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East Central Indiana | The problem started this summer raking hay. As the day wore on, the tractor started missing more and more until it was down to 3 cylinders most of the time. Ran fine at idle, but with a slight load above 1500 rpms it would miss. Plugs were black but not too cruddy. My number one mistake was not going and buying a spark tester. The plugs showed spark when held by hand, but apparently it wasn't a strong spark, or i was dealing with two separate problems all along. Here's a list of how we tackled it:
1. Replace distributer cap, condenser, points, rotor, wires. No change.
2. Disassemble the Marvel-Schebler carb. No problems found.
3. Replace fuel pump. No change
4. Sent the carb to Denny's carb shop. When it returned, the tractor ran GREAT for two days, then quit and we had to tow it to the barn.
5. Disassemble the carb again, found SCOTCH TAPE floating in the float bowl. Blew out every passage we could find. Tractor still won't run.
6. Drove to Denny's carb shop, talked to the lady behind the counter who said "all the guys are gone right now but I'll have them call you back." The next thing we heard from Denny's is that the carb is ready again and we owe them another $100. Dad told them to keep the carb and shove it you know where.
7. Bought a Zenith carb from Robert's Carburetor. Tractor still won't run. Wow. Really? We are terrible mechanics.
8. Inspect EVERYTHING in the entire wire harness, run jumper cables to the coil and ground the distributor. No change.
9. Finally found that the new condenser in the distributor wasn't grounding to the plate properly, even though everything was clean and shiny. The tractor ran fine with it for two days, but it apparently lost contact and we immediately assumed that the debris in the carb float bowl was at fault.
Sigh. This wasn't a fun experience. On the other hand, while we were waiting for parts multiple times, we got every single leak in the tractor fixed. Even split it apart to fix the trans input shaft seal, and heck, throw a new rear main in as well.
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3020 gas finally fixed after two months.
