Ford 9N no spark, what am I missing?

[etpm]

The tractor worked great last year. I parked it and about 6 months later no spark. I cleaned the points. The condenser is good. I bought a new coil because the old one seemed to measure wrong with a meter. Still no spark. Even when I run a wire from the negative terminal directly to the coil. I'm stumped. Any ideas?
Thanks,
Eric

 

[John0829]

I am assuming this is a front mount engine, check the spring that makes the connection from the coil to the points. In fact take the distributor off where you can get to it on the bench to clean, check all the connections and test for spark. Be much easier to see what you are doing. It will only fit one way (wide and narrow drive notches to match up) so there is no concern about messing up the timing or getting it back on correctly.

 

[dodge man]

How do you know the condenser is good?

 

[Roadworthy]

You cleaned the points. Did you check the gap, too? Hooking twelve volts to the coil only gets a spark by connecting and disconnecting the wire. The coil is not strictly a direct current device. It depends on the points opening and closing to make a pulsing DC. The condenser serves to damp the spark across the points. If it's shorted you'll get no spark. If it's open you'll burn your points. You need to have some spark at the points to create the high voltage spark out of the coil.