So, my neighbors are putting some land in CREP and had to have it mowed. They hired the local farmer to mow it with his old IH chopper, which usually works slick. After a while though he pulled up in front of my house; his chopper broke down, bad clutch, and would I like to take over and mow the rest of it? Sure! Hooked up the KK hog to the N and started in.Got two passes around one of the fields and was on the very far side when suddenly the eNgine just shut off like you had turned off the ignition. Of course this stuff always happens to me when I"m as far from the garage as possible; about a third of a mile in this case. Check for out of gas; nope, not this time. Gave it a quick once over for loose wires. Poked at the coil wires. I keep a wrench and screwdriver in the toolbox, so I took off the fuel line, and gas came out, so that wasn"t the problem. Fished around in the tool box, and found a little aluminum wire that I was using for a clip. jammed it in a spark plug wire, held it up by the plug... no spark at all. OK, so something electrical. The switch? Tried jumpering the switch with the tiny wire; no go, not the switch. Walked up to the house and got a pail full of tools and all my old tractor ignition parts; all that junk that I always save because it might not be "used up" yet. Switch, points, coil, etc. Got the meter. Took everything I could think of because I didn"t want to walk back again. Once I got back down tot he field I gave it a try again just in case, no go, no spark. Started tracing the voltage. 6V across the switch with the switch off. 0V with switch on, good. 6V at the coil. OK, on to the distributor. Popped the top, bent the rotor contact, no go. Checked the points, not stuck closed. Gapped them with gauge, still .025. Went back over all the electrical connections and the junction block and tightened everything. The headlight switch connection was loose, but that wasn"t the problem. Huh. So, time to to start replacing parts at random! My usual technique anyway. I started with the condenser, seemed like a likely culprit. Put the new one in, and ta-da! It started right up. Bad condenser! (either that or I jiggled something). Has anyone ever had one fail catastrophically like that? Anyway, I won"t be saving the old one in my pile of probably good parts this time.
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