(quoted from post at 23:10:41 04/24/09) "going to buy a new cap, rotor and coil and see if that works. "
Why? Are they bad?
In the 45+ years I’ve been trying to keep old cars & tractors running, I’ve tried a number of different methods to get a non-running car/truck/tractor to start. One way was to just start replacing every part I could get to until it started or I ran out of money. (Remove the radiator cap & drive a new tractor under it....sound familiar?) Another way was to take the good intentioned advice of my non-mechanic friends who would tell me that when their vehicle had the same symptoms, it was the whatever that was broke or needed adjusting. I’d then try that, usually w/o getting it to run. But, when I was occasionally successful, from that point on, every time the vehicle had those symptoms, I was confident that the same fix as before would work again. It usually didn’t. Unfortunately for me, this approach was reinforced by watching real mechanics take 10 minutes to fix a problem that I couldn’t fix in 10 hours. It took a while before I figured out that my experience of working on one or two different vehicles 8 or 10 hours a month just wasn’t the same as working on 10 or 20 different makes/models of vehicles 40 hours a week. The one way that I did find the best results with is to take a systematic, step-by-step approach to solving the problem, working from most likely to least likely. The trick to fixing these tractors (or trouble shooting any piece of equipment) is to be systematic about it. You need to isolate the problem step by step and work from most likely to least likely. Jumping ahead to 'so-and-so said it could be whatever' or just replacing parts usually just wastes your time and your money. I know it did for me. Remember, it takes three things for an engine to run: spark at the right time, compression, & fuel in the right mixture. For the moment, forget about compression & fuel concentrate on narrowing the problem to spark past the coil. If you don’t do that, you are going to end up chasing your tail around that tractor & spending a boatload of money to fix what could easily be a loose wire or failure to turn the fuel on. I offer this advice from personal experience because I am not a mechanic. I do not have the ability learned after 30 years of working on an N tractor to simply diagnose the problem & go right to the fix. You can also think of it in these terms:
First -- Check the free stuff
Second -- Check the cheap stuff
Third -- Check the expensive stuff
I might not be capable of telling you why your tractor isn’t running, but I sure can tell you how to figure it out for yourself.
Assuming that the bushings & advance weights are ok, the most common electrical failure (no spark, weak spark) points on the frontmount are:
1. The insulator under the concave head screw.
2. The insulator at the end of the points where the copper strip attaches.
3. The copper strip grounded to the plate.
4. The condenser wire grounding.
5. The pigtail/tab not making contact.
6. Incorrect positioning of the spring clip on the plate causing the pigtail to ground.
7. Incorrect seating of the coil on the distributor.
8. Water/moisture inside the cap due to gasket failure or the absence of a gasket.
Get your meter out & do a full continuity check of the distributor w/ the coil attached. That might be the problem. If it's the EI, well, that's way above my pay grade. I manage to keep 4 N's running on 6v & points, so I won't be much help to you on EI questions.
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