Electronic Ignition Install on a John Deere Tractor

have you recently been become frustrated with your tractors ignition system points gone bad and corroded condenser failed coil bad it's a common problem unfortunately today we're not running our tractors like our grandfathers did on a daily basis time and nature lead to breakdowns in the ignition system it might be worthwhile taking a look at an electronic ignition from Steiner tractor parts these ignitions will allow you to completely eliminate the ignition breaker points as well as the condenser both of which today are hard to find that that hold up well and last very long so come with us take a look and we'll show you how to assess what you need an electronic ignition system and how to get it installed so the first thing to check out when you're looking at an electronic ignition system is to determine if your tractor has 12 volt or 6 volt system and also determine are you going to be using a positive or negative ground something to keep in mind at least for John Deere tractors anything prior to the mid 60s would have used a positive ground from the factory that doesn't mean that your tractor is currently still positive ground but it's the starting point so if you're unsure and if your tractor for instance does not have a battery hooked up if you open have a positive or negative ground you can actually look at the ignition coil the wire that comes from your coil to your distributor whatever the polarity is on the coil and they're usually marked at the top where there's two posts whatever that polarity is the wire going to your coil is typically or should be the polarity of your ground so if it's a positive from the coil wire to the to the the distributor that would be a positive ground very very versus if it was negative it would be a negative ground on the coil side to your distributor so in the situation with our 1959 model 430 W John Deere tractor we know that it's a six volt system positive ground but we just want to double-check that so using a volt multimeter our volt meter I'm using positively to ground I've got the ignition switch turned on and now I'm connecting to the wire to go from your coil to the distributor six point well six point two eight volts now something we might consider here if the system were to have any ballast resistor and in the line we would probably not see a full six volts but because I'm seeing more than six volts which my guess is is we're that's almost approximately the same voltage you'd see on the on the post of your battery means that there's no resistor in this system for this particular application we don't want a resistor in this system there's no need for it but it ultimately it just depends on the individual tractor system typically for our old tractors there's no need because our ignition electronic ignition kits are made to work at a full 6 or 12 volts which is actually a little bit more than six and a little bit more than 12 volts so we know now what we need we've got the right kit ordered because of course we've checked that out prior but that's something you definitely want to take a look at prior to ordering your kit so that you know you've got the right kit for your tractor so after taking the hood off on this application it's much easier to do this with the hood off of the tractor you'll see that the ignition coil was recently replaced due to a faulty one actually it was leaking oil out of the coil inside you'll notice the positive terminal because this is positive ground positive terminal is the one that goes down to our distributor and the negative is the input side coming from the ignition switch so what we're going to be doing for this application is we're going to be changing the ignition coil to the flamethrower version because it's we ultimately want more more voltage we are going to be removing the ignition points the breaker points and the condenser coil from the system we'll be taking this out and we'll show you in a minute what we're going to do to the to the system it's pretty simple so before we can install the electronic ignition we've gotta remove the old breaker points and condenser will also be removing the terminal block the insulates the insulator instead that goes through for to conduct power through the distributor also note that this is a Delco Remy ignition system so although you know the similar principles will apply regardless of the manufacturer this one is specific to the Dell Karimi systems used on the John Deere's so we're going to remove all these components and come back we'll have all these out of the housing and we'll be ready to install the electronic ignition alright so here's the components of our per Tronics the electronic ignition kit lists the part number we've got four two cylinders six volt positive ground one one two three p6 so inside the kit we've got we've got our little collar it's got magnets down inside that slips over the distributor shaft you notice that it's made in such a way that can only be installed in one direction or one spot and we've got the actual module that has this this magnet with the rotor spins it picks up before the magnet is and it tells the the module winda send fire to the individual cylinders and we've got a little pigtail grommet that'll be used to install back in the hole where the terminal came out and then a couple loop type terminals the only thing we'll need in addition to this is we're actually going to need to ground one side of the coil the positive side of the coil so we're going to be changing the way we're doing the wiring the instructions are very informative in regard to what we need to do there's also a frequently asked questions list as well so a very simple system probably the most difficult part is to ensure that this rotor is seated all the way down on the distributor shaft so we'll get to work installing and come back in a second so we're gonna start the wires put the grommet are the two wires through the grommet and then pull the wires into place you don't want any extra wire inside of the inside of the modular and inside your distributor rather and you'll notice these two small holes here ensure proper placement of the module but from there the screw that held down our our points and condensed are our breaker points used to tighten it back just like so so in the meantime we'll go ahead and pull this snug taking care not to pull it too hard sometimes I've I pulled through in the past and it's not good to do that I like to place the wires just about like so next step is to install the cap now you'll notice there's one spot that's kind of where the point or the lobe of the distributor shaft is a lot of times what I'll do is take a paint pen mark the lobe to make it easier and lining up and Mark the lobe here here in here to make it easy to see using a pen pen you certainly don't have to do this but we'll also see that here's my lobe I don't know if the camera can zoom in to see where the lobe is here the high spot we're going to push this down on ever so gently you don't want to get carried away you can break these I think I may resort to using sometimes I've had luck taking a socket that's just a little bit larger than this and just using hand pressure so I'm using an eleven sixteenths socket that's why I found that works good and it's critical you only use hand pressure and gently kind of work in a rotating motion try to get it all the way down and seat it there we aren't and I look all the way around to make sure there's nothing contacting and you can kind of see that there's even relationship all the way around and nothing binding or anything like that something I want to note is that if your timing was set prior to this it should be closed right on it may be necessary to use a timing light to time your ignition or to follow the operators manual procedures for your specific tractor into ignition setting the ignition timing just something to be aware of that may be required all right so we've made a good deal of progress in the wiring so for the instructions and something you're very different from the original wiring is we're actually grounding the positive side of the coil in this case to the chassis we chose the radiator support sheet metal support here took time to use Emery cloth and shine up the metal making sure it's a good a good connection the one of the wires that has the white stripe on it coming out of the ignition module actually comes up to the negative post on the coil now to power to provide power the solid black wire right here connects connects we spliced it into the ignition wire directly from our wiring harness that used to go to the negative post on the coil so very different from the original configuration but that's the way you've got to do it the next thing we did we cut our ignition or our spark plug wires to length now note you've got to use silicon core spark plug wires or carbon fiber carbon core spark plug wires with ignition electronic ignition the originals were a copper a copper wire easy to tell you can see the copper core and you want copper core wires for the old the old ignition setup but since we're going to electronic ignition we want to go with the suppression type wire so cut it to length you might find that just to give a little water when you slide the boots over the the ends of the cable get a little water on there to make set so you can actually move it you slip the little ends on be the only one that I've had usually try to line it up and you push the end on just like so and they kind of bite into the wire so they don't pull off so the big boot is also worth noting the big boot and goes to the coil and you push it in until it snaps you can kind of feel it click and then pull holding the wire kind of slide the boot over toward the end and the same thing down to our distributor cap sometimes you have to work with it just to get everything to pop into place as a tight fit which is what you want sometimes a good tight fit is not easy to obtain there we go okay we also installed new spark plugs as well just because while you're here it makes sense to to go that route so the moment of truth in neutral let's see what happens [Applause] sometimes it takes a few revolutions it seems before I kicks in you pulled the knob off our choke cable a second ago guess we're gonna put that on our list of Steiner tractor parts [Music] [Applause] [Music] there you have it it's pretty straightforward and simple to go with an electronic ignition kit you don't have to worry about corroded breaker points or bad condensers ever again something I always like to do on the side of my coil is right when I did the conversion and which ground it is just in case the tractor leaves my possession it goes somewhere else in the future well thanks for tuning in and good luck with your ignition kit

Channel: Steiner Tractor Parts

Views: 29,537

Keywords: john deere, electronic ignition, how to, tractor repair, tyler buchheit

Id: _2FxL38_h5Q

Length: 13min 45sec (825 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 22 2019