tractor points puzzle

I have a ford jubilee tractor. It ran great yesterday but when I got on it this morning it needed the choke longer to stay running. Then halfway down the hill it quit running and wouldn't not restart. I had power to the distributor but none coming out. Turns out the points were so far out of adjustment they wouldn't even attempt to open/close. I recently replaced the distributor, points, cap, plugs, etc. The points were not loose - so how did they get so far out of adjustment?

It's running good again now. It wouldn't have took me so long to get it going again but I figured the points were good and that was the last thing I checked

 

Broken or missing advance spring(s)?

 

I'd have to pull the cap and dust cover to verify but I don't think it has advance springs. This is a 1953 ford tractor.

 

You need to put a tiny amount of grease on the point cam and rubbing block. Will slow the wearing of the rubbing block. What happened was the block wore down to where the points couldn't open.
Regular point gapping will stall off such problem in the future.
Happy mechanicing!

RR

 

I wondered if the rubbing block had worn down but the confusing part is the distributor and points have less than 20 hrs on them. Is it possible that block was defective and some of it broke off?? It ran great in the afternoon when parked but when I went to pull it out of the barn the next morning is when the trouble started.

I'm familiar with the little packet of lube for where the points meet the cam but these points came already installed in the distributor. They were even gapped correctly [I checked]