keep it simple stupid

When I was teenager, I had things such as lawn mowers and motorcycles to maintain and repair.  I was never a mechanical genius, but I was able to take care of most issues.  When a simple gas engine doesn't run, you pretty much check two things: fuel and spark.  There are several components that deliver those to the engine, but spark and fuel (+ air) are the items you need for the motor to run.

The easiest way to check if you had spark was to disconnect one of the wires from the spark plug and hold it about a half an inch away from the end of the plug and crank the motor.  If the ignition system was working properly a beautiful bright blue arc ("small lightning" as my son put it) would appear between the spark lug and the end of the wire.  The list of potential problems is long, but at least you know if you need to work on the ignition system or not.

Well, I spent many of my adult years in very technical occupations and I learned to use handy things such as a volt meter.  So when my tractor mysteriously stopped running a few days ago I immediately verified that fuel was getting to the carburetor and moved to the other side to check the ignition system.  This is where I started to create problems for myself.  I reverted back to the old days and immediately pulled a wire off of one of the spark plugs, to check for power.  Rather than doing it the old simple way and just checking for a spark, I thought to myself "I will go get my meter and check the ignition system with that."  That is just what I did.  I placed the positive meter lead on the end of the spark plug cable as I cranked the motor and I had power.  I then thought to myself "Great now what?  It has fuel and spark, it should be running."

I started to take things apart that I then had trouble putting back together properly; things were getting worse rather than better.  I proceeded to "beat my head against a wall" for the next couple days, even swallowing my pride and attempting to get a mechanic to come out and fix my piece of junk tractor that I had only owned for a couple months.  I would have taken it to a mechanic, but my 5,000 pound paper weight was too heavy for my little trailer and even if I did have a trailer that would carry it; how was I going to get it up onto the trailer?  Oh and I forgot to mention, it rained every day so I had to put up a sunshade which helped, but was not meant to keep water out.  Needless to say, I was not a very "happy camper".  All the while my loving wife and children tried to help by offering advice such as: "Did you check to see if it has gas dad?"  Very sweet, but it was just adding to my frustration.

Anyway, I eventually decided to do the old "spark" test and determined that the power was getting from the coil to the distributor, but not through the distributor cap out to the spark plugs.  If I held the coil cable about a half inch from the cap it sparked just fine and the tractor fired up, but as soon as I plugged in the cable, the tractor died.  I am still not real sure what was wrong with the distributor cap, but I dove 3 hours round trip to a John Deere dealership and got a new cap.  Once I got home and put the new cap on, the tractor fired right up and is running like a champ.  I also don't understand why my volt meter showed I was getting power, but I wasn't getting the spark I needed.  If I had kept it simple on day 1 and done the basic spark test rather than using my fancy meter, I would have solved the whole problem a lot sooner and would have saved me a lot of time and stress.

One of the best phrases I have learned in the Marine Corps is K.I.S.S. - Keep it Simple Stupid.  In other words, you are stupid if you unneccesarily complicate things.  I thought it was beneath me to troubleshoot an engine the way I learned when I was 12 years old, because I have since been educated and have more technical knowledge.  Oh well, live and learn...  by the way, I no longer think my tractor is a piece of junk; since it is running again I LOVE IT!!!!