'49 8N front mount dist: what wires through conduit

[CFB]

Hello, finally back at it. All painted and ready to reassemble. Started today with the spark plug wires. I have the conduit above the engine to route these wires. I did slide off the boot (distributor end) to slide through. I made the mistake, but caught it after the second wire of starting with the very end hole of the conduit, but realized that was wrong as there are four separate slots on the side of the conduit. Then it occurred to me that perhaps the generator wires are intended to route through the conduit as well. No wires were in the conduit when I bought the tractor. You can see from a picture, that those wires are in a plastic tube. Do you know if, originally, just individual wires were run through the conduit, or could this whole tube fit through. I'm guessing there is not enough room, so I'll be please with just the spark plug wires going through, but I am curious. Just in case, these wires are supposed to be routed through on an individual basis, would those be run through before running the spark plug wires through? thank you.

 

[JMOR]

4 plug wires, 3 generator wires and one coil wire were all in tube

 

[CFB]

4 plug wires, 3 generator wires and one coil wire were all in tube

thanks. those generator wires were probably strung separately instead of bundled liken my picture. My guess is the prior owner did not want to mess with the conduit and put them in the plastic tubing - would that be your guess too?

 

[JMOR]

Sounds as good as any

 

[ChrisFromCLE]

CFB,

Diagram courtesy of Tim the Ploughman Daily, RIP.

Chris from CLE

 

[JMOR]

CFB,

Diagram courtesy of Tim the Ploughman Daily, RIP.

Chris from CLE

3 days late and wrong tractor model

 

[Jim in LA]

Those tubes are pricey. Both the standoffs are broken on my ‘49. Someday when I’m about eighty I’ll fix it.

 

[HFJ]

the only thing in my conduit now is my alternator wire. i have a fish tape., i'm just militantly lazy.

 

[CFB]

CFB,

Diagram courtesy of Tim the Ploughman Daily, RIP.

Chris from CLE

ha, ha, yes, I found almost the same sketch in my FO-4. Why I overlooked it I'll attribute to a senior moment. I did get the generator wires and spark plug wires through. Seeing the sketch, I'm wondering if the 4 generator wires should be in a shroud. The one I showed in the picture seemed to be a homemade job as it was outside of the tube when I got the tractor, plug wires were outside as well. I saved some of the plastic tube and will use it at each end of the tube just to keep the wires closer together as much as possible. So I guess I'm wondering if the bare wires are okay, heat wise, inside the tube above the engine? I'll take pictures tomorrow and describe how I routed the wires.

 

[CFB]

Here is a picture of the finished wire routing. I'm not happy with the #1. At the distributor there is not slop, but at the plug there is. If I made it more like the others at the plug, I would have a lot of excess length at the distributor that I would have to tie up . And I'm not sure about another plug. It seems spongy when I plug it into the distributor, so I'm wondering if I did something when I removed the boot and put it back. I'm glad I tried it. Now just have to hookup the other end to the dash. I left most of it intact, but I do have to move it more to the right side (oil pressure side) since I'm adding a tool box. I have a nice picture from 2022 when I started the dismantling from Tim PloughNman.

 

[JMOR]

There was a bracket to hole wires away from fan belt.

https://imgur.com/h4rrSvp

 

[CFB]

There was a bracket to hole wires away from fan belt.

https://imgur.com/h4rrSvp

wow. thanks. I had no such bracket.

 

[CFB]

I forgot to explain, in case any other novice is going to do the routing through the conduit. The generator wires were sort of bundled together so pushed them first until I got to the #4 spark plug wire slot. I took the rubber boot off each end of the spark plug wire that connects to the distributor. The contact is a circle of copper with a slot in it. Mine had a small hole too. I sent a very fine wire through each slot in advance all the way to the end by the distributor. I fished in the #4 wire and then pushed it and the generator wires till I got to slot #3. Put #3 wire in and pushed it, #4 and the generator wires to the next slot. repeat the process for #2 and #1. As it was getting tighter, I then grabbed on to the very fine wires I had strung through and pulled on them while pushing also till all wires were visible. Then I could pull on then all. I took off the fine wire and slid, with some lubricant, the rubber boot. All the wires seem to be the exact length needed except for that #1 that I mentioned earlier. I'll have to revisit it.