Thanks all for your help! The timing was off a little, so I fixed that, I put on new points and condenser. The coil reads 4.8 ohms at the terminals and 7800 ohms at the tower. That seems to be in spec according to the chart, no? I will replace it anyway. I'll let you know how I make out!

Thanks again!
BP

Good luck! :beerchug:

Your problem sounds like the classic starting to fail coil issue. Might be timing but without knowing how far off a "little" was its hard to say. Did you take your coil resistance measurements with everything cold or did you take them immediately after the tractor got hot and shut off? If done cold they don't provide any information in this case since you know the tractor initially starts and runs well.

I am more of a motorcycle guy so maybe these tractor coils are different but in my experience it is very hard to test a coil, in fact most motorcycle service manuals suggest replacing a suspected bad coil with a known good one for diagnostic testing. Easy to do on a twin cylinder 2 coil system but not so much on a single ;). I have been told although I don't know if it is true or not that even a high end multimeter doesn't have sufficent impedence to detect the fault in a bad coil even when the coil is hot & not working properly. I have personally experienced this both with Honda CB350 & Yamaha RD coils.

Let us know what you find.

Well, it looks like y'all were right! I replace the coil and condenser, and she stays running! Thanks a lot!

BP

That's great to hear!:beerchug:

Glad you got it fixed!