Allis B Interesting Experience

So... been working on my 51 Allis B, got it running and got it smoothed out today. Been working on setting valves and such. Started it and shut it off a few times within the course of the afternoon and making adjustments...

Then, I started it, ran it for a few mins to get it hot again, went to cut it off (pushed ignition switch in to cut off) and when I did, it started to shut down then started back up and back fired. I pulled the switch out and tried again - same thing happened. Unhooked battery, and it wouldn't cut off. So, we stuck a screwdriver nut of the coil and on to the distributor to ground it out so it would cut off. That was interesting... then we made some adjustments, went to start it back and it wouldn't crank. Pulled out the ignition switch and tested it - it works fine. Come to find out, we're not getting any spark out of the plug wires, so we have no fire.

Any idea what it could be? Why wouldn't it cut off to begin with and did we possibly short something out by forcing it to shut off the way we did? Any help or guidance at all is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!!

Shorting out a battery ignition system does funny thing to things like the switch and wires and I bet you have let the smoke out of something. Plus you may also have let the smoke out of the charging system to boot. Also pulling the battery cable off to try to shut one down can be very unsafe to do and if you have a alternator on it you could have been hurt badly or even have got killed. Plus you also are likely to have let the smoke out of the alternator if you have one on it. When you pull a battery cable off like that and alternator sees a dead battery and goes to max charge which burns out parts like the diodes so it then puts out max amps and max volts which can be over 90 volts and well more amps then it takes to kill a man

(quoted from post at 08:44:12 08/11/17) Shorting out a battery ignition system does funny thing to things like the switch and wires and I bet you have let the smoke out of something. Plus you may also have let the smoke out of the charging system to boot. Also pulling the battery cable off to try to shut one down can be very unsafe to do and if you have a alternator on it you could have been hurt badly or even have got killed. Plus you also are likely to have let the smoke out of the alternator if you have one on it. When you pull a battery cable off like that and alternator sees a dead battery and goes to max charge which burns out parts like the diodes so it then puts out max amps and max volts which can be over 90 volts and well more amps then it takes to kill a man

Click to expand...

This is a 6v system still using a generator. What would d the best steps to take to try and remedy the problem??

Thanks!

Well being 6 volts you found out the generator still work by unhooking the battery but doing that is still hard on the charging system. I would start by trying hot wire from the ignition side of the battery to the ignition side of the coil and see if you have spark. If you have spark then the problem is form the coil back. If you do not have spark the problem is in the distributor and could be burnt points or a bad condenser

(quoted from post at 09:22:21 08/11/17) Well being 6 volts you found out the generator still work by unhooking the battery but doing that is still hard on the charging system. I would start by trying hot wire from the ignition side of the battery to the ignition side of the coil and see if you have spark. If you have spark then the problem is form the coil back. If you do not have spark the problem is in the distributor and could be burnt points or a bad condenser

Click to expand...

Thanks!! Would that issue with the condenser, coil, or distributor be what caused the initial problem of not turning off?

Well being what it is more then likely the switch it self is going bad. One simple way to figure that out is loosen the ignition wire going to the coil and fire it up and try shutting it off if it does not shut off pull the ignition wire off the coil and it should die unless you have something super odd going on which I cannot see happening