1960 Internation T340 dozer with Drott

Greetings - I don't know how much info to giveso ask questions please
My husband has an international t340 - we took it out to our woods in 2000 and a in 2021 we began having touble starting it.
He did a tune up with points, plugs, condenser, cleaned the carburetor. In June 22- it started - and while it ran rough - we were able to move it. He didn't go back out to it until September 2022 and now - it doesn't start. I'd say it fires - pops but doesn't start.

He thinks he will try to redo the points - may not have sent them correctly - he is going to take the condenser off and bring it home to work on it.

Any thoughts of what we can try?

Welcome to the forums.

Do you mean he is going to take the distributor off and bring it home to work on? If he is pulling the distributor one has to guess, he knows how to be sure it is in time when he reinstalls it. The condenser is a small, sealed component inside the distributor, it is replaced if needed, not worked on. They can be bad right out of the box and one check is to put the old one back in. They are general either good or bad. If he needs to replace the condenser try to get a Standard Motor Products (Blue Streak quality if available) or NAPA Echlin one. The same for points.

Did he polish the point contacts with a piece of clean card stock or folded up dollar bill? A film can form on the contacts and insulate them, even new ones right from the box.

He should check to see that there is power to the coil when the ignition is on. If that is ok, he should hook a test light to ground and put the point on the coil post that the wire going to the distributor attaches to (do not disconnect the wire from the coil or distributor for this test). When he cranks the engine over, does the light flash? It should flash on and off as the points open and close. If it doesn't flash the points are not providing the intermittent ground needed to make a spark. Cleaning the contacts is the first step.

How old is the gas? Fresh gas helps sometimes. How is the gas flow into the carburetor? He should pull the drain plug from the carburetor bowl and see how long it takes to fill a pint jar. It should only take a couple minutes. If it takes a lot longer, or stops, he will need to find the blockage.

How fast is it turning over? A weak battery may not supply enough power to the starter and ignition at the same time and slow cranking hinders starting. Dirty cable connections (at both ends of the cables) cause problems. Since it sounds like it has set a lot cleaning both the battery terminal ends and where the other ends attach would be a good maintenance step.

Just some thoughts and things to check.

Welcome to the forums.

Wow - thanks for the prompt and informative post. I have only been observing while he works on the tractor. He is a bit touchy on the subject lol. Here's what I remember

Yes he is going to take the distributor off and bring it home to work on. He knows about keeping it in time - I remember him saying how critical that was, so I think we are safe there.

I remember what the condenser is - and appreciate your suggestions to try different parts - I am going to suggest that to him.

He DID polish the point contacts with a dollar bill (I think so anyway because I know he did something with the dollar bill he had in his tool kit. Great info - will double check on this.

"He should check to see that there is power to the coil when the ignition is on. If that is ok, he should hook a test light to ground and put the point on the coil post that the wire going to the distributor attaches to (do not disconnect the wire from the coil or distributor for this test). When he cranks the engine over, does the light flash? It should flash on and off as the points open and close. If it doesn't flash the points are not providing the intermittent ground needed to make a spark. Cleaning the contacts is the first step."

This sounds like it is the magic ticket. He thinks the problem is in the points. I will pass this on to him.

He took the carburetor off and cleaned it. He said the bowl is stripped or something like that - basically he can't get it off. He might have gotten a new carb when this first started. We always use fresh gas too.


The batter is charged to 100% - he makes sure it is charged and if necessary, when he brings it home and it seems to hold its charge well. I will sneak in a comment about the battery cables too.

Your thorough help is appreciated. It could be a while before we can get out there again - wish us luck.