 Tuesday was one of those days that the night before was cold and the morning was foggy. So everything metal in the tractor shed was dripping with condensation. (And you can tell at a glance where the water level in the rears is.)
I checked the oil and radiator, hopped up on the seat and rr-r-r-r-r; not even the slightest hint of firing. I wasn't having the brightest day, I immediately decided I had flooded it and started messing with the carb. Cut off the fuel, drain it, try again, take the air cleaner hose loose, generally waste time for thirty minutes or so. Finally I move on to checking for spark. I take the coil wire loose, hold it close to the oil filter cover and push the starter buttom. Not an easy stretch, but good spark. Put it back on and waste some more time trying the starter, the choke, flooding, wah, wah, etc. Then pulled off a plug wire and tried that. No spark. Took the distributor cap off. It looked ok to me, not wet, anyway. A little powdery metal, some blackening on the posts and rotor. I wiped it out,scraped off what I could, put it back and tried again. Nada. Took it back off and sprayed the inside thoroughly with CRC Electric Equipment Cleaner. Let it dry (takes seconds; I don't know what that stuff is; looks sorta like ether, but says non-flammable), put it back together and it fires off like there had never been anything wrong. So anyway, I eventually get to a question. This hasn't ever happened before, even when caught out in the pouring rain. Why now?
I don't mind a bit getting a new cap and rotor, in fact I'm ordering them soon as I get done with this, but is there anything extra to help keep it dry inside? Or was it more likely a cleaning or wear problem? Somebody suggested there might be a crack too small to see letting moisture in, but as you can see in one of the photos there's a (I guess) vent hole in the side of the cap already.
Also, and BTW, in the inside photo you can kinda see that the posts ( is there another name) show the most wear and blackening at the edge where the rotor button leaves contact. Is that fairly normal or does it mean something? The tractor does run amazingly smoothly, I hesitate to mess with, for instance, the timing.
Thanks for putting up with my ramble.
Wm
Here's what the outside looks like:
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