Farmall 350 No Start

Farmall 350 was running but with a miss on the #1 cylinder. Pulled the distributor cap and the contacts on the cap and rotor were crudded up and was surprised it ran at all. The plug in on the rotor for the number one cylinder was also black. My 16 year old son installed a new cap and rotor and it now refuses to fire on any of the 4 cylinders - occasionally if you grind the starter long enough one cylinder will fire just once then it grinds for a long time then it will fire again. He swears he installed the wires exactly the way it came off. I checked and they do appear to be in the correct order and I rotated them over one hole advanced on the rotor then one hole retarded and it made no difference - no fire while turning the engine over. I returned the spark plug wires back where my son had them. It is getting fuel (solid stream out the carb), and the spark plugs will throw a somewhat weak looking spark when grounded to the frame. As I said it was running until he removed the cap. I have not done anything with the points.


The only other issue is that everything seems damp when we work on it. Its been about 10-15 degrees for weeks and we worked on it a couple times when it warmed up for a day. On those days the wires seem slick with condensed water and even inside the distributor cap is seemed a little damp.


I guess I could try advancing the wires two holes - that would make it 180 degrees from where we started. The old cap and rotor were tossed when he was working on it. The only thing I can think of is that the rotor might 180 degrees off?????? Anyone ever run across that on the Chinese made cap rotors?

Make sure that your #1 cylinder (closest to radiator) is at TDC on the compression stroke when the rotor is lining up with the contact for the #1 spark plug on the distributor cap. It's easy to find TDC on #1 if you have your son hand crank the engine while you stand at the #1 spark plug hole with the plug removed. When the engine reaches TDC on #1, you can see the piston top coming to the top of the stroke and air will rush out of the spark plug hole. If you see the piston coming but no air rushing, that's the exhaust stroke. Make sure the ignition is turned off while doing this.

When you find TDC on #1, at that point your rotor should align with the position on the cap where you have the #1 spark plug wire connected. After that, check the firing order which is 1-3-4-2.

Don't mess with the timing until you can get a good strong spark from the plugs. There may not be anything wrong with the timing at all, and there probably isn't, so avoid going down that rabbit hole for the time being.

Everything involved with bringing spark to the plugs: Battery, wiring, ignition switch, coil, points, condenser, rotor, cap, wires. Start at one end of the list, work your way to the other.

The odds of all your plugs and/or all your wires being bad at the same time are slim to none. You're replaced the cap and rotor? Next would be points and condenser.

Moisture on the outside is irrelevant; it's what's on the inside that counts (where have I heard that one before?).

You can't have the rotor off 180 degrees unless you removed the unit. You could have the cap off 180 degrees or the wires plugged into it to it make off 180 degrees. There is a place on the cap that says 1 and should be around the 1:00 position.

I would get a hair dryer & blow hot air on all
parts of the ignition system until all moisture
is gone.
This includes spark plugs & spark plug wires.
Especially make sure the dist. cap is completely
dry inside & out including the plug/ coil
terminals where the wires go.
Dry the coil high voltage terminal also.

If this fails to get it started, timing MAY be
at fault---but not likely.
Jim

Be sure the wires were installed in the correct rotation direction that the distributor rotates. If the plug wires were installed against the rotation of the distributor, then it will not start.

Check the points and clean.

Take the points out and inspect maybe clean them with a dremel. Set the gap right. Forget new ones, they are junk.

It's worth noting that the tractor ran before your son put the new rotor and cap on. You could put the old rotor and cap back on and start there. Why go to all these other issues if you had a running tractor with a miss on one cylinder?

He threw the old rotor and cap away before I knew we had an issue.


The fact I'm getting spark at the plugs makes me wonder where the issue is.

Good lesson for the kid. Change one thing at a time, mark everything, and don't throw stuff away until it's running smooth again. We've all been there and done that. Haha.

I recently was trouble shooting and accidentally swapped one of the plug wires with the coil wire at the cap. You should have seen the sparks flying. It actually ran on one cylinder, the one connected to the center post, I think. With current flowing backwards through the rotor and cap.

My H would not start recently, either. Turned out to be the fuel. If you are running ethanol-blend fuel, it is "hygroscopic,"-- it absorbs moisture from the air. At first, this is a (somewhat) good thing, as the ethanol acts like dry-gas to absorb a little extra water. However, eventually it gets so much water dissolved in the gas that it will not fire. Cool, damp weather makes it absorb more water. I also went through this on a Ford NAA I left out in the November rain 3-4 year ago and didn't learn my own lesson when it came to the H (even though the H was parked inside, it had condensation all over it, just like you describe).

Try all fresh gas and see if that makes a difference.