[AT] success at last (tractor)

[Greg Hass]

This story starts about a year and a half ago. It was fall and I parked 
my Farmall Cub in the barn. A couple of days later I went to move it to 
its winter parking spot. It started right up but as I went to move it, 
it started missing and almost stalled but then picked up and I was able 
to move it and then it acted up again. Well, the weather was cold and 
getting colder so I decided to wait until spring. Come spring, it did 
the same thing. Sometimes it would act up and sometimes I could work the 
garden for 20 minutes without a problem. I posted to this list and 98% 
plus said a fuel problem. I was torn between fuel and electrical but had 
no idea how to tell which. The first thing I did was remove the gas bowl 
under the tank. I have worked on IH tractors for over 50 years and have 
never seen a bowl with so much dirt in it. I cleaned it and then noticed 
junk in the gas tank; which I drained the gas and flushed the tank. It 
didn't run right but good enough for the season. Fast foreword to this 
spring; I put the belly blade on to grade the driveway but it run 
terrible and it hurt my sore back jerking so much. A friend came over 
and we removed the gas bowl again and replaced the screen up by the 
shutoff. We then replaced the in-line filter, no help. We then took off 
the carb and cleaned it. My friend then thought maybe the new in-line 
filter was the problem because it has some sort of check valve in it 
that the old one didn't have. I told him that every time I run it 
without that filter the carb leaks but we had to try something ( last 
year I put on a new distributor cab just in case it had a carbon track 
even though the old one only had 20 hours on it ). Well, when we shut 
the tractor off, the carb was leaking. We took the carb off again and 
cleaned it completely and put in a new float valve. With a in-line 
filter we knew had good flow we hooked it to an old lawn more tank to 
make sure nothing was blocked in the main tank or shut-off. We then 
hooked up all the lines as they should be and we were at the end of our 
rope. Before I go any further, let me tell you the problem was the last 
thing I tried. I know the joke, after you find the problem you quite 
looking, but in my case there was nothing else. On with the story; my 
brother happened to stop and he started touching wires by the switch and 
it seemed to make a difference, so I unhooked them and run a wire 
straight to the coil from the battery ( 20 hrs. ago the mag quite 
working so I unhooked it and put in new points and condensor and added a 
12 volt coil with internal resistor). At this point I didn't think it 
would help but I ordered new spark plug wires- the old ones were in 
really bad shape.  While waiting for the wires, I was at my brothers and 
asked if I could borrow one of his high powered rifles and just go home 
and shoot the Cub. Next I moved to the coil. My brother once had a 
combine that acted just like this and after 4 hours work the dealers 
mechanic figured out it was the coil. At $15 I put a new coil on. Now I 
was down to just the mag. . I took the cap off and could see that with 
no feeling in my left hand I was not going to work at it on the tractor. 
I hated to do it, but took the mag off and looked for a short and found 
none. Mind you, this had all been gone through 20 hrs. ago. The points 
were fine and the gap correct. That left only one thing. Being the 
weekend and everything closed, I went to the shed and got a used mag. 
that was on a Cub power unit on a combine that was bought new in 1952. I 
took the condensor out of it and put it in the tractor. I put it all 
back together and fired it up and it hasn't missed a beat since. I 
finished grading the driveway and have worked the garden twice and runs 
great. Mind you, all because of a part with less than 20 hrs. use. 
Myself and others always though a condensor was either good or bad, not 
work sometimes and not other times.
              Greg Hass