Pony motor points gap

When you set the V mark on the flywheel for No. 1 cylinder to match the V mark on the housing, and you move the distributor to the far left, should the points be closed?

No matter how I set the points to .020 where I think the high spot on the lobe is, when I try time it and I match the marks on the flywheel to the housing, and I move the distributor box all the way to the left, it always seems that the points are open. What am I doing wrong?

According to the article in Green Magazine (Dec 2014 & Jan 2015) by Dan Brotzman, as you face the distributor, you need to rotate it clockwise (toward the front of tractor), then turn on the switch and rotate counter-clockwise till spark occurs on the #1 wire. #1 as he explains it is the plug nearest the front of the tractor, and nearest the distributor. I hope this helps you get your pony tune up done.

When I set the timing mark on the flywheel with the mark on the housing and I move the distributor all the way to the left, the right hand side points remain open, and no matter where I rotate the distributor, they still remain open.

What is strange is the left hand points are closed with the distributor all the way to the left, and then when I start to move the distributor to the right, the left side points they start to open.

Could someone have put the cam in out of phase 180 degrees? Can you put the lobe on wrong to cause this? I am at a lost here.

I put a wood dowel in the #1 plug hole and I can see rise and fall as I move the flywheel, wen the timing marks are aligned. the #1 cylinder push the dowel up, so I know the timing marks are associated with the #1 cylinder

You have several possible gotcha points that maybe you have walked right by without noticing. Timing mark on flywheel will line up twice during all four strokes of the engine -- you may be at TDC, but not at the start of the power stoke as you should be.

Remove wooden dowel and plug the hole with your thumb, rotate the engine back and forth 30 degrees or so. If it doesn't suck or blow on your thumb then you are on the wrong TDC and you need to roll the engine over 180 degrees in order to properly set the timing.

Above is answer to what are you doing wrong question. Everybody else has done it too. We all learn how to avoid this in our own ways too.

I hope you paid attention to the instructions posted by Old Popper, you have been turning the distributor in the wrong direction previously and this won't work at all.

"Could someone have put the cam in out of phase 180 degrees? Can you put the lobe on wrong to cause this? I am at a lost here. "

Now you are just being silly in your confusion, of course the cam can be timed 180 out -- it will still run as good as it ever did. But ONLY if it's exactly 180 out, same, same is what you have then. No you can't put the lobe on wrong, only the factory can do this and it would never have been able to run or be sold by the dealer in this condition from day one.

Instead of this, it's much more likely that you have been timing it at the wrong TDC. This one is between the exhaust and intake strokes with both valves barely open. You want the one between the compression and power strokes, luckily we can know this one by the airtight aspect of the cylinder at that time, this causes the suck and blow on your thumb stuck in the spark plug hole. You maybe don't even need the dowel? It will change from blow to suck at the moment of TDC.