Post Fri Aug 28, 2020 8:06 pm

Distributor Parts

Came across something many of you probably already knew, but I thought it might benefit someone out there. I’ve been working on the cab and bumper on my R112 but last week thought I’d fire up the engine, just for good measure since it had not run for a while. It ran really rough and after some troubleshooting it looked like the points were bad. No matter how much I cleaned and messed with them I couldn’t get them to show “good” on the meter or run the engine smoothly. Getting a replacement set was going to take several days so disappointment drove me to a different solution. A couple of weeks ago cleaning up my garage I came across a used set of points from my ’53 Ferguson tractor which also uses a Delco distributor. I compared them to those from my truck and not only did they match fairly closely, when I put them in and fired up the engine it had almost completely smoothed out. I also compared the rotors and they match as far as dimensions, although I haven’t tried the tractor rotor in the truck to confirm.
Saturday I stopped by the local farm supply store and picked up an ignition kit for a 4-6 cylinder Massey Ferguson tractor (also fits Allis Chalmers and John Deere) for $10.49, which included points, condenser and rotor. I’m not sure these will be the most reliable parts for a daily driver, but it appears they will do fine in a pinch. And if you live in a rural community you may have better luck with them being in stock in a farm store rather than an auto parts store, as many of these tractors are still in common use.