[AT] More on the 184 mystery

[Mike Sloane]

On 12/14/2010 7:04 PM, charlie hill wrote:
> Sure we are interested Mike.  First off it's a tractor engine and second
> it's winter, it’s cold outside and we are all bored stiff.  I'm interested
> to know what the problem is with the poor running. My life experience tells
> me a problem like that is usually something simple but hard to find.  Has
> the fuel line, filter or anything associated with the carb and fuel delivery
> ever been changed from factory?
The only thing that has been changed from factory (as far as I know), is 
my conversion from contact points to a Pertronix ignition module and a 
new 12 volt coil (with internal resistor) . But I did that in hopes of 
correcting the 45 minutes shut down problem and to help with hard 
starting after the tractor sat for a week or so (it fixed the cold start 
problem but not the shut down problem).

> Is this an engine you've been running that just all of a sudden started to
> run poorly or was it a gradual thing or was it like that when you acquired
> it?
When I got the tractor, it didn't run well at all - hard starting and no 
power. Then I discovered that there was one bad plug wire, so it was 
only running on three cylinders. Once I replaced all the plug wires, it 
seemed to run really great, but then it started that business of 
quitting. Now, the 184 has no engine temperature gauge, but I have 
observed that it runs very hot but doesn't boil over. So I suppose it is 
possible that it is just overheating and causing the exhaust valves to 
stick open. When it quits, it turns over nicely, but won't even fire a 
little bit. I have loosened the tank cap to make sure I have fuel and 
there is no vacuum, but that makes no difference. I thought that maybe 
the coil doesn't have enough resistance (Pertronix says to have 3 ohms) 
causing the module to overheat, but my meter says that is not the case. 
When I finish putting the engine back together, I am going to check the 
ignition timing to make sure that it isn't too far advanced.

Mike
>
> Charlie Hill
>