No spark no matter what I do

whammer · Saturday at 5:02 PM

Bit of a long story but I got my hands on a Oliver oc-3 crawler loader(wareloader) for $100, looked like **** and had a tree growing out of it. I had planned on using it for yard art, by the time I got it home I decided to do some snooping around and found it in almost operable condition. After about half a year of on and off working on it, its almost ready to run besides 1 VERY important system, the ignition system. I had put in a new ignition coil, new leads to spark plug, and ballast resistor as well as rebuilding the dc generator and starter after all that I still aint get no spark. Ive made sure all contacts are clean, and the part of the body I ground the ignition and distributor too is clean as well but no matter what I do I still seem to get no spark. I narrowed it down a bit, if you hold the lead coming off the ignition coil well turning it over and ground yourself to the frame it hurts like hell but if I plug it into the distributor and try turning the dozer over I cant seem to get any shock running threw the spark plug lines. and the distributor rotor seems fine it even had alot of material on it still plus I cleaned the rotor and cap terminals so it should be a clean touch. Im out of ideas If yall have any Recommendations or ideas and thing's I might have missed Id greatly appreciate any help.

side note I also tested the spark plugs on a different system and they worked great and that all wire crimps were tight. vr, dc generator, and amp meter are not hooked up right now.

Update, as gordon gould made a very fair point. i didnt mention a capacity because i didnt realize it even had one so after some research i found it was under the distributor. i fixed the way i had it wired, and cleaned the breaker contact and i FINALLY GOT SPARK no thanks to my ignorance but hey ya live ya learn so thanks to all of you for the help.

DJ54 · 2025-08-24T06:49:24-0400

Can't tell heads or tails from your pictures, but the wire from ignition switch should go to the input on the ballast resistor. Depending on which battery cable is ground, I would go neg. ground like a standard 12V system, then the output from ballast resistor should go to the positive post on the coil. Neg. side of coil should go to input into distributor.

Not sure what you're other wiring is too, but it could be shorting the system out.

Gordon Gould · 2025-08-24T07:18:45-0400

You didn't mention a capacitor. Could it be shorted ? Or wrong rotor.\?

gg

Tinhack · 2025-08-24T08:11:03-0400

whammer said:
if you hold the lead coming off the ignition coil well turning it over and ground yourself to the frame it hurts like hell but if I plug it into the distributor and try turning the dozer over I cant seem to get any shock running threw the spark plug lines. and the distributor rotor seems fine it even had alot of material on it still plus I cleaned the rotor and cap terminals so it should be a clean touch.

I think you found your own problem.

Post a picture of the inside of the cap and the rotor. The center of the cap should have a carbon connector. Sometimes they're solid with a spring-tab on the rotor and sometimes they're spring loaded with a bras bar on the rotor. Make sure the carbon is whole and that the rotor height can make contact with it. Replacement parts could be all wrong.

Measure the height of the installed rotor from the top edge of the distributor. Then measure the distance from the carbon to the inside edge of the cap--Where it mates to the distributor.

Get a spark tester and stop using your body to test spark. It's bad for your heart.

If it hurts, your body is trying to tell you something.

Roadworthy · 2025-08-24T12:15:51-0400

Instead of connecting yourself to the ignition coil try connecting a spark plug. If the body of the spark plug is grounded you should see a spark when you rotate the distributor. If so the points are doing their job. If the distributor cap is cracked or there are any carbon tracks your spark may be going straight to ground. Inspect it and the rotor very carefully.

WranglerX · 2025-08-24T12:36:08-0400

Another test of distribuitor is put a test lamp on negative (-) side of coil and clip to ground, if the light does not flash when you crank engine, you have either no power to coil, coil is open circuit on primary side, or points in distribution are bad (permanently closed or open).... IF it passes the flash test, and dist timing is correct then you have a fuel problem (or lack of fuel)...