Mag vs Dist

Dustyah

Member
I have 1953 DC, it has a mag, but found several dists for sale online that came off DCs , was wondering what came stock, would a Dist have better performance with a hotter coil? Thanks Dusty
 
As J.I. Case Collectors Association D series technical guru I can tell you that all DC's came with magnetos. A good magneto will perform just as well as a distributor with the added bonus of not having to have a battery to make it operate.
 
Dusty: Putting a distributor on a DC, SC or LA is like taking the prettiest chrome hood ornament of a Roll Royce & replacing it w/ a golf ball. To this day, gasoline powered airplanes still use Magnetos. CASE used to supply the aircraft industry w/ their Magnetos, and their successor, SLICK ELECTRO, followed, maybe to this day.
 
My Rolls Royce gets used to feed cattle year round every day. I choose to have a Rolls that runs at 35 degrees below zero so I have settled for the golf ball hood ornament. The points in the dist. can be fixed in 5 minutes and back to running good. When the mag gets wet, the 75 year old impulse decides to malfunction, or the coil in the mag decides to roll over the cattle go hungry, and I get no sleep.
 
I made the switch to dist. after a 12 volt conversion. I have never looked back. Starts faster and easier to maintain in my opinion. Most dist. parts are available at the local TSC. I put on the Delco 1111411 right angle Dist.

I still have the mag in case I ever need to start without a battery - but don't foresee that being an issue.

Matt
 
I have two SC's. One is on 12 volts with a Delco distributor. The
other has a Case JMA mag and six volts.

Want to guess which one starts the fastest and easiest?

The 48 with the mag.

The IHC distributor for a Farmall M or H will also fit your DC.
 
Somebody ought to post something to another thread before the Deere purists see this on on
"Last Posts" on the main forum page by Case discussion. Just sayin...
 
Why??? Looks like a legitimate discussion to me and I have been kinda curious to what the responses would be.
 
Dustyah, now ya know, all D series tractors came from the factory with magneto's. I have a 52 DC with a mag. I've had for about 6 years. Have never had a problem with the mag. I have a 52 SC and a 49 DC that both have distributors. When and if the mag gives me trouble, I will have to send it away to have fixed. All I know about mags is to shine up the rotor and the distributor cap contacts. A distributor I can remove and replace points condenser rotor and cap. If your mag is working I certainly would not replace it, but if it is giving you fits....well... its your tractor do as you wish. gobble
 
I don't understand the post about tractors with mags being hard to start when cold. I grew up grinding feeds with Letz belt grinder powered by a CC Case that started at -20F, usually on the 3rd pull of the crank!
 
Distributor with a battery coil has a 20,000-30,000 volt potential. A self-contained magneto around 15,000-20,000 volts. No difference during normal running
but the distributor and battery coil can certainly make a difference in extreme cold starting, with fouled plugs, etc.
 
I had a mag on my '49 DC. Currently have a right angle distributor. The spark advance makes a difference in how the engine responds. It starts easier, revs more easily, and runs smoother.

Unfortunately, it does change the way the tractor sounds. To my ears, it makes it sound like a Farmall...
 
Nine times out of ten. A non working mag has the same problem as a battery distributor. One of three parts is bad. Points,condenser, or the coil.

I buy and sell about 50 mags a year. I have yet to find a rotary magneto with a magnet problem.
 
I've 3 or 4 here that have weak magnets, all the pre war, or early post war types. Case had a magneto device for spinning mags, with coil adapters needed for recharging magnets. The Aluminum nickel permanent magnet developed during WW II for the aircraft industry brought a lot reliability to the magneto, still no comparison to a good distributor. Only advantage being in you did not need a battery.
 
Sorry John! After I started to restore the 411 I realized how much I like the distributor! I don't think anything starts as nice as a 400!

I do have to point out - if the system remains 6v I see no reason to switch to a dist. Once I changed to 12v the impulse wouldn't engage like it should. The starter was turning the engine over too quickly. Just one of the issues when trying to make a 50's tractor run with more modern charging equipment!

Matt
 
My dad's CC was used as a winter chore tractor. Always started on the 3rd pull maybe 4. The spark from the Bosch mag would jump a good half inch. The Wico mag on our John Deere would jump about half that. The Case would start but the Deere would not. Always figured it was a spark issue.

All my D Series got converted to distributors and 12V. Delco 41111. Easy to fix and great performance. I gave a lot of credit to the auto spark advance.
 
my DC has been switched to a 12 volt, some one added alternator, for charging, don't think it works but that's a prob for latter, so with 12 volt am I still ok to use the original MAG and coil setup? Thanks again. Dusty
 
Alrite John, I will Help Our Case ,. Way back in blizzard jan ,1977,. we had 15 ft drifts in places with barely a inch of snow in some places And starting the 1st nite,. NO ELECTRIC FOR NEARLY A WEEK,.after 2 days zero temps and 20 below zero nites with 30 mph winds,. the 3rd day it warmed up to zero,. nuthin would start, in the entire neiborhood and folx behind us were not able toget to their wood ,their pile was completely drifted over .. still No electric,. and we needed to make feed for the 180 hogs we had on slatted floors ,. Dad told us boys , We Got To Get Everything started,. Go crank that 51 DC , IT has a magneto and IT WILL START ,. about the 10th hard crank , I heard him go pift whift-puft, man that motor was stiff, ,/ NEXT Quarter turn , The Ol Gent Come to life,. we tarped the radiator back to the fenders,. pull started Dads 69 Ford pikup , which then jump started my brothers 283 chevy ,we pull started the 830 diesel and the 430 diesel,. put the 830 on the feed grinder , the 430 on the grader blade with a tarp back to the fenders , then my brother, the 430 , the DC went to help the neighbors to drag up tree tops for firewood and start their tractors and cars ,.. wedid have trouble with diesels neding fuel filter change ,. water sure can complicate things when you are not used to dealing with severe cold ,.
 
What the heck does that have to do with a 50s mag on a farm tractor? Vertex magneto on a modern drag machine has little in common with a magneto on a 50s farm tractor.
 
Great story. If Distributors were superior, I think they would be used on airplanes. We have a 1953 DC here with the original Magneto. My Dad sold the DC new in '53, and when the original owner retired in 1978, we bought it back. At that time, he told me the Magneto had never been touched. TO THIS DAY, that magneto has never been touched.
 
john I shoulda reported the fact , that ol 51 Dc had been sitting in the shed for a month or more ,. muy older brother told me and my dad hat it was a waste of time and busied himself with taking care of the hogs,. the west side of the shed was open and the OlGent was parked on the extreme west end and always got the weather there ,.. consequently the magneto had quarter inch of ice ,.
 

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