Hello, I am the proud new owner of a 48 Ford 8n tractor! I have a little mechanical experience but would consider myself a beginner. Love working on this tractor, but I am stumped and discouraged!
To start off, when I bought the tractor 3 months ago I was told that the motor had been rebuilt within the last 10 years, that all it needed was a carburetor adjustment. It ran well, and started EASILY but the choke absolutely had to be halfway out to run. Also, I will add that I've never been able to run it in 4th gear (it bogs down quickly in 4th and stalls out every time, even if its nice and warmed up). So I decided to do some simple maintenance before I did any work with "Ol red". I greased the thing from top to bottom, changed the oil and filter (the oil hadn't been changed since Abe Lincoln was a lad...the oil was coal black and there was a little sludge in the oil pan screen but no metal that I could see with the naked eye). This brought the running oil pressure from 10-15psi up to 20-30psi and has held good pressure since. I also took the carburetor apart and found that the fuel inlet screen was plugged up tighter than fort knox. I cleaned it out and put it back it. It has not ran the same since that point. It almost made it worse. It would run good once you could get it started, but you would have to crank and crank and crank and pray a while to get it to finally fire up. It would then run without any choke at all and run smooth, but still not enough power to run in 4th gear. I then decided that the carburetor had too many worn out pieces for me not to rebuild it and that it was probably the main problem, so I did just that! I rebuilt the carburetor and the same thing. I would crank it until the battery would nearly run down and then have to jump it with my F-150 to get it to start. Once it did start, it would spit and sputter and misfire and backfire and idle very rough....but once it had warmed up, it would smooth right out and start up easily when it was warm. WEIRD!
I decided that it should not be so dang hard to get started and that it still lacked good horsepower that I wasn't getting. I took the distributor off (front mount by the way) and discovered that the points were burned up and way to close together when they should be open. I couldn't even get a piece of paper in between them when on high lobe of the cam. I also discovered that the plug wires had some cuts and nicks on them and one place with exposed wire and the spark plugs themselves looked worn out and gapped far too wide. So in an effort to be thorough, I bought plugs, wires, points, and condenser. I put them all in, adjusted them to my manual specs with a feeler gauge and cranked it up. Zero spark at all. I even pulled a plug out and set it on the block with the plug wire attached and no spark. It didnt even try to "catch." Just sounded like an empty motor cranking. In a mad rage and panic I took the distributor off again and looked it all over. I realized that I may not have had the coil centered with the spring making good contact to the brass condenser bolt and the metal tab on the rotor cap. So I put it back together where I felt like it was making good contact and now correct. I cranked it up again and zero spark. I didnt crank for 10-15 minutes like I had before because I was confident in the carburetor and fuel issues being fixed. I cranked it maybe a few times within a couple of minutes but I could tell, still no spark! So, again in a made rage and panic, I took the distributor off (here is where it gets hairy). I removed the bolt from the right side of the tractor, no problem. Then I went to the left side and started turning on that bolt, it felt looser than I had torqued it and when it came out I recognized that the distributor case had broken completely off and separate from the part of the case where this bolt goes. So I had my distributor in one hand ....and a bolt in a broken off piece of the bolting bracket (distributor housing) in the other. It is possible that I didn't have the distributor tang mated into the camshaft surface good enough but I really felt like it was. It is also possible that the distributor was cracked on that side all along and I just didn't notice it (you can tell it could quite possibly be the original distributor housing). Now I'm wondering if I put the distributor in at a bad angle and my "spark" issue was actually fixed... but I wouldn't have known if the tang wasn't mated into the camshaft (thus the distributor wasn't turning). I also am unsure that I had the rotor in the right way (making the timing off 180 degrees). I understand it matters what the orientation of the rotor is when taking the distributor off (classic rookie mistake on my part). I also don't know whether to buy a new distributor or try to JB weld the current one back together. I don't have much experience with JB weld or its strength. So now one problem has turned into two...and hopefully not more. I will also add that my current distributor shaft mating tang and the camshaft side look ok and undamaged (somehow). Any help is greatly appreciated!! And I'm sorry for a novel, I just felt like for folks that know these tractors well, that you should get the whole story.
To start off, when I bought the tractor 3 months ago I was told that the motor had been rebuilt within the last 10 years, that all it needed was a carburetor adjustment. It ran well, and started EASILY but the choke absolutely had to be halfway out to run. Also, I will add that I've never been able to run it in 4th gear (it bogs down quickly in 4th and stalls out every time, even if its nice and warmed up). So I decided to do some simple maintenance before I did any work with "Ol red". I greased the thing from top to bottom, changed the oil and filter (the oil hadn't been changed since Abe Lincoln was a lad...the oil was coal black and there was a little sludge in the oil pan screen but no metal that I could see with the naked eye). This brought the running oil pressure from 10-15psi up to 20-30psi and has held good pressure since. I also took the carburetor apart and found that the fuel inlet screen was plugged up tighter than fort knox. I cleaned it out and put it back it. It has not ran the same since that point. It almost made it worse. It would run good once you could get it started, but you would have to crank and crank and crank and pray a while to get it to finally fire up. It would then run without any choke at all and run smooth, but still not enough power to run in 4th gear. I then decided that the carburetor had too many worn out pieces for me not to rebuild it and that it was probably the main problem, so I did just that! I rebuilt the carburetor and the same thing. I would crank it until the battery would nearly run down and then have to jump it with my F-150 to get it to start. Once it did start, it would spit and sputter and misfire and backfire and idle very rough....but once it had warmed up, it would smooth right out and start up easily when it was warm. WEIRD!
I decided that it should not be so dang hard to get started and that it still lacked good horsepower that I wasn't getting. I took the distributor off (front mount by the way) and discovered that the points were burned up and way to close together when they should be open. I couldn't even get a piece of paper in between them when on high lobe of the cam. I also discovered that the plug wires had some cuts and nicks on them and one place with exposed wire and the spark plugs themselves looked worn out and gapped far too wide. So in an effort to be thorough, I bought plugs, wires, points, and condenser. I put them all in, adjusted them to my manual specs with a feeler gauge and cranked it up. Zero spark at all. I even pulled a plug out and set it on the block with the plug wire attached and no spark. It didnt even try to "catch." Just sounded like an empty motor cranking. In a mad rage and panic I took the distributor off again and looked it all over. I realized that I may not have had the coil centered with the spring making good contact to the brass condenser bolt and the metal tab on the rotor cap. So I put it back together where I felt like it was making good contact and now correct. I cranked it up again and zero spark. I didnt crank for 10-15 minutes like I had before because I was confident in the carburetor and fuel issues being fixed. I cranked it maybe a few times within a couple of minutes but I could tell, still no spark! So, again in a made rage and panic, I took the distributor off (here is where it gets hairy). I removed the bolt from the right side of the tractor, no problem. Then I went to the left side and started turning on that bolt, it felt looser than I had torqued it and when it came out I recognized that the distributor case had broken completely off and separate from the part of the case where this bolt goes. So I had my distributor in one hand ....and a bolt in a broken off piece of the bolting bracket (distributor housing) in the other. It is possible that I didn't have the distributor tang mated into the camshaft surface good enough but I really felt like it was. It is also possible that the distributor was cracked on that side all along and I just didn't notice it (you can tell it could quite possibly be the original distributor housing). Now I'm wondering if I put the distributor in at a bad angle and my "spark" issue was actually fixed... but I wouldn't have known if the tang wasn't mated into the camshaft (thus the distributor wasn't turning). I also am unsure that I had the rotor in the right way (making the timing off 180 degrees). I understand it matters what the orientation of the rotor is when taking the distributor off (classic rookie mistake on my part). I also don't know whether to buy a new distributor or try to JB weld the current one back together. I don't have much experience with JB weld or its strength. So now one problem has turned into two...and hopefully not more. I will also add that my current distributor shaft mating tang and the camshaft side look ok and undamaged (somehow). Any help is greatly appreciated!! And I'm sorry for a novel, I just felt like for folks that know these tractors well, that you should get the whole story.
