1953 Farmall C Engine Issues

I replaced the points and the ignition coil, and was able to fire the engine right up. Feeling accomplished, I hooked up the cycle bar, and began cutting. Very quickly the tractor lost power, and was not able to restart. It was back to the original issue. My original cap position was with the clips at 12&6 o'clock. Once I had the engine running, it sounded better when rotated 60 degrees.This morning I rotated my distributor cap 135 degrees from my 2nd position and was able to fire the engine right up. As it ran, it sputtered and shut off. The gear from the distributor rotor looks good, but what do I investigate next? The distributor cap is not rotating, as the tab is in the proper location, and not loose.

Diagnose the fuel delivery to the carb. If it runs for a little bit (like 5 to 10 minutes or less) it has a fuel delivery issue.
Pulling the plug on the bottom of the carb, (fuel shut off at the tank) and holding a clean jar under the hole, will allow you to
open the valve at the tank and see how fast the fuel runs out. It should at least fill a pint a minute. Jim

I really feel like we just went through this same troubleshooting with someone else for missing teeth on the timing gears. If you are constantly having to rotate the distributor that much to get it to start and run, then it is jumping time somehow and the timing gears (governor and cam gear) are the typical culprit on these engines.

whats with all this distributor rotating? set the timing and be done with it. either a timing light or do the static timing on it with the spark test or paper test between the points. sounds like its a fuel problem and your fooling yourself with timing. i always disconnect fuel line at carb, then open fuel valve at sediment bowl and look for full stream of gas flow. if good, i pull carb drain and if gas is running out all is good.i dont wait to fill a pint as that is unnessesary. fuel running out tells me the needle is not stuck closed. that is what usually happens.

"The gear from the distributor rotor looks good"


NOT sure exactly what you mean by that???

Is this an IH distributor, a Delco distributor, or possibly a magneto?

You probably have teeth missing on the gear thats driven by the cam which drives the dist remove the gov
housing and check its possible for missing teeth to turn the dist for a little while but then jump time.

on 113/123 engines, the cam gear directly drives the governor gear. There is no idler gear on these. On all the ones I have seen the governor gear seems to lose teeth first, followed by the cam gear. I have never seen one where the crank gear lost any teeth on these engines. I have fixed numerous ones of these myself.
I have even seen H's and M's do the same thing, but not nearly as common as it seems to be on these smaller engines.

Just for proof here is a C113 I have out of a tractor right now for a rebuild that had lost teeth on the governor and cam gear. The new cam gear is already installed in the picture. I just ran out to the shop and took this picture to show the timing gears.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/odr8danx9hs0bzm/20180721_095059.jpg?raw=1

I pulled the cover off of the govenor, and inspected both gears, the govenor, and the one driving the govenor from the engine. Both appeared fine. I pulled the distributor drive shaft, and found that the distributor drive gear had 2 flat spots and wear. Now that I have this all apart, should I be concerned with the mating gear from the govenor? As far a wear, etc? I can see the gear, but can't really evaluate the tooth condition. Also, I can't find a distributor drive gear at YT. I see the gear on the bottom of the new/reconditioned distributors, but the shaft that is listed is not what I have.

If you have an "IH" horizontal distributor, you should have a 32 tooth spur gear on the distributor shaft. Its driven by a 16 tooth pinion, which is trapped inside the "distributor housing". The 16T pinion is connected to a "T" shaped crossbar that fits inside the corresponding slot in the much bigger, helical gear that's part of the governor drive.

I would replace both of those gears if any wear or abnormalities are found.

The 32T that I see online has the hole for the roll-pin drilled only halfway into the main bore. The idea is that you put it on the shaft, align with a drill bit (think its 1/8") and then finish off the hole to better maintain alignment of the 3 holes in the assembly. The pins that I took out were solid ones but I replaced them with split roll pins which I think is more reliable long-term as it will naturally expand to fit the hole without being reliant on a precision fit between pin and drilled hole. It also handles misalignment of the various holes better due to its thinner construction. There is very little load on the distributor shaft, only that of the cam opening the points and the bronze plain bearings for the distributor shaft, hopefully these are oiled. I like to add some drips of STP motor treatment (thick golden molasses) to the shaft and the gears as I regard the high viscosity as a good thing for retaining the oil, plus its perfectly compatible with the oil side of the engine.

Do you know where I can find the 16 tooth gear?

I have seen them on ebay, Steiner and I feel certain CNH (Case IH) has them.

Personally I would buy it from CNH because I feel like that's closest to what came originally with the tractor and has the best chance of lasting as long as the original.

Its odd that I can see the fact that I posted but can't see the text of my own post in Modern View. Forum Quirks, I realize.

Was trying to say ebay, Steiner and CNH (Case IH) should all have the 16T pinion. My vote is for sourcing from CNH.