400 Wouldn't hit/ bad plugs

Posted by Woodlot Will on February 24, 2004 at 14:22:28 from (65.174.170.188):

Last summer she ran good before and a little better after an ignition tune up, minus new wires. I forgot them. Early ol-timers I guess. Then it started, Early December, It was about ten degrees and I was going to fire her up and pull a dead ash down through the meadow for firewood. She didn't run right. She was sick. Missing on one cylinder was my guess. Must be them dern wires I thought. So I went to the IH man and replaced them sick wires expecting everything to clear up. WRONGO!!!!! (before the #3 wire would fall off by looking at it crossways, but at least she ran) Now with new wires NO PUT! NO PUFF! NOTHING! NADA! ZILTCH! NO PROBLEM I thought, must be I crossed up some wires even though I stress to my wife I don't make mistakes. Checked and double checked, 1-3-4-2, coil wire secure on both ends, right again no mistakes.
Fast forward to yesterday after barking up a couple empty trees and two months of my neighbor plowing out my drive way. HOW EMBARRASING WITH BIG RED IN THE BARN! I'd taken the plugs for granted all that time as they were new (less than 20 hrs)and have seen spark and felt voltage COFFEE ANYONE!!! at the plugs, wires and distributer. For a time in January I was thinking cam gear timing/hydraulic pump stress problems. I've got a bucket and WFE on the old girl and really didn't want to wrestle her. So I cheated and just pulled the distributer/hydraulic pump so I could at least peep and feel to get a glimpse of her cam gear. It seemed firm and OK. I then figured she jumped a tooth between the cam gear and the distributer/hydro pump gear as a two or three teeth on the cam weren't 100%. After putting it all back together and timing it to TDC I expected to be plowing snow shortly. WRONG AGAIN!! (MY understanding of TDC is when you feel pressure coming from #1 spark plug port you continue turning engine over by hand till no pressure is felt. Hopefully at this point the last notch on the timing pulley will line up or be close to the timing pointer, which it was.) I had gas dripping from the carb and wet plugs after trying to start her but she just wouldn't hit. Last night I started looking closer at the spark AT THE PLUG. The Autolite 386 that I mistakenly (my wife doesn't know) substituted(the auto parts store was out of Champion d21s) were only doing their thing on the first couple cycles. I reached down in an old catch all tool box that came with the tractor and came up with an OLD CRUDDY and I mean CRUDDY!! D21. Pulled out the Autolite and stuck in the Champion D21, turned the key and SHAZAM! SPARK! CONSISTANTLY! I nearly fell off the tractor! I polished up four of the best ole battle tested soldiers out of that box stuck them in rank and SHE FIRED RIGHT UP!!!!!! WHAT A FEELING? Who needs the tropical vacations in February when they've got a running tractor and snow to plow? Two more dumb questions. 1)Why would a plug (386) with no more than 20 hours on it peter out after a couple rotations of the rotor, but an old crudded landfill ready plug(D21) fire every time? and 2)Would having a faulty thermostat contribute to the loading up of plugs for the reason they never can get up to design operating temperature? The four used crudded plugs that I used came with the tractor and cleaned up real well and looked like low hour plugs. I'm guessing the new plugs, the Autolite 386's were also starting to load and coupled with the cold starting temperature and their incompatibility with the 400 things didn't run well. Those 386's probably needed warmer temperatures and wires with loose tips so voltage could build up and finally jump gap. See this Farmall board for this theory. (Enter Ford 1914 or funny spark plug wires on the Farmall board for more on this theory.) Any comments welcome.

Follow Ups:

• Re: 400 Wouldn't hit/ bad plugs Bob 18:30:06 02/24/04 (1)
  • Re: Re: 400 Wouldn't hit/ bad plugs jed 05:47:21 02/25/04 (0)

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