone. Keep us informed! JimN