Farmall 560 hates me

A friend of mine asked me to install his Pertronix Igniter, Pertronix coil, new distributor cap and new plug wires in his 560. He had charged the battery before I got there. I went today. Here is the story:

He had been using the tractor daily. Ran fine one day, no start the next. He assumed it was points related and purchased the aforementioned materials. After installing them today I got it to fire once, after that nothing. Even with ether I couldn't even get a puff.

I checked each wire with an inline spark tester and that shows them as sparking. I also pulled plug six and got a weaker orange spark.

At this point the only thing I can come up with other than plugs, which it will be getting anyway now, is if the battery has an internal short on it. I had a forklift battery recently that had a dead short in it and the charger would take it to 12v but as soon as there was a draw on it (in this case the starter) it had little to no usable current.

Any other thoughts would be great. I think his engines just hate me as it took me over a year to get his skidloader running well again (weak fuel pump).

Does the starter turn the engine easily?

A bad battery would not turn the engine over.

If you have spark, is there gas in the tank/carb?

Does pulling the choke do anything?

Since you were ask to look at it after the problem happen, you will have to check everything.

Don

Did you change the condenser?

Larry

An internal combustion engine needs three things to run. Fuel, spark and compression. We know it has compression as it ran yesterday. We know it has spark as you checked. Leaves only fuel to question. Did you look in the tank??

Amos, The condenser is removed and discarded as part of the Pertronics installation. It is a solid state switching module that makes and breaks the coil ground to produce spark. mEl

(quoted from post at 19:54:04 11/28/09) An internal combustion engine needs three things to run. Fuel, spark and compression. We know it has compression as it ran yesterday. We know it has spark as you checked. Leaves only fuel to question. Did you look in the tank??

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a correctly timed spark actually. Is it possible for the distributor to have slipped a drive gear?

I didn't look in the tank actually. I figured the ether down the throat would take care of that aspect.

The starter did turn well. Shoots that idea doesn't it.

You said a new battery, is it hooked up right?Should be neg ground. Coil wire to the distributor should be the -

put the points back in & it will run ...perjunkets units fail quite often & their Co. will not back them...Kent

i just hate a tractor that develops a nasty attitude, dont you, lol the only sugestion i can make here is to first return the ignition system to stock farmall, then get the original problem fixed, and the tractor running, THEN do your conversion if desired, im betting you have another problem and the conversion didnt get to the problem and the origional problem that made it quit still exists its hard for me anyway to fix something by changing out a whole system and trouble shoot it when there was a problem existing when it got here

One other weird thing I should have mentioned earlier. The coil that was on it was hooked up backwards. The battery is grounded neg to frame but the positive terminal of the coil went to the points. I chalked it up to a mistake by the person who installed the previous coil. Can anyone think of any reason that might have been done?

Try a battery charger . And PLEASE post back if that CURES the PROBLEM ???. If it is Like the kit I have on My DC CASE ,. IT WILL REQUIRE A HOT BATTERY or you will not get spark to the plugs ,, See My above post with the MTA problem . Never Will buy another electronic Kit ..My Battery has plenty of cranking power left if the DC fails to start... Doesn't matter if We pull it , It will not fire ,,,. And Yet with a hot battery , My DC will start if I hand crank to the Top of compression stroke , then simply flip the ignition switch and it Will be RUNNING SMOOTHLY .!

You might want to check that you are getting a good ground from distributor to the engine.

Somewhere in the wiring there is a problem it sounds like because it was doing the same thing before you put on the new parts.Maybe the battery doesnt put out enough for the electronic ignition.Seems like I read somewhere the battery has to be putting out its maximum for the electronic ignition to work.So its probably a good idea to try and get it running with the points first.You might want to check the timing,number 1 on TDC look and see if rotor is pointing to number one,keeping in mind if its not on the compression stroke it wont be pointing to number 1 it will be half way around away from number one.One thing I did to get my H running was check the wiring with a test light.I have a resister in my wiring to the coil and was loosing it there because the wire end that hooked to the resister was real rusty.Also those cheap crimp on wire ends were all over my tractors wiring when I first got it.At first it would fire right up but after a while it wouldnt.I found a couple of those crimp on wire ends that were not done very well and wouldnt light my test light.Replaced them and havent had any trouble since.Also it would crank sometimes but very slow,and sometimes it would crank good.I had my starter rebuilt and it was better but not real good.If I didnt have to crank it a lot it would fire up.Finally it got to where I had to jump it straight to the starter to get it started.I finally figured out by grabbing the connection on one of the cables that went to the starter button that was real hot.I replaced that cable and it cranks good now.The cable looked good on the outside but I pulled hard on it and pulled it out of the end and it was real corroded inside of the end where you couldnt see it.Also for not starting I found the wires going to my switch had vibrated loose or something.It would crank good but not run.Wasnt getting fire to the coil or very weak that the light would go out when you cranked it.Traced it back to the switch where one side would light the test light,the other side would just barely light it,while I was messing with it found the wires loose.Im not saying any of this is your problem,but maybe there is some part of it that can help you.If you check your connections especially around the switch and resister if you have one,or just clean them you might find the problem.If you see any of those crimp on wire ends check them first.

YOU ALSO HAVE TO HAVE AIR. Just went threw something similar. Oil bath had been over filled and would not let any air in. Just a thought.