ford 4000 o gas no start but runs great otherwise

I no the title makes no sense but here it goes.

Whenever I manage to get it started it runs great. Plenti of power smooth idle.

i have been srewing with this thing for months.
Imposible to start most of the time, floods easily.
first I changed plugs cap rotor points and cond. no change
I figured I had a carb problem so I rebuilt it. no change.
I figured I had a bad core or I screwed it up. I bought a brand new Zenith carb . no change.
I thought it was not getting enough voltage to points while cranking ( bat drops to 10.8 while cranking so i put jumper wire direct to coil and I thought that fixed it. Until next time it did not help
Both the battery and starter have been abused, long periods of non use and excessive cranking in its present situation, but they both seem fine. It will crank at a decent rate for at least 30 seconds, maybe longer After sitting before starting bat is at 12.3 Even if I put a booster on it and get it near 14 still no start today. It is 43* today , not what I consider to cold
Point gap .025
timming at 3bt altough i do not have a working tach so I do not know if it was at 475
Compression test all cyl at 90 cold and dry
Help, snow is comming at some point and I need it for plowing
Thanks. Gary

if you give it a wiff of ether starting fluid, will it start right up?

In your list of parts changed I didn?t see the coil or
high tension wires. So when it will start, is it on a dry
day? A poor coil, or poor wires will work under
perfect conditions.

90 psi is very low, but of course these are low-compression engines, wouldn't want a tank of bad gas to destroy it. Pull the coil wire out of the distributor cap, have somebody crank it while you hold the end near the block, how far will the spark jump? If it'll jump 3/8", 1/2" or better, stop looking at ignition. If not, fix ignition. Have you adjusted your valves lately? What happens when you do a wet compression test?

I had a 46 dodge pickup that was like that, I found that the ignition was advanced a little too much. I retarded it a little until it almost idled rough and then it started pretty good.

My own Ford 4000 gave me fits a couple of months ago. It turned out the condensor in the tune-up kit I bought at TSC was defective. Put in new points & condensor from New Holland and it fired right up and has been running perfectly ever since. It appeared to have good spark, but it seems appearances can be deceiving. After I got it running, I did an ohmmeter check on the suspect condensor and sure enough it was open.

These tractors are rock-simple. The flooding is "normal" when they don't start; I never use the choke above 20 degrees F. With a 12 volt conversion, they spin so fast they don't need any choke.

Sticking valves can cause problems for tractors that don't get much use, but if all the cylinders are at 90 psi the valves are closing.

Try fresh points & condensor.

A couple things to check...

As for the compression, it is a little low, but I've seen worse still run. Try setting the valve lash. Do a
wet/dry compression comparison. If a big difference, might be time to look into a rebuild.

To the fuel system...

Be sure the choke plate is closing fully. It probably is, because you say it floods easily. But, fuel
dripping from the carb following a failed choke assist start is normal.

There is a drain plug in the bottom of the carb. With the fuel valve open, engine not running, pull the
plug and catch the flow in a clean glass. I should full flow at first, then slow somewhat as the bowl
empties. But it should continue to trickle (if gravity flow), not slow to a drip or stop.

Look at what was caught. The fuel should be clear and clean. If cloudy or liquid water on the bottom, the
fuel is contaminated with water. If dirty or rust flakes, the tank is rusty and flaking. Whatever is in the
glass will also be in the carb. Even though new, it can be clogged if the gas is bad.

Next check the spark...

Check AT the plugs while cranking, with the plugs in. You can make a spark tester with an old plug. Gap the
plug open to 1/4" or break the electrode off. If it won't jump 1/4" at the plug end of the wire, the
cranking ignition is weak.

Weak cranking spark can be caused by a weak battery. Easy test, have it load tested. Also too small battery
cables, bad cables (temporary clamp on cable ends), loose connections, bad ground. Anywhere heat can be
felt is a high resistance connection.

A worn starter, loose bushings causing the armature to drag, can cause the starter to pull too much
amperage, robbing voltage from the coil.

The wrong or defective coil. With the ignition on, engine stopped, points closed, check the voltage at the
coil. If the voltage is near battery voltage, the coil you need is wound for use without a resistor, and
will have about 3 ohm resistance across the primary terminals. If the voltage is lower than the battery
voltage, around 9 volts, the coil needs to have around 1.5 ohms resistance and designed to have a resistor
ahead of it. While checking coil voltage, disable the starter, turn the switch to start position several
times. Be sure you get steady voltage at the coil while the switch is on or in start position.

Now, to the distributor. A common problem with distributors is side play in the shaft. Any play beyond just
a few thousandths inch will result in the points not staying set properly. Also the centrifugal advance can
get rusty, worn and not function properly. If the distributor is worn, a rebuilt distributor is the easy
fix.

Or... Get rid of the points! Go with a Pertronix pointless conversion. They don't mind a little shaft play.
Todays points and condensers have a terrible reputation for being bad out of the box. If looking for
reliability, electronic is practically a must. While at it, a new set of spiral core wires would be a plus.

Hope this helps, let us know.

Nobody has asked if your 4000 is a four cylinder, 3 cylinder Different key switch / solenoid setup. If it's a 3 cylinder you'll need to know if it has the original Ford GAS key switch, or if somebody had replaced it with the aftermarket "universal" switch which is based on the DIESEL key switch. The best manuals are the reprints of the factory manuals both of which are available on this site. Checked my 3 cylinder manual (here) compression at cranking speed (200 rpm) with all plugs out, throttle wide open should be 115 to 150 with no more than 25 psi difference between cylinders. Have to go out to the farm and dig out the 4 cyl manual.

Thanks for all the responses.
I did not replace the coil but I did replace the wires. I did check the spark , I believe it was good enough, it jumped 1/4 inch from a screwdriver shaft to a ground and zapped me enough so that I doped it.
The gas is mostly fresh with a little old stuff It is 5 to 1 new to old minimum. It was run this way for more than an hour so it must be mixed.It ran perfect with this gas 3 weeks ago
Is 90 really low?Would it also go up with a warm engine?
It did this before the point and condessor change also. I know you can not rule out new parts.
I really try to avoid starting fluid so I have not tried that.
I have been leaning towards a starter or battery. If I could find a rebuild kit would do it, but I don't want to trough a lot of more money at it without knowing. I guess I could take battery out and have it tested. It sucks I had a load tester but it just died. I also thought about electronic conversion but it should not be necessary .

thanks again, I will re read the sugestions and check things out this week.

It is a 3 cylinder. I did run a jumper from battery to coil to rule out the switch. Ford did us no favors by having two completly different tractors with the same model numbers. Gm keeps doing the same ting with engine series.

without a working tach I also can not tell what cranking rpm is.

I just went out to check for spark since it is dark out. Result none.
It appears at this point that I have an intermittent spark problem. Coil?

4acrefarm,

1.What year is your Ford 4000?

2. How long have you had it and when was the last time it ran well?

3. Check your oil and level on the dipstick. What does it look like?

4. What is the coolant level in the radiator?

I don't think you have a blown head gasket, but you never know.

Is your gas cap venting?

4acrefarm,

If it is an ignition problem nix most of my previous posts. Your other posts came in while I was writing.

Could be a bad coil and or bad condenser.

I used to get that same comment over the counter. That is why it is important to have all your numbers for the '65 up tractors as there differences in the wiring between tractors built in Romeo MI (C prefix), and the ones built in Basildon (B prefix), or Antwerp (A prefix). If the tag under the RH hood panel is gone or un-readalbe the numbers are stamped in the bell housing on the starter side.

P.S. all '65 up 3 cylinder GAS tractors take the same starter to the end of gas tractor production in '82 (the 5000 4 cyl gas takes the same starter as the diesel) so they are readily available, and not terribly expensive. 90 psi is pretty low but it should have fired on ether. Hint for ether use for small engines (under 600CI) have the engine cranking when you give it the whiff of good stuff.

you post came in after I wrote mine . Oil looks good havent checked the coolent lately and I tried leaving gas cap off for that reason. Eventhough I found an issue with spark, the way things have been going I am not counting on it being the problem.

Should I just go pentonix and hi po coil?
What sucks is I have been cleaning out the barn and gotten rid of old car parts. I may have junked an Accel or Mallory coil thinking I would never use that old technology again.

Have seen a rash of defective "new" condensers lately.

Also run this test. Before you do this at each step verify you have voltage from your ignition with a volt meter or 12 volt light. A light is better to make sure you are getting proper current flow. One other word of warning. A lot of these tractors have insufficient fuse protection from the factory. I would advise as a matter of practice splicing blade fuses into the lines and testing jumpers. A ten amp blade fuse should be okay for the ignition and testing. It also minimizes catastrophic boo boo damage.

1. Remove the distributor cap.
2. Take a tongue depressor or insulated screw driver and manually pop open and close the points repeatedly. Make sure you are not grounding the points with the screw driver when you do this.

3. If there is no spark rotate the distributor cam until the points are open. Clip a jumper wire on the external nut that connects the points to the coil. Now using insulated pliers repeatedly pop the jumper wire to ground.

4.If no spark remove the wire going from the distributor to the coil. Run the same spark test by clipping a jumper to the distributor side of the coil.


[u:31af13f80c]I know this is probably not necessary, but do not of course try this on the coil terminal that is supplied by the ignition switch. This will fry your jumper and possibly the ignition switch since it would be a dead short. [/u:31af13f80c]

If you do not get a spark by briefly popping the jumper to ground it is probably your coil. It eliminates the points and condenser, but will result in a larger spark since there is no condenser to absorb the opening of the ersatz points made from the jumper.


[/u]

(quoted from post at 18:04:30 12/03/17)Hint for ether use for small engines (under 600CI) have the engine cranking when you give it the whiff of good stuff.

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Good tip! Never thought of it before, might have saved my eyebrows a couple times. Not to mention a few brain cells, ether is nasty stuff.

OK, so it's a three cylinder. Mine is a four cylinder, but pretty much everything applies, other than your tractor has not been converted from 6 to 12 volts.

I don't know if the three-cylinder Fords have a resistor in the wiring or use a "no external resistor" coil. If you've installed an "external resistor required" coil, then bypassed the external resistance, you'll burn up points in short order. (Note that the external resistance may be a high-resistance wire rather than a physical resistor; I'm not familiar with the three-cylinder gassers.)

There's no real risk with giving the tractor a snort of ether. Either it won't start, which will eliminate a fuel problem, or worst case it WILL start, which will tell you it IS a fuel problem.

Sounds like the same problem as 2-3 others in the last week. You say flooding. Flooding is an over abundance of gas in the CYLINDERS do you know if you are getting gas to the cylinders? it appears that you are not. No amount of spark will ignite air. Take a spark plug reading and find out what is going on in your cylinders. Gas running out the carb does not mean that your CYLINDERS have too much gas.

'65 up Ford tractors used a resistance wire in the harness between the key switch and the coil, AND a non resistance wire from the "I" terminal on the solenoid to the coil. That way while cranking, the coil was supplied with extra voltage making a stronger primary side magnetic field, providing a higher secondary voltage (spark). We used to stock them (the resistance wire) as they had a habit of melting the insulation off when the key was left on by mistake and the points happened to be closed.

I never thought of gas not reaching cylinders even when running out of carb

In step 2 were you refering ti spark at points or secondary? I had spark at points but not sure on secondary. 6 volt at coil no reistance between bat and dist terminals on coil.

'65 up tractors were all 12V from the factory, gas or diesel. If you only have 6v that is at least part of your problem.

I am thinking it is the coil. Pentonix or not , that is the queston.
They claim I should be able too burn the tires off it and double the gas millage or something like that.

All I want is reliability. It may sit for a day or a month. I use it to move firewood occasional brush hogging and snow removal. I want it to start when I want to not when it wants to. Is it worth $157 for ignition kit and flamethrower coil?

(quoted from post at 22:02:40 12/04/17) In step 2 were you refering ti spark at points or secondary? I had spark at points but not sure on secondary. 6 volt at coil no resistance between bat and dist terminals on coil.

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I realized I might have been confusing, but can't edit or add to those posts---a slight pita.

In step 2. the objective is to operate the points manually. You will get a small spark at the points when they open. You should get a 10-15,000 volt spark out of the high tension lead coming out of the coil wire,

I should have told you to remove the high voltage lead from the distributor cap and rest it about 1/4" near whatever ground you can find on the block so that any spark from the coil will travel from the lead to ground just as it would jump across the appropriate spark plug/s if the rotor and cap were in place. You might also hear a pop as it jumps or somewhere if there is a short. It is also helpful if you do it in the dark as you were already doing. It is Christmas and you may get some lights. lol

You should have 12 volts going into the coil even if there is a current limiting resistor.

Measure the coil resistance with both lug wires removed and high voltage lead removed. There should be 10,000 ohms or greater resistance between the + terminal and the high voltage output on the coil. This is where there are a lot of windings of very fine wire. The primary winding is another story.

Measure the primary winding resistance from the distributor side of the coil and the coil case. It may or not be grounded. Normally you should get a resistance of about 0.75-2 ohms when measuring across the two small lugs.That is why a coil will get hot if the ignition is left on without cranking. The windings ratio is about 100:1, but naturally the primary windings have far fewer turns and are greater in diameter to carry the current.

I assume you are using a digital ohm meter. Be sure of the resistance range settings and be sure to short your meter leads first before testing each resistance range because some of these meters are flaky on different ohms settings. It is impossible to get a zero ohms reading on my cheap Centech meter at the lowest range.(.1-199 ohms) It usually runs .4-1 ohm with the leads crossed so be aware of that if your meter is a low end job.

That is all I have for now

I did not get any spark out of high tension of coil. At thi point it can only be coil or condensor? I could spend $20 on new coil and condensor or $157 on pentonix and blaster.

I did not get any spark out of high tension of coil. At thi point it can only be coil or condenser? I could spend $20 on new coil and condenser or $157 on pentonix and blaster.

> I did not get any spark out of high tension of coil. At thi point it can only be coil or condenser? I could spend $20 on new coil and condenser or $157 on pentonix and blaster.

If you think it has a bad condenser, you'll want to replace both condenser and points. The points will quickly burn out with a bad condenser; you can confirm this by inspecting the points. Or you can check the voltage drop across the points: It should be less than half a volt between the distributor side of the coil and ground when the points are closed. New points should be less than two-tenths of a volt.

I'm concerned about the wiring change you made to the switch side of the distributor. Read the post by IaC, he explains how it's supposed to be (which is not necessarily the way it was wired when you bought it.)

Personally, I would not install a Pertronix ignition without first getting it to run on the stock ignition. Otherwise, what will you do if it doesn't run after you install the new ignition? You won't know if the original problem still exists, or if you installed the Pertronix wrong.

You said you only use the tractor occasionally so you have to decide the cost/benefit layout to you. The world is your oyster.

Me, I am a cheapskate so I find a You-Pick auto yard and buy a coil (if the price is reasonable) that will fit to sort out problem. Luckily I don't normally have to do this as there are several old coils here laying around. These are kind of disappearing since about 1995 when most car makers went to coil under cap or direct ignition.

Yt and everyone else has mew coils and it depends on how soon you want it + shipping charges. It all depends on how much time and money you want to spend on everything.

The only downsides of using breaker points is wear and some tractors are more prone to get weather corrosion on the contacts. Just a little corrosion resistance and insufficient current flows to the coil and then they have to be cleaned or lightly filed. That's why I use electronic boxes, CDI, hybrids, or HEI conversions. They will trigger even when the breaker points have a number of ohms resistance. Electronics almost always make a tractor quicker and easier to crank and run even when still using points.

Then there are the Pertronix units and reluctor type pickups which the Pertronics probably are underneath. The Pertronix units replace the points and serve also as an electronic ignition unless you want to soup up the voltage. The others usually require an additional box to turn the signal into a coil pulse.

Tempus fugit

think I am going with points condenser and coil. Before this problem it ran great. I am also cheap and stock should be good enough. It will be awhile but I will post results. Thanks everybody.

One more thing> what coil do I need? The wire from ignition switch is 6.2v The coil measured 1.5 ohm between + and-.I have a 12v wire direct for cranking.

This is one thing I am not sure about.
Normally a regular 12 volt coil should do, but I do not know what year your 4000 is and if they used a resistance wire or ballast resistor. The best thing is to see if there is any information still visible on the old coil assuming it is the original. They sometimes do midyear changes and don't tell anyone (can you say consumer). Yours might have a 6 volt coil with external resistance. I absolutely do not know.

From what I have read a true 12 volt coil has internal resistance due to the windings, not from an internal ballast resistor, but may need an additional ballast resistor while running If you have a Ford/New Holland dealer near you ask them. There are a bunch of 12 volt can coils that will work. You can tell pretty quickly if it won't crank or the coil gets unreasonably warm while it is running.

One other question. Your 4000 ( year? )should be originally 12v, but was it originally generator equipped and converted or alternator equipped?

1973 still generator

>One more thing> what coil do I need? The wire from ignition switch is 6.2v The coil measured 1.5 ohm between + and-.I have a 12v wire direct for cranking.

If you have six volts at the switch side of the coil, I'd say you're good to go. If you had the wrong coil, the voltage would be higher than that. Should you replace the coil, a standard automotive coil (typically marked "external resistor required") will be fine.

I have not got new coil and points but I was playing around with it today. I replaced condenser. I now have a yellow spark that will jump 1/4 inch. It still will not start. Coils either work or do not correct? I am assuming the new points will fix it but I have one concern. I have a solid 1/4 inch end play on dissy, no side play. Is that capable of altering the timing?

Failing coils can work intermittently. You did not say how you were getting it to spark as a regular set up or one of the test methods. You need to check the timing and wire sequence again if you have not labelled them and make sure timing is not 180 degrees out of phase. This can easily occur when you are testing.

I don't know how much end play it should have, but it must not ride up and down so that the rotor loses contact with the button on the cap or is too far away from the 4 projecting studs under the cap.

(quoted from post at 11:14:17 12/10/17) I have not got new coil and points but I was playing around with it today. I replaced condenser. I now have a yellow spark that will jump 1/4 inch. It still will not start. Coils either work or do not correct? I am assuming the new points will fix it but I have one concern. I have a solid 1/4 inch end play on dissy, no side play. Is that capable of altering the timing?

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Four acre, You have been focused with tunnel vision on starter and ignition. You have established that both are good. It may be time to open your trouble shooting up to some of the suggestions that have been ignored so far.

I just wanted to finish up this thread. After dealing with brand new points that were junk and other small issues I fixed it. Not sure exactly what it was but I just went through everything step by step until until it started every time. Thanks for all the suggestions.

(quoted from post at 17:02:32 03/27/18) I just wanted to finish up this thread. After dealing with brand new points that were junk and other small issues I fixed it. Not sure exactly what it was but I just went through everything step by step until until it started every time. Thanks for all the suggestions.

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Well isn't that just Ducky!

That is the problem with the shotgun approach to a problem.
There is no closure. Well at least it is running, but it still would be interesting to know for the notebook.

I've never had a engine that would start very good with less than 100 psi compression.
Pull the valve cover and check the valve adjustment, if that doesn't get the compression up it's time for a rebuild.