Hey Soundguy,
Only thing I can figure is that it came off when I pressure washed it last week. I did drive it afterward and all was well, but that's the only thing I can figure, although I tried not to get a direct stream anywhere close to the carb/distributor....so not sure. When I realized what the problem was, I took the dist. cap off and noticed that the notch that the clip is supposed to latch onto on the back side (closest to the engine) had accumulated dust and oil on it...there was no evidence of any clip being in place at all, that's what really got me wondering. I've had the tractor for about three years and have put a lot of hours on it. There is no evidence of any clips on the other side (away from the engine) either, but the cap itself is cleaner so I couldn't tell if it had been on there or not. I've never seen a distributor cap without those clips, but to be honest, I can't even feel where they're supposed to mount to the distributor, at least by feel. There's a loader in the way, so it's kinda hard to get to, but thinking about peeling it off to get to the root of things. I'll probably just put a heavy zip tie on there to get back to work and save this little project for the nasty weather....any other suggestions, or advice on which replacement clips to look for? The N series the right ones?
Shawn