farmall distributor repair part 1: disassembly, evaluation, & cleaning

hi i'm pete and welcome to just a few acres farm a few weeks ago i made a video about diagnosing magneto problems on my farm all h and at the end of the video i had to swap in a magneto off my super a to get the h running well after that video i ordered a used battery ignition unit or distributor from ebay and in this video i'm going to show disassembling evaluating and cleaning that old distributor to get it ready to put on the h this is a two-part series so after this video i'll be following up with another video that shows painting reassembling and installation back on the h and getting her running of course when you order something used off ebay you look at the pictures they put up but there's no assurance that the thing is in great condition so the first thing to do is unpack what i had ordered and it cost me about 75 for this old unit now it's time to take everything apart and see what needs fixing i checked the cam that the rotor mounts to for play too much side to side play and too much end to end play and these can make the tractor run rough as it results in an inconsistent points gap and inconsistent ignition timing the cam has some play but i think it'll be okay the only cure for this play really is to buy a brand new distributor there are no bushings to replace to tighten up the cam i checked the drive shaft for play and it's tight if it had play there's a bushing inside that can be replaced the drive gear and drive end look good there's no wear on the gear teeth and that drive end can have some wear on that t-shaped end but this looks fine now i take the points and condenser out they look almost new there's a lot of points and condensers on the market now they're really questionable quality so i'm going to replace them with what i know is a good set and keep the ones that come out as spares i take the breaker plate off to expose the timing advance mechanism there's another plate under that which helps keep the advanced weights in place and i take that off too i take the timing advance springs off then pull the cam off and take the weights out i also checked the high points of the cam for wear to get the drive gear off the distributor shaft i have to remove a pin that holds it in place to get the pin out i put the assembly in a vise and drive it out with a punch the washers that are on the shaft are to limit shaft and play and i need to save those and put them in when i'm reassembling the drive housing is full of old smelly grease there's nothing like the smell of 75 year old grease it has its own unique aroma it's going to need a thorough cleaning as are all the parts cleaning the parts starts with brushing them off in the parts washer this gets oil and some of the hardened grease and dirt off then i use a combination of a wire brush on a bench grinder a brush on a drill and a dremel to get the rest of the hardened grease and paint off this is one of my least favorite jobs about restoring old equipment but i really enjoy reassembling clean freshly painted parts when it's time to clean the timing advance mechanism i take a closer look at it the studs that hold the weights are worn and one of them is bent and loose [Music] i put the assembly back together to see how much play everything has it's worn but i think it'll be okay i'm not fixing a porsche here it's an old tractor but i'm going to have to fabricate a new stud to replace the one that's badly bent and worn i use a cut-off disc on the dremel to grind off the riveted end of the stud and pull it out making a new stud is going to require a farmer fix i don't have a machine shop so i'm going to fabricate a new stud with what i have on hand i use a pair of calipers to measure the studs diameter then find a screw with a little bit larger diameter i chuck the screw into the drill press and use a file to remove the threads the threads up inside the drill chuck will remain on the screw and that's part of the plan then i drill out the hole from the original stud to accept the thread tap the same size as the screw threads and tap threads into the hole i thread the screw in but it's too loose in the threads it wobbles back and forth like the original stud did so i cut off the screw head threaded into the plate and weld it to the plate from the underside then i grind the weld down so it won't interfere with the distributor housing and i cut it to the correct length [Music] next i grind a groove near the top to hold the spring looks pretty good i reassemble the advanced mechanism to make sure everything fits properly and it does problem solved here's a really simple explanation of how timing advance works in a distributor so i have the distributor housing empty and here is the the advanced mechanism that goes in the distributor housing as you've seen in the video like this and when i turn it what happens is there's centrifugal force generated by the spinning that makes the weights move outward so let me take this back out so the whole thing's spinning the weights move outward and when the weights move outward these little arms on the back side of the weight push on this that's connected to this cam shaft here so this camshaft is separate from the drive shaft that drives the distributor around and when the weights are flying outward when the tractor motor is running fast see it changes the relationship of the cam to the shaft here so you have the points riding on this cam and when the points open and close that's what determines when the spark plug fires as the points are riding on these and hit these points they open up so you're changing the time at which the points fire now on an h the advance is about 40 degrees off of regular so it doesn't look like 40 degrees here but when you work back through the engine drive chain that's how much the timing is advanced on the crankshaft pulley now it's a real simple mechanism this is looser than i would like and the springs are they're okay and like i said this isn't a porsche it's an h from 1940 so i think it'll run fine if i have problems once i get it in i do have a source to get new springs for this and that'll tighten it up quite a bit having fixed the issue with the timing advance i clean up the rest of the parts i need three replacement gaskets i've found it's cheaper and easier to make my own gaskets out of rolled gasket material and if you go to any auto shop you can find it in different thicknesses and compositions i use the old gaskets or the parts that the new gaskets need to fit to as a pattern for making the gaskets here all the parts cleaned up and i really like working with nice clean parts with all the gunk and grease removed and i can really see what i'm working with on things like this when you clean them up you can make sure that everything is in good shape and not worn and there's nothing worse with than working with old greasy parts and trying to get them together and cleanliness is important in the distributor so everything's ready to go now in the next video i'm going to show painting these parts getting everything together and getting all the new parts like cap and rotor and coil and all that stuff in and then i'll put it on the h and we'll see if she starts thanks for joining me and i'll see you next time

Channel: Just a Few Acres Farm

Views: 39,946

Keywords: small livestock farm, small farm life, farming, farm, homestead, just a few acres farm, farmall distributor rebuild, farmall h distributor rebuild, how tractor distributor works, how distributors work, international harvester, farmall, farmall H, distributor timing advance, distributor timing advance springs, distributor timing advance weights

Id: fJXnFY9Nxhw

Length: 11min 52sec (712 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 29 2020