IH 354 Won't Start

Okay so you guys have probably seen my previous posts a few months ago.

Anyhow I finally got my bushhog, ran it the initial day I had it attached to my tractor, battery died. Had to jump it whenever I wanted to start it, no big deal. Then the third day in a row I had it running for 2 minutes the engine bogged down, backfiring like crazy, almost stalling, total power loss.I cut the PTO threw it in neutral for a few minutes and the it kicked back up.

The next day I tried jumping it and with the choke fully on and throttle up it would move about 10' and stall when approaching a slight upgrade. I wound up getting a new battery and that didn't help, same issue.

Anyhow after over 2 months I finally just did a tune up on it. New plugs, wires, points, coil. While reinstalling the guts of the distributor I noticed the old points were missing a nut which meant the gap wasn't set properly. I got my battery charged again after sitting for two months. Tried to start it today and nothing.

Is there any trick to getting the rig started after sitting for 2.5 months or could there be another issue with it? Note, I was spraying starter fluid in the carburetor and it didn't help any.

I am half tempted to sell this tractor and get something more reliable. This tractor is almost impossible to find parts for. I contacted IH and they don't even make the distributor anymore, luckily they had the points for it. I'm angry that I spent over $4k for a lawn ornament.
 
Three things might be going on, one of which is fixed (points). The most likely is fuel supply from the tank to the carb. It must be clean free running and sanitary. Clean the system till it flows a 1/8th inch stream for at least one minute.
The second issue might be that it is not charging. When running the voltage across the battery should be 14.2 volts or a little more. If less than 12.8, it might not charge enough to keep it running. Jim
 
Did you adjust the points correctly? The rubbing block must be on the high point on the cam lobe (maximum gap) when setting. Did you accidentally ground one of the wires inside the distributor?
SO, determine what the reason for no-start is; does the spark jump a 1/4" gap?
IF you have spark, is it timed properly?
IF that checks out; remove the spark plugs & squirt about a spoonful of gas in each cylinder. Replace the plugs & wires & try starting.
This way you can VERIFY what is not working properly.
TEST, DO NOT GUESS!!
Good luck.
 
when my tractors sit for a while, i usually have to drain a bit of gas from carb and/or clean the shut off valve and/or clean the settling bowl.
 
Have you checked for spark? That's the FIRST thing you should do on a gasoline powered tractor that won't start.

If it won't fire on starting fluid, there is no fire, or it's not happening when it needs to.

Do like your dad showed you on the old push mower when you were a kid. Pull a spark plug, stick the wire back on the plug, and lay the plug against the block. Crank the engine over. You should see a blue flash at regular intervals.

There's no trick to starting a tractor that's been sitting 2.5 months if everything is in good shape.
 
Did you also replace the condenser? Have had
to replace the condensor on 2 different tractors
in the last year. 1 would idle great but spit and
sputter if you tried to throttle up. Other would
run great for a few minutes, then run terrible
until finally stalling. Bad condensors will screw
around with the way the power at the points is
stored and released causing runabilty issues
 
Okay so I have good news and bad news now.

Good news:

We got the tractor running. Apparently there was a few things that weren't right. We had points set to .025 instead of .014, got that number mixed up with the spark plug gap. Had the firing order wrong. And somehow we were missing a wire on the positive terminal of the coil.

Bad news:
While messing with the coil we somehow wired it backwards and caught the jacket of the wire that goes from the coil to distributor on fire and wound up having to splice a new wire. We aren't sure if the coil is now fried, it heats up so hot that it burns when you touch it (it did this when it initially went up). When we did get it started I let it run for a minute or so, turned the ignition off and the starter kept cranking even though the ignition is off. We had to pull the positive terminal of the battery to kill it. Touched the positive back to it and it wound up again while the key is off. Oh and the last time I touched the terminal to the positive battery post it threw some big sparks and blew a small chunk out of the top of the post.


I have a few questions now:

-Is the coil supposed to get too hot to touch it or did we fry it?
-What would cause the starter to get stuck "on" even though the key is off?
-Why is the battery sparking like crazy when I touch the terminal to the positive post? Never happened before. Is it due to the closed circuit of the starter?

Thanks for all the help, I appreciate it.
 
Not sure what you have going on with the wiring to the coil, but just trying to make sure that you know that hot battery power from key switch ignition post goes to + post on coil and the - negative post on coil should be wired to distributor post to points, that is if its negative ground. Coil should not get that hot, its probably toast, may work for a bit but the coil will probably start breaking down and losing spark. It could be shorting directly to ground as well. Assuming its 12 volt, do you have a 12 volt coil in it? 6 volt coils will sometimes get hot if they have 12 volts put to them without a ballast resistor. If your starter is cranking by itself, I would guess that if you somehow managed to get a wire to the coil melted, that you have a hot wire that has the insulation melted off it and is probably melted to the wiring to the starter solenoid wiring. The battery terminal is sparking because of the load imposed on it by the load from the starter and or if you have a short to ground which I'm guessing you do if you have melted wires, even if only on the coil.
 
Okay so I did some more work on it.

For whatever reason the starter no long has an issue. I have to pump the fuel manually by the fuel screen and then it will run about 15 seconds and shut off. I was able to move the tractor from my field to driveway by leapfrogging it like that 3 times.

I just drained out all the fuel and put fresh fuel in thinking that was the issue. Still seems like the carb isn't getting fuel other than when I manually pump it.

Yesterday (before changing the fuel) it was backfiring like crazy and smoking really bad and would shut off after about 15 seconds. This morning was smooth and sounded better than it ever has, but stalled out as soon as I hit an incline (this was before I replaced the gas). Then started only running for 15 seconds at a time again and still doing it after replacing gas.
 

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