Danny in CO
Well-known Member
I have posted in the past about helping a neighbor rebuild his Model M. We have it all back together and are trying to get it to start. This tractor was a basket case when he bought his house and the tractor came with it in pieces. It has an electronic ignition in it. First some basic assumptions. I assume the distributor turns clockwise, correct? The distributor cap looks like a 4 cylinder cap, but with only 2 plug wires and the coil wire in the center. I assume the #1 plug wire is the first after the 2 blanks going clockwise. And I assume the #1 plug is closest to the fan.
So far we have looked through the view hole at the flywheel and found the line that says SPARK. We marked the line with white paint. I turned the distributor until the rotor pointed at the #1 plug contact.
We turn the switch to ignition but get no power to the coil and no spark. We then hot wired the coil straight to negative side of the battery. We got spark but it wouldn't start. I used a timing light and couldn't see the SPARK line. I turned the distributor until I could see the spark line and it is about 180 degrees off.
Also, I pulled a sparkplug and don't smell gas on it. I plan to do a dry and wet compression test. I suspect with the fresh overhaul we don't have enough compression yet to pull the gas up from the carb. I'm thinking we need to squirt a little oil in each cylinder to get enough compression to pull the gas to get it to start.
Sorry for the long post. I'm a Ford guy and don't know much about JDs.
Any help will be appreciated!
Thanks, Danny
So far we have looked through the view hole at the flywheel and found the line that says SPARK. We marked the line with white paint. I turned the distributor until the rotor pointed at the #1 plug contact.
We turn the switch to ignition but get no power to the coil and no spark. We then hot wired the coil straight to negative side of the battery. We got spark but it wouldn't start. I used a timing light and couldn't see the SPARK line. I turned the distributor until I could see the spark line and it is about 180 degrees off.
Also, I pulled a sparkplug and don't smell gas on it. I plan to do a dry and wet compression test. I suspect with the fresh overhaul we don't have enough compression yet to pull the gas up from the carb. I'm thinking we need to squirt a little oil in each cylinder to get enough compression to pull the gas to get it to start.
Sorry for the long post. I'm a Ford guy and don't know much about JDs.
Any help will be appreciated!
Thanks, Danny