Grinderhead
Member
My dist. cap and rotor needed replacing on my '51 8n side dist. now all I get is backfireing, what did I do!?
- Thread starter Grinderhead
- Start date
Grinderhead
Member
Little clip is there, and checked the firing order a dozen times!
Grinderhead
Member
Brand new cap and rotor
RogerinIowa
Member
Do another dozen.
Take all the wires loose from the cap and do it.
Take all the wires loose from the cap and do it.
Grinderhead
Member
This is #1 right?
Grinderhead
Member
the wire with the arrow is going to #1 cylinder
Jim.ME
Well-known Member
- Location
- central ME
It is worth a try, but that is only true if the distributor was installed correctly to begin with. If that doesn't work you need to find out which terminal the rotor does point at when # 1 is on compression.
Remove # 1 Plug.
Remove the distributor cap, ground the coil wire.
Put something in #1 plug hole, like a cotton ball, not too deep.
Bump the starter gently. When the cotton ball pops out it is coming up on compression, so the rotor should be approaching the terminal where # 1 plug wire needs to be. Install # 1 wire in the cap.
Install the other wires, in the firing order, from #1 - going the same way the rotor is turning.
Grinderhead
Member
Dist. has not been removed, tractor was running fine. Shouldn't the #1 wire be relatively in the same orientation to the dist. like the picture I posted. I understand firing order and #1 cylinder is at front of motor. Just trying to verify #1 plug wire position on dist. cap.
Grinderhead
Member
Counter clockwise
Grinderhead
Member
Thank you everyone for your help! Found the problem, ME! had the wires 180 deg. off on dist. Could have sworn I put them exactly like I took them off. Next time I will Wear my Just ask Bruce shirt when I work on it.
Grinderhead
Member
I did too, still screwed it up!
Once upon a time, when I was still young and foolish I swapped the two-barrel and manifold on my '74 Chevy Nova with a Quadrajet and manifold I had gotten from the junk yard for $20. Everything went fine. I had rebuilt the Q-jet before starting. All the parts went together without any trouble.
Went to fire it up for the first time and it would fire but wouldn't run. Worked on it for about an hour before I had to borrow my mom's car to go back to my apartment for a week. I thought about it all week. When I came back home I swapped the spark plug wires and it fired right up. Yep. Wired the wrong way around.
It does happen. It's often helps to just leave it alone and think a bit. Even better is to explain the problem to someone else (in software we call it rubber ducking a problem as you can explain it to a toy duck and figure it out).
Went to fire it up for the first time and it would fire but wouldn't run. Worked on it for about an hour before I had to borrow my mom's car to go back to my apartment for a week. I thought about it all week. When I came back home I swapped the spark plug wires and it fired right up. Yep. Wired the wrong way around.
It does happen. It's often helps to just leave it alone and think a bit. Even better is to explain the problem to someone else (in software we call it rubber ducking a problem as you can explain it to a toy duck and figure it out).
That rubber duck thing is funny. Yep, we've all done it, or have seen it done. Years ago, I was watching these guys try to get their Chevy V8 started after doing something to it. I didn't know them very well and had no credibility, but did suggest that maybe it was 180 degrees out, but they insisted that they had it right. I had to leave, but the next day I asked one of them if they got it running. Yep, he said, it was 180 degrees out of time.
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