Hot 60-Clooney?

A guy could also argue that bad points are giving you less spark and therefore cooler combustion. If you got a hotter spark - all the mixture would ignite making hotter exhaust gas and higher running temps.

You could probably teach us all something by making the changes in series; testing after each change and noting the results. If you'd go to water then work it an hour and take a temp reading, change the points, condensor, coil with right resistance, then test. Then set timing and test, I'd like to know your results. Interest here is more than academic as I also have a 60. If you do it that way, let me know.

Anyway, the timing of the spark is probably more important than the length or girth of the spark -- but now the whole discussion is starting to sound like some therapy seminar on physical love.

Can we leave by agreeing that high intensity, MSD or other fancy systems probably work best in high RPM, high compression ratio, lean running engines -- which a JD 60 definitely is not? Otherwise the whole topic becomes too much fun!

If it were previously ran without a ballast resistor but one was required, that caused excess current draw which can drastically reduce the life of the contact points. Such usually renders them black and over carboned. HOWEVER, I doubt that alone or even if they are worn down now can cause her to over heat all that much.

Being off time is only one of many possible factors contributing to over heating such as a clogged radiator, faulty thermostat or water pump as all reported in response to your earlier post. (See page 2)

To answer your specific question, if the points are worn excessive like if the cam follower is worn etc., it changes the gap and dwell angle which affects the timimg and indeed, off timing gan contribute to over heating. HOWEVER AGAIN, slight point wear or slight off time caused as a result of that may be a minor but not a major factor in over heating assuming the timing isnt drastically off. By the way, whats she timed at now??? Unless way off 20 to 30 BTDC running, I doubt that is any problem causign over heating.

As we posted below, you can check the thermostat and guage by immersion in boiling water and observe the gauges readign and whether or not the t stat opens and use an air gun to blow and clean out the radiator fins and see what happens.

Thanks for re postign and keeping this a "hot" topice lol, overheatign (if yours actually is) is a common problem.

God Bless John T Nordhoff in Indiana

• Original Post

I had a similar situation on a 4630 and finally got to the thermostats to find both of them hanging 1/4 open no matter what the temp. They were only 2 weeks old!! It seems you can't get a good thermostat today for love nor money even from JD. If you are seeing water circulate and your temp is not yet 180 then you have stuck thermostat, and as usual, it does not then open fully either = problem solved?

A new core is not neccessary, you can 'rod' out the old one and you only have to take off the top tank to do it. Anything long and skinny enough to fit into the cores can be used to work the crap out to the bottom of the tubes where you just wash it away with a garden hose.

That's not a 'steam' hole, its only use is to bleed off air under the thermostat so that when you put in the new one it is not 'air locked' and fails to operate because the air is 150 and the water 3 inches below is at 200. When it finally does open under these conditions (wide open) you might crack a block/head and sue them and win.

Had a subaru that would run hotter in winter and cooler in summer! Somehow when you draw water off to go to the heater that caused a cooler stream of water to hit the thermostat and the temp went up to 190. In summer with the heater not drawing water from right there it ran 180. That thermostat finally when to heck and we replaced it only to find that we never saw that happen again - but it was very nice while it lasted.

As long as you keep adding tap water, I'd guess you'll get a lot more crud in there than you would with distilled water (that's assuming the walls of your shower don't stay perfectly clean for years on end -- same stuff clogs your radiator).

Maybe with a few flushes you can save the radiator. It sure is cheaper than a new radiator, anyway. Good luck!