Posted by fixerupper on June 18, 2016 at 19:08:23 from (100.42.83.79):
Long story! My beloved little SC Case that I embellish so much praise upon betrayed me right before it was supposed to pull a float loaded loaded with nursing home folks in a parade.
It ended up being spark but here is the whole story and maybe you can figure out what made it do this.
Last evening I washed it for the parade. I blew out the distributor (Delco 6 volt) to dry it and blew the moisture off the wires etc. Usually this is all I need to do and I do it as normal procedure before I try to start the tractor. Went to start it and it was hesitant, cranked but wouldn't fire on the first or second time over like it usually does but it did start after six or seven times over. It ran fine, and I drove it the seven and a half miles to town that evening, picking up the people mover at the threshing show site on the way to town. I parked it by the nursing home, ready for the parade the next day, and went home. This morning it cranked but wouldn't start at first. I finally got it going but it would catch on only a couple of cylinders and speed up, then die and coast down till it was almost not turning, then catch on a couple random cylinders, speed up, die and catch and do the whole process over again. The governor was opening and closing like normal. There was very little to no smoke out the exhaust but choking would make it smoke and die. I gave up on it and pulled the float through the parade with the pickup.
Later I came back with tools and did the normal checking. Points were a little close so I gapped them, I cleaned the points, I flicked them with a screw driver to make them spark and the secondary coil wire threw at least a 3/4" spark. The dist cap which is almost new looking was clean as a whistle and dry and I couldn't see visible cracks. The carbon tip in the center is solid carbon and clean, I pried up the contact strip on the rotor for better contact. After this initial cleaning and adjusting the old girl still would run real bad IF I could get it to start at all. Then I held the coil secondary wire close to metal while I hit the starter and got a good jolt from spark coming through a crack in the wire so I knew it had THAT much spark while cranking. Then I held it with heavy insulated pliers and it did throw a very healthy spark to ground. I was out of aces so as a last resort I replaced the condenser, no change, changed the coil, no change. I checked the primary wire between the coil and distributor in case it was almost broken and just barely making contact. It was good. Oh yes, it was getting a good full flow of gas to the carb and when I opened the carb drain it flowed a good stream forever.
FINALLY after all this head scratching I pulled #1 plug wire off the plug and held it close to metal while I reached around and hit the starter. The tractor started up and purred along on three cylinders as if nothing had been wrong. No clearing it's throat or stumbling. I got a jolt and dropped the wire and the end of the wire was throwing a long spark to ground while the tractor sat there not missing a beat on the three cylinders that were firing. I put #1 wire back on and it started right up and purred like a kitten.
Now the question, why did it suddenly start and run smooth when I pulled one plug wire and held it to ground? It almost had to have been something in the dist cap because it had tremendous spark coming out of the coil. I shut it down and restarted it several times after that and it popped right off. I suspect the dist cap might be cracked but why did pulling one plug wire off straighten it out immediately just like I turned on a switch? The plug wires are not rotted but they do have some age cracks and they are solid wire. End of story. LOL
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