Situation: I recently completed the restoration of my 1953 M38A1. I did not rebuild the engine, although I did convert it back to 24V from 12V. I installed a NOS distributor and she was running fine (except for a few shake down / punch list items) until the distributor seized, causing the tip of the shaft to snap off. I reinstalled a re-built distributor but can not get her to start. The failure mode of the distributor is not known, although the collar (7351133) appears to have seized against the timing advance / retard bracket.
- 1) The coil and condenser are new and test as functional on the multimeter. The points are at the same setting as before the re-build.
2) There is spark
3) I have moved the distributor through a range of advance / retard settings- A. At about 2/3 of the adjustment for advance, it will "puff", not backfire, but make a loud puff out of the muffler. I assume this is fuel vapor although I have not ascertained that fact.
B. At the mid-point of the advance / retard adjustment it will backfire out of the carburetor.
C. A small shot of ether appears to have no effect, I expected, from my farm life experiences, that a small shot of ether would make the engine at least grumble a little.
5) After rebuilding the distributor, I simply reinserted it into the engine with the tab seated as per the manual.
6) The oil pump has not been messed with and appears to function properly. Nothing was done to change the indexing.
7) Batteries are charged and the starter appears to be turning at the correct RPM.
8.) No other systems were tinkered with during the troubleshooting for this issue - I assume it is getting fuel, etc. since those were not touched.
9) The shake down issues were a) an overheating problem (which could be related to a timing issue) b) the amp gauge not registering. - A. At about 2/3 of the adjustment for advance, it will "puff", not backfire, but make a loud puff out of the muffler. I assume this is fuel vapor although I have not ascertained that fact.
