Farmall SMTA Timing

clay mcnamara · Jul 24, 2012

Having trouble with this... Had the head rebuilt, now runs like its out of time. Heres what i did: Compression stroke on #1 cyl, TDC, the timing mark hits right on the little timing mark, distributor right on #1 cyl plug wire. Tractor runs out OK but labors...

I even shined the timing gun on it, and it is a bit off, if you move the distributor to where teh timing mark hits the crank shaft mark, its way off time and runs even worse.

Valves set correctly hot, tractor has electronic ignition. What am i doing wrong?

teddy52food · Jul 24, 2012

Can you tell if the advance is working?

David G · Jul 24, 2012

Are the plug wires in the right order?

clay mcnamara · Jul 24, 2012

Plug wires are correct, im not sure how to check teh timing advance??

pete 23 · Jul 24, 2012

Super MTA should be 30 degrees advanced at full throttle. That is the right way to check timing. Problem is, that model doesn't have a 30 degree mark on the pulley so you will have to measure and calculate it out. If it has been converted to fire crater it should have been changed to a 22 degree advance and that was supposed to be marked on the pulley. I can tell you the measurement of that 22 degree mark as I did many, it is 1 and 7/16 inch before the top dead center mark. There again, you always set the timing on them at full throttle. If your distributor is in excellent condition, then the timing will fall right close to top dead center at a low idle speed of about 450 rpm but I can tell you, very few will. It is the high rpm timing that is important, and let the low end fall where it may. But, you should know which advance you have in the distributor with takes a little playing around with timing light or taking breaker plate out of dist and looking at the marking on shaft. They are all marked. Actually about 5 different ones and over the years who knows what has been put in that tractor.

clay mcnamara · Jul 24, 2012

Let me ask this though... ive done plenty of farmalls- when you hit the "sweet spot" even by ear, that motor should run so smooth the rain cap wont hardly move off the muffler... this one is laboring almost all the time. It does not hit the sweet spot no matter where you turn the distrib. Obviously if you twist it far enough, eventually it dies.

I just dont get what's wrong... i never did do a comp. check, but i dont think thats my problem

pete 23 · Jul 24, 2012

I would be interested to see what degrees it is actually firing at and go from there. Maybe you have something else like hydraulics making it labor.

the tractor vet · Jul 25, 2012

There IS no sweet spot that is correct , yes you can ADVANCE the timing to where YOU THINK IS CORRECT but you are dead wrong and it will hurt you set at what you call the sweet spot . If you want to be correct then put a light on it .

Farmall SMTA Timing

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clay mcnamara

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