saved wd45

[Anonymous-0]

My father-in-law rescued a wd45 from being stolen piece by piece. He has got it all back together and the manual he bought doesn't tell him where the number 1 spark plug is on the distubor. It is a gas burner. thanks for your help

 

[Mike in Ohio]

I just went out and looked at ours. The firing order is front to back 1 2 4 3 The #1 wire is on the rear lug of the dist cap closest to the engine the #2 is front closest to eng. #4 is front away from eng. #3 is rear away from engine. The best way to check is to pull the #1 plug and hold your thumb over the hole while someone cranks the engine slowly, with the hand crank if possible. If you don't have the crank you can use a pipe wrench but you have to push in in the shaft as well as turn it. When you feel air pushing out past your thumb you are on the compression stroke. When the piston gets to the top of the stroke take distributer cap off and see where the rotor is pointed it should be very close to the lug on the cap for the #1 cylinder. This should get your timming close enough to start it then you can time it properly from there. Good luck, Mike

 

[Texas Denny]

Mike, I think your distributor may be out of position as far as how Allis set it from the factory. Typically, the #1 is close to engine but in front. #2 is front away from engine, #4 is rear away from engine and #3 is rear next to engine. That said, there are 4 different positions that the distributor can be installed and still work acceptably. Your advice on finding #1 on compression is exact and will work regardless of where the distributor is positioned. I only add this because, on a "new" tractor, you never know how it is set up. In fact, I don't know why Allis did it in that position. Maybe someone else does. For a while, I used to put number 1 in front away from engine because it made sense to me. I changed because of convention or what ever. Please correct me if your experience is different (or anyone else for that matter).

 

[o¿o]

you can call the back plug #1 and use the same firing order, dont make any differance.

 

[Mike in Ohio]

Denny you are probably right. I am almost positive our ca is how you describe. It is over at Dads so I can't look right now. On our b with a mag the #1 is on top close to the engine. None of my wd manuals show a diagram of the distributer. We had some timing problems early this spring so maybe our wires are wrong. They are where they were when we got the tractor, but you have enough old tractors around your place to know what thats worth. Mike

 

[Texas Denny]

Mike, I don't believe it make any difference where the gear is meshed and therefore where number 1 is on the distributor cap. If the tractor runs like it should, I'd never change it. Time enough to change it when some other problem presents an opportunity.

 

[Texas Denny]

Does this work with any 4 cylinder? Does it work with 6 cylinder engines as well? I once had a Farmall that ran really terrible until I discovered the previous owner thought #1 was in the rear. When I set it up with #1 in the front, all was well. He may have also had 2 and 3 switched.

Years ago, I was starting a 1936 Oliver 70. It had a magneto. I set it up with #1 in front and it ran great. A fellow board person told me it would even run better if I did it with #1 in the rear. I didn't try it but have always wondered! Seems to me that it would make a difference with a six cylinder - two or more cylinders would fire at the wrong time.

 

[Jim Guarino Agri-Services]

It does not matter where the #1 plug wire is located, as long as the rotor points to that tower at TDC/compression/#1. On some tractors, the spark plug wires lengths will limit your choices of which tower(s) that you can use for #1.
Agri Services