Ford 8N having trouble starting -- many troubleshooting steps take -- suggestions?

[Soundguy]

remember.. you can't grab that dizzy and turn it.

imagine a regular dizzy.

shaft is stationary with machine off. and you grab the dizzy and can rotate it. you are hanging the rubbing block location where it rides the cam.. either advancing or retarding the break.,

the front mount you can't move the dizzy.. but you can move the breakers..

 

[PorkChopsMmm]

I think I understand that. I can't get enough movement by adjusting the plate. E.g. I move the plate to extremes, in the middle, etc. and the points aren't open. I can see how it rotates the breaker plate. Do you think I should loosen the points and readjust them? I might have tightened them down some weird way. They DO open and close perfectly as you rotate the shaft, however.

 

[Soundguy]

many times cheap points need to have their holes in the base plate opened up to get enough adjustment to actually set them correctly.

 

[PorkChopsMmm]

Think I got it. Had to loosen everything up, adjust the timing plate, and then turn the shaft and watch the points until I got it all lined up. It's all tightened up now and I am going to go back out and install the distrib.

It was way off -- like the opposite of what it should have been at 1/4" -- completely closed.

 

[PorkChopsMmm]

Well this is frustrating. Tested the opening and closing of the points in the house, measured, tightened everything up, hooked it back up to the tractor, all plugs in the right spot, coil hooked back up, key turned on, gas turned on.... and it will turn over but not fire. SOB.

I used an old spark plug to see if it had spark -- no dice. The old spark plug is old but it worked the last time I used it -- e.g. ~5 days ago. Won't have time to dig in tomorrow night but should Thursday night.

 

[94BULLITT]

Are you sure you have the points gaped right?

 

[Soundguy]

.015 is the points gap.. and even if timed as wrong as it can be in either direction.. if the points are opening and closing.. it WILL make spark.. just won't be at the right time.

thus if it is not making spark. points are not opening and closing.

 

[sd455dan]

Did you put a meter across them while you had the distributor out- the points have to (electrically open and close) -not just physically open close?? I still don't trust the mechanic, running a point file thru them once and instantly they were fine.

unless you found a piece of lint or paper, as said before if the conductivity of the point surface was contaminated and compromized with some type of goo I would clean with electrical cleaner and then point file them, and look at the point contact surfaces the 2 contacts should be clean and dry and electrically conductive... verified using an ohm meter

 

[PorkChopsMmm]

Not to beat a dead house -- but could someone provide the exact steps for how to wire the distributor when testing the points? E.g. battery positive to top of coil, distributor body grounded to tractor frame, and turn rotor -- etc. Not sure if those are the steps, just throwing that out there. It has been pouring rain here again and it is supposed to snow again ... again! some time tomorrow

I did buy the carb rebuild kit from TSC -- I want to get the starting locked down and then I will tear the carb apart again.

 

[Soundguy]

that's the only 2 primary connections the dizzy normally gets.


can check with an ohm meter the same way.. or put a test lamp in line with bat and check that way too