No spark

[mark luce]

36 9n Heres my delema. Was mowing the back 20 when the tractor just quit. I pulled a plug wire and no spark. i towed it back and left it sit. I got to thinking its been to years since i did a tune up. So i ordered a tune up kit from this site. Put everything on except the condensor and points. Still no spark. A few questions. I have power to the coil, both on top post and to the little springy thing on the underneath side.should there be power to the front side clip? could the condenser be bad? How do i check that? And on the coil the front clip thing was straight up and not pushed down how should it be?
Any help or help out there?
Thanks Mark

 

[ken in texas]

Has been a long time,but usually points and condenser are the first to go bad and need replacement.

 

[Dave from Texas]

I had the same problem on my 9N. It slowly begin to miss and then would only fire on one cylinder. My problem was that the points were not opening on 3 lobes and barely on the 4th. I guess the mechanism wore down because the set screw was tight. After reseting them it ran like new.

 

[Dick L]

I used one of those buggers to mow the medium and road sides of the West section of the Ohio Turnpike back in summer of 1956. Just quit dead along side of the road. The points hung up and would not close. The Ford tractor mechanic came out and greased the points pivot pin and said it was a common problem. No new parts. He probly reset the gap but even though I was a kid I was embarrassed because I did not figure it out on my own.

 

[greenbeanman in Kansas]

I was using a city owned Ford tractor one time doing some mowing for them and the tractor suddenly just quit.

The points were so worn away that they no longer closed to allow electrical field build up in the coil. Celebration in town the next day so I wanted to get the mowing done and neither of the two auto shops in town had point sets.

Had a pack of gum with me so I peeled the paper and aluminum foil apart and wrapped the foil around the points and closed them enough to smash a flat spot on it.

Guess what, the old tractor fired right up and I finished the mowing before parking it for the day.

Who knew that a gum wrapper could be used to repair a tractor?

Think the year was 1972.

 

[old]

Wel first off lets make sure you know what you have. 9N made from 1939 to 1942, 2N made from 1942 to 1947 and 8N made from 1948 to 1952. All of them had front mount distributor. But in 1950 they switched to side mount.
Now to your problem. If you have power to the top of the coil but no spark you almost have to have bad points, points set wrong. 0.015 is correct for the setting. Or you have a bad coil. With the key on and the cap off open and close the points by hand and if working as they should you should hear a snap sound if not you may have dirty points or a bad coil

 

[bigjt]

One of three things

Coil, points or Condenser.

I am guessing you didn't pull the distributor since you didn't change the points or condenser.

Easy way to check the condensor and points is to replace them. The easy (only) way to change them on that tractor is to pull the distributor. Not as daunting as it sounds. it is driven by a offset tang. Almost impossible to put back on wrong. Do make sure you get the offset right though or you will be looking for a new distributor housing. If this doesn't fix it you have a bad coil.

Don't think I have ever seen wires or plugs cause a tractor to quit suddenly.

 

[mark luce]

ok guess i will take the points and condensor out and replace them, since they came with the tune up kit. thanks for all the comments.
Mark

 

[mark luce]

it has a front mounted distributor, how hard is it any info on line abut changing it?
thanks
Mark

 

[Bob]

There's good information on the front-mount distributor at the link below.
Ford Front mount distributor

 

[Bob]

There's good information on the front-mount distributor at the link below.
Ford Front mount distributor

 

[buickanddeere]

Kinda getting that way myself with the advancing years.

 

[mark luce]

ok so i broke down and pulled the dstributor. Not hard at all i took it into the house and looked, The points where not opening at all. They looked good bit i cleaned them out any way. Applied the proper gap and put new condensor in. Put the whole works back together and guess what still no spark or just very little. I will say this. Before i did this I gave it a crank and the damned thing fired right up and ran for five minutes till it just died. And wouldnt spark.
Ok i am ready to shoot it. Is she dead.