1959 Oliver 550 ignition question

I Have a new to me '59 Oliver 550.
tore it down a bit Ie: , flushed fuel tank and rad, dissasembled and cleaned carb, charged up an ol battery, new trans fluid and hydraulic fluid.
Started it up and it ran great for about an hour.
then while i was getting my meter to check charging system it died. and now wont start. I have suspect spark as fuel is getting there and starter is turning well by key.

the question I am hoping to get answered here is this....

I get voltage across the coil terminal from batter pos to coil neg until I turn the key to the on position, then the voltage dissapears.
why is this? anyone know? I assume clutch safety is out of question as the starter turns freely under key but no spark which I assume is because there is no voltage at coil when key is turned.

related to this there is a white doo hickey under neath the ignition switch which looks like it could have been a kill switch or something and I only get voltage at coil when i put a screwdriver in this doohickey. but it still goes away when the key is turned to on

yesterday when the tractor ran i did not need a screwdriver in the doohickey.


any insight would be greatly appreciated.

cheers
Tarik

I have to admit, these are some strange symptoms!

As for the ignition loosing voltage when the ignition is turned on, where are you connecting the ground lead of the meter? Possibly whatever you grounded the lead to is not grounded, but is reading feed back from the battery.

Possibly the meter is on ohms instead of dc volts.

As for the white thing under the ignition switch, all that comes to mind is possibly the ignition resistor.

Sounds like you are on the right track, recheck you meter connections.

The most common cause for loss of spark is points not making contact, out of adjustment, or bad condenser. If replacing them, go with name brand parts if available. The import brands have a bad reputation.

Thanks for the tips man.
I was conneting a 12v light up style meter one side to pos of battery and one side to ground of coil,
or vise versa, cant remember now
i tested the coil for resistance and got 1.5 ohm on prim and 0 ohm on secondary so will get a new coil, points , condenser, plugs, cap,and wires, and also rewire whatever I see thats easy enough on the tractor and hope that fixes it all up. as for the white thingy, not sure, may try and bypass it. it seems to be like a kill switch from a mower or something. where you insert something to make or break a circuit. .
unless it was to plug a 12 volt atachment too? dunno.
tractor was running the day before without anything bridging the contacts so. will have to look more closely when i rewire.
cheers
Tarik

Sounds to me like your wiring is all screwed up! Sounds like your switch is wired to ground out the coil instead of switching power to it. Don't go buying all new parts and then find out you still have the same problem. Do a search on the internet for a basic wiring diagram for your tractor.

external_link.com sells new harnesses and ignition switches if you want to go that far.

or "12v light up style meter".