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340 distributor problems

D

daveking95

New User
OK, so I parked my 340 Utility for the night, and it wouldn't start the next morning. I looked over the usual suspects, and didn't have any fire at the plugs. OK, I thought, some of the wiring shot craps and I'll have an electrical issue to fix. So I chased an electrical issue that isn't there. It's all solid. OK, I thought, the cap and rotor are funky or worn or whatever. Nope. Solid. Points looked good too...I eventually just got around to the last thing- take a look with the cap off and watch its operation. Ta-da! My rotor isn't spinning. So, since the rotor/shaft don't spin freely, the drive gear must be good, right? What else in that chain of gears make the distributor work? Is there a shear pin somewhere? It's time to start mowing again and now the dumb thing lays down on me.
 
I have a 340 row crop that pretty much did the same thing. Took a while for me to see the rotor not turning at times and other time it did. I could not turn the rotor by hand but some of the teeth on the distributor drive gear where bad enough it would spin one time then not the next. Took a distributor from one of the Hs I have and put it in and it has run just fine since. I bet if you pull the distributor and look the gear over at the bottom of it you will find some of the teeth sort of rolled over on it
 
OK. So can I replace that drive gear? Is it plastic (sacrificial), or do I have to worry about its mating gear being torn up and metal shavings in the oil? I've not had a distributor out before, and I'm not sure what I'm looking to find.

I'm hoping against hope that the distributor is salvageable. I can't afford a replacement after I just put 4 new tires, a radiator, and a battery in my work truck...
 
If I remember right the drive gear is metal but there would be very little metal floating around in the oil since the gear is about as big around as a quarter. It has a roll pin holding it on so one should be able to pull it off and replace it. The gear on the cam seem to be a lot harder to hurt then the one on the distributor
 
Well, I finally got the dang distributor out, after being put to the way-back burner for months on end. It all looks good, except for the grease on everything is gross and full of rust. So that will be remedied. I was concerned from there, since it showed no damage, and I had a helper bump the starter over to find that nothing in the governor is spinning, either. Yay for me. So I used my boresight camera to try and look at the gears on the governor, and the ones I can see look good. From what I can tell, that means that I've either shorn teeth off the cam timing gear or the crank timing gear- neither of which I'm very enthused about changing. How big a job is this, on the 135ci motor that my 340 has? I'm assuming that I should closely inspect and consider changing the gears in the entire gear chain, if any are bad. Thoughts?
 
There are only 3 gears in there. 4 if you count the hydraulic pump.
The Crank gear very rarely gets damaged, It's typically either Cam gear, Governor gear or both that fail. The cam gears are still available new and can be replaced without pulling the cam. Check the governor gear over good with the front cover off before deciding it is good. It may have some small chips and not be worth the little money saved to put a problem waiting to happen back together.

You could pull the hydraulic pump out and watch the cam gear there and see if it is rotating.
 
Mine should only have crank, cam, and gov in the geartrain. My governor is pretty nasty looking too, much like the innards of the distributor. I think I should invest the time in teardown/clean/reinstall just for good measure. I'm fairly sure that this tractor has done a whole LOT of sitting around since it was new. This tractor got a fast 4H kid paintjob and has a few fairly questionable repairs done on it. I'm not sure how much time and effort (and money) I want to put into a mowing/parade tractor. Obviously, it's still a lawn ornament until it runs again... but thanks.
 
Yours would be the first 340 I have seen without a hydraulic pump. It's possible I have just never seen one. The hydraulic pump is driven from the cam gear and is mounted below the distributor.
 
With the governor out, you should be able to see the cam gear too and see if it has any teeth missing. The governor is not very difficult to remove or install and with a distributor, it doesn't really matter how the gears line up when it goes back in.
 
Well I've found that they had two types. One type had the hydraulic pump under the distributor, with a zigzag-looking line back to the transmission. The other, like mine, has the pump mounted in the rear, under the fuel tank and steering assy. I assume this was an option for some reason (?). Mine has the mid-volume pump @ 12gpm, and it's in the back. I plan to pull the rest of the governor, and thread my borescope around to try and see what I can find.
 
I would imagine the issue is the cam gear if it's not the governor gear. You should be able to see all the teeth on it once you remove the governor and then spin over the engine a little.
Is your's an international 340? I wasn't even thinking about them. They had the pump in the torque housing, and yours probably has independent PTO too, right? How about factory 3 point?
 
(quoted from post at 13:49:28 07/29/18) I would imagine the issue is the cam gear if it's not the governor gear. You should be able to see all the teeth on it once you remove the governor and then spin over the engine a little.
Is your's an international 340? I wasn't even thinking about them. They had the pump in the torque housing, and yours probably has independent PTO too, right? How about factory 3 point?
Click to expand...

Mine is #3635 SVY, a 1960 Utility.
T/A, Independent PTO, Fast Hitch, 2-valve hydraulics, Exhaust valve rotators, Rear wheel weights, converted to 12V, 12 GPM hydraulic pump, power steering.
 
mvphoto20585.jpg
 
It definitely sounds worth saving.
With everything you've ruled out so far, that only leaves the cam gear and the crank gear, and I've not seen one of the crank gears fail yet, but have replaced at least 10 cam gears from teeth being broken off. Sometimes the tractors were running fine, but when I tore the engine down for a rebuild, the cam gear was missing teeth and I sure didn't trust putting it back together that way.
 
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