[AT] Covid-19 Quarantine tractor project

[Stephen Offiler]

Hey Spencer - wondering if you're aware of tachometer smartphone apps, and
why you went with the Harbor Freight device.

SO

On Thu, Apr 30, 2020 at 8:26 PM Spencer Yost <spencer at rdfarms.com> wrote:

> So I took a break from the motorcycle tonight and moved to the 430.
>
> After I got the engine unstuck a few years ago I did a static timing of
> the ignition; but I never did do a running timing. First of all I had still
> needed to clean and adjust the carb and plus I wanted a few hours of
> running on it before I did a true running timing on it.
>
> As you can guess, I never got around to it.  (-:
>
> While the static timing  was close I got a sense of misfire at high idle.
> Not a true misfire but not “right” either.
>
> The 430 is an engine that you time at full open throttle, no-load RPMs.
> The service manual provides PTO shaft speeds that correspond with engine
> speeds which is helpful because my tachometer busted probably 15 years
> ago.   So I opted for the shaft conversion table.   But my shaft contact
> tachometer was borrowed by a friend in the 90s and it disappeared( Not his
> fault:  he became quite ill and eventually passed and I didn’t have the
> heart to bother him or his widow for it or several other tools).  So I
> bought an optical tachometer from Harbor Freight several months back for
> this task.
>
> I put a piece of reflective tape that came with the optical tachometer on
> the PTO shaft and used that table in the manual to double check idle and
> full throttle, no load RPMs.  The optical tachometer did fine, but as the
> reviews of the product indicate you do want the area to be fairly dark, and
> you want to be holding it exactly perpendicular to the axis of the shaft.
> It also helps to brace your arm while your hold it.
>
> For reasons I do not remember, I had to adjust the governor shaft when I
> was done unsticking the engine and preparing it for test runs. So my high
> idle RPM was actually dead on. But it definitely took some futzing with the
> carburetor to get my idle speed right.
>
> I needed to do a good bit of adjustment of the distributor to get the
> timing mark to come up.   I would say a 5 to 10° turn. It now idles without
> “loping” and runs at full throttle without a hint of that misfire sound.
>
> A good day.
>
> Spencer
>
> Sent from my iPhone
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