I'd like to say thanks to all that posted about my issues last night/today..
What I found was the following:
The advance in the distributor was in fact gummed up and stuck. It took a while, but I got it all cleaned up and moving freely. I also regapped the points.. Figured after having the point backing plate out of the distributor it should be regapped..
Once that was corrected, I retimed the engine.. Had I actually READ the manual and done as it actually said and not the exact opposite (I kept turning the distributor housing the wrong way and couldn't figure out why it wouldn't time..) it would have been a lot quicker job, but dad and I got it done.. Right after dad read it and said "hey dummy, turn it the other clockwise".. OOPS.. we're all human and make errors from time to time I guess.
We then popped the valve cover and ran the valve train again.. everything was on spec, just as I figured it should still be, but the valve cover had a slight leak and had to be lifted off anyhow.
At this point, it runs pretty well. Idles nearly flawlessly now.. Still has a slight miss towards wide open, but I didn't adjust on the carb any, or take it for a drive (too muddy to venture around and not make a mess of the lawn, or the tractor on a road drive)
And for those that assume I dumped the carb in a bucket of dip, yanked it back out and slapped it back on the tractor.. I may be slow from time to time, and sometimes the simple things will elude me.. but I'm not a idiot.. I know the passages need to be cleaned out, and I did just that. As I believe I pointed out in the original post, I was not so sure the carb was at all the problem, as no matter how I adjusted the needles it never ran any better.. Nor did adding choke help, aside making it run worse still.
Thanks again for the helpful suggestions guys
Brad
What I found was the following:
The advance in the distributor was in fact gummed up and stuck. It took a while, but I got it all cleaned up and moving freely. I also regapped the points.. Figured after having the point backing plate out of the distributor it should be regapped..
Once that was corrected, I retimed the engine.. Had I actually READ the manual and done as it actually said and not the exact opposite (I kept turning the distributor housing the wrong way and couldn't figure out why it wouldn't time..) it would have been a lot quicker job, but dad and I got it done.. Right after dad read it and said "hey dummy, turn it the other clockwise".. OOPS.. we're all human and make errors from time to time I guess.
We then popped the valve cover and ran the valve train again.. everything was on spec, just as I figured it should still be, but the valve cover had a slight leak and had to be lifted off anyhow.
At this point, it runs pretty well. Idles nearly flawlessly now.. Still has a slight miss towards wide open, but I didn't adjust on the carb any, or take it for a drive (too muddy to venture around and not make a mess of the lawn, or the tractor on a road drive)
And for those that assume I dumped the carb in a bucket of dip, yanked it back out and slapped it back on the tractor.. I may be slow from time to time, and sometimes the simple things will elude me.. but I'm not a idiot.. I know the passages need to be cleaned out, and I did just that. As I believe I pointed out in the original post, I was not so sure the carb was at all the problem, as no matter how I adjusted the needles it never ran any better.. Nor did adding choke help, aside making it run worse still.
Thanks again for the helpful suggestions guys
Brad
