Thanks to You

Dell, the spark plug wires were not reversed. It ended up being a bad coil. Thanks for your continued support.

I ran into a Ford tractor repairman after exploring the suggestions on this board. He gave me a couple of pieces of advice I thought I'd pass on in case it helps someone else. First, he said that the timing setting on the front mount distributor is not critical - I found this to be true on my 8N. He told me something I never read on this board: If you take the distributor off the tractor and remount the coil without the distibutor cap and rotor, you can spin the shaft on the distributor and the coil should shoot a healthy spark from the contact that connects to the cap. A weak spark/no spark indicates a bad coil. He suggested that you do this test with the distributor mounted in a vise and connected to a spare 6V battery. I did not actually try this because he seemed sure that I had a bad coil since I had checked everything else.

Sorry about the long post. Anyway, it runs great. Thanks again for your help.