# Farmall 460 Distributer



## ihfarmer77 (Dec 22, 2015)

I have my papas old Farmall 460. It was running for a total of 10 hours over 2 months. Then when I turned it off to load another hay wagon it would not restart. I've found that it is in the distributed. I got power from the coil to distributer. Both primary and secondary. The rotor is fine but there is no power to the metal on the rotor. The coundser and points both look new.


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## HarveyW (Sep 15, 2014)

Hello ihfarmer77,

Welcome back to the forum.

Do you have any spark at all? Pull a spark plug and rest the metal base on a good ground, connect the plug wire and crank it to see if you have spark to the plug.

You need a blue white spark. An red-orange spark is not good enough. 

Try hooking a wire (hot wire) from the battery hot terminal directly to the coil input and crank it. This eliminates any connection problems you may have in the keyswitch circuit. You have to disconnect the hot wire to shut off the engine.

You measure the primary circuit only. Use your ohmmeter to check if your points have a good ground connection (0 ohms). Check that the points make and break the circuit thru the coil primary. If everything checks out ok, your coil is suspect.


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## ihfarmer77 (Dec 22, 2015)

No spark but when I took the secondary cable it sparked


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## HarveyW (Sep 15, 2014)

OK, you say that you have good spark at the coil secondary cable, but nothing to the plugs. That narrows the problem down to : 1) Distributor cap, 2) Rotor, 3) Plug wires, or 4) Spark plugs.


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## ihfarmer77 (Dec 22, 2015)

New plugs. And no power on the rotor when I put a voltage meter on it. I know its distributer. Just need to know how to find problem in distributer (points, condenser).


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## HarveyW (Sep 15, 2014)

There is no 12V power to the rotor. The coil secondary goes into the center terminal of the distributor cap, and from there to the rotor. The rotor rotates/distributes the high voltage to the spark plug terminals in the distributor cap.


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## ihfarmer77 (Dec 22, 2015)

I knew that. Why did I do that. Stupid me.


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## HarveyW (Sep 15, 2014)

Try replacing the distributor cap and rotor.


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## ihfarmer77 (Dec 22, 2015)

Does the cap and rotor go bad a lot. Trying to keep cost down.


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## ihfarmer77 (Dec 22, 2015)

I was thinking of replacing sparkplug wires. As they are not the best conditions.


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## HarveyW (Sep 15, 2014)

Sounds like the spark plug wires need to be replaced, but they wouldn't all go bad at once. 

In a previous post, you said that you had spark from the coil secondary. Was this a strong blue-white spark capable of jumping at least 1/4"? Or was this a feeble yellow-orange spark? A yellow-orange spark is not good enough. 

Your spark may not be capable of jumping the gap between the rotor and distributor cap terminals? You may have to go back to the points or coil if the spark is not strong enough?


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## ihfarmer77 (Dec 22, 2015)

I'll check the spark but its got a new coil


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## FredM (Nov 18, 2015)

has the rotor got the flat steel spring on top that makes the connection to the center pole in the distributer cap ?, without this connection, you wont get any spark what so ever to your spark plugs.

you may also want to use an ohm meter and test the HT lead from the coil to the center connection on the distributer cap, just to make sure there is a circuit in the lead.


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## ihfarmer77 (Dec 22, 2015)

Sorry I haven't gotten back to y'all on this subject. But I put a new cap and Roger on and the thing fired right up. Thank you all for the advice and experience.


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## ihfarmer77 (Dec 22, 2015)

I replaced the rotor and cap and she fired stright up.


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