I thought about it, but think you're likely best to leave it be for the moment. If it was "running when parked" and running well enough for now, timing is not one of those things that slips out of adjustment. New points can change it by a few degrees, but rarely radically enough to affect good/acceptable running, and the fine tuning to overcome that is usually done by ear. For that reason only, I'd suggest you see how you make out with the idle adjustments on the carb first and, in the absence of a problem, wait until you can get your hands on a manual before tackling the timing.
That said, you can't get into too much trouble by checking your static (motor stopped) timing. To do that . . .
Pull your #1 plug (the one nearest the front) out and remove the coil wire from the center of your distributor.
If you have the hand crank, turn your motor (Hint: it will turn easier if you remove all four plugs) until you feel the piston forcing the air out through the #1 plug hole. Continue turning until the air stops pushing out and starts to pull a suction. From there, you have two choices for finding top dead center. You can tip a narrow screwdriver or a stiff wire into the plug hole so that it rests on top of the piston. Turn the engine fan back and forth until you find the point that the screwdriver handle or wire drops to its lowest point (meaning that the piston is nerest the top of its stroke) and stops before changing directions. That will be TDC.
(If you don't have a hand crank, I'd highly recommend removing all four plugs and using the fan to trun the motor for this part of the exercise. Trying to get to TDC by bumping the starter can lead to confusion if the motor rebounds/recoils -- i.e., it could bounce back on the compression stroke, which feels to the finger in the plug hole just like advancing to the firing stroke, at which point you may be lost. Having all the plugs out and turning by hand (fan or crank) eliminates that confusion.)
The alternative is to look up through the hole at the very front of the bottom of the front end of tje torque tube, just behind the motor. From there you can see the rim of the flywheel. TDC is marked by a line stamped on the flywheel. It runs from front to back and is marked TC, 1-4. It can be hard to see, as it's a pretty shallow stamping and is rather commonly filled up or obscured by the kind of dust and accretions that tend to gather down there. If you can find it, you'll need to turn the motor (again the fan is a good way to do this as long as the fan belt is reasonably tight) until that line is at the very bottom of the flywheel and lines up with a post cast into the cover jsut in front of it.
However you get to TDC, I'm going to assume from this point that you have a battery ignition and not a magneto. Get a test light, one that looks like a screwdriver handle with a light bulb inside, a sharp probe for a tip, and a wire (that will have an alligator clip on the end of it) out the end of the handle.
Locate the small wire that runs from your coil to the distributor, then look for the wire just opposite that on the top/end of the coil. Hook the clip on your test light to a good ground. (Test your light and your ground by hooking your clip to what you think is a good ground and touch the probe to the hot side of your battery. If it doesn't illuminate your test light, you're either on the wrong side of the battery or you don't have a good ground. That or the battery is dead.) Turn your ignition on (DON'T start the tractor!) and touch your probe to the terminal on the switch side of the coil. It will either light up your tester or it won't. That doesn't matter at this point.
With the motor at TDC on compression on #1, it's at the point where the motor should fire from a stop. The coil delivers its spark when the points open (which is another discussion) so you want to be at a point that the light is just flickering between on and off when touched to the low voltage terminal on the coil.
The adjustment (depending on what you have for a distributor) is obtained by loosening the adjusting bolts and turning the base that the cap is attached to. These are NOT the same bolts that attach the whole distributor to the motor.
If you view the entire distributor assembly as an hourglass with the cap at the top, the bolts I am referring to will have their heads at the top of the bottom half of the hourglass, fairly near to the neck, and may or may not pass through an oddly shaped flat clamp as they thread toward the motor. Don't take them out, just loosen them so that the caps of the bolts are a little away from the surface. Doing so will allow you to turn the top of the hourglass (cap and all). It may take a little gumption to get it started, but try not to move it too far in getting it loose.
With your test light making the connection, rotate the distributor cap back and forth slightly until you find the point where the test light flickers on and off. Tighten the bolts, if there are two of them, back down as evenly as possible. Even if there is only one, the aim is to keep your distributor right at the point where the light could flicker on or off. That's the point where it fires and that should be at TDC when starting from a stop. If you have to err a litle in one direction, better to have the light flicker on, so that you will be firing just slightly after TDC instead of before when starting.
Good chance I've missed something, but that's about all there is to static timing, but it should have you running, and should be good aross the whole range of speed on a new motor or a good rebuild.
Apart from that, you may discover (down the road) that an adjustment to timing might be good, and that would likely result from wear/lash in the timing gear train. That is the kind of thing that is usually adjusted with the motor running and takes an ear and some experience to dial in. It's not hard to get carried away with it and time it to a point that it runs well but is too fr advanced to strt reliably . . .
So I'll close with apologies for my length, and a redundant caution that you may not want to get into adjusting your timing until you are sure it's necessary.
We sell tractor parts! We have the parts you need to repair your tractor - the right parts. Our low prices and years of research make us your best choice when you need parts. Shop Online Today. [ About Us ]
Today's Featured Article - The Cletrac General GG and the BF Avery A - A Bit of History - by Mike Ballash. This article is a summary of what I have gathered up from various sources on the Gletrac General GG and the B. F. Avery model A tractors. I am quite sure that most of it is accurate. The General GG was made by the Cleveland Tractor Company (Cletrac) of Cleveland, Ohio. Originally the company was called the Cleveland Motor Plow Company which began in 1912, then the Cleveland Tractor Company (1917) and finally Cletrac.
... [Read Article]
All Rights Reserved. Reproduction of any part of this website, including design and content, without written permission is strictly prohibited. Trade Marks and Trade Names contained and used in this Website are those of others, and are used in this Website in a descriptive sense to refer to the products of others. Use of this Web site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy
TRADEMARK DISCLAIMER: Tradenames and Trademarks referred to within Yesterday's Tractor Co. products and within the Yesterday's Tractor Co. websites are the property of their respective trademark holders. None of these trademark holders are affiliated with Yesterday's Tractor Co., our products, or our website nor are we sponsored by them. John Deere and its logos are the registered trademarks of the John Deere Corporation. Agco, Agco Allis, White, Massey Ferguson and their logos are the registered trademarks of AGCO Corporation. Case, Case-IH, Farmall, International Harvester, New Holland and their logos are registered trademarks of CNH Global N.V.
