Oil & Fuel Knocking and smoking after about an hour of use on MF-135?

[chrislee]

Howdy All,

At my church we have a MF-135 Diesel that we use for grounds maintenance. I recently added a Ford 907 flail mower to help with the fields and had it in use today when I started getting a loud knocking and white smoke coming from the bottom of the engine area today. I shut it down and decided to check the oil level and saw that the stick was bone dry (yikes-note to self: check the oil before using). So, I went and got 15-40 diesel oil and put in around 6 quarts. Tractor cranked back up and was a happy camper for about 40 minutes/hour and then the knocking/smoking came again. It was late at that time so I got it back to the shed before it may shut down on me (in the middle of the field).

One other point is that it appears that the motor has been sluggish while mowing with the flail. I've been going in 1st/2nd gear and it will want to stall about if going through some tall grass (the work around is to lift the mower higher).

Overall, white smoke is the predominant smoke but on occasion I believe I see some blue smoke.

Any idea what the issue may be? I've done some reading and folks point to a bad rod but since this happens after running for a while, I wanted to see if that changes the diagnosis any. Ultimately, I believe we'll need to rebuild the engine (any tips/pointers for a newbie like myself?). Lastly, could it be that the flail mower is putting too much strain on the engine? Based on the specs I pulled up, this tractor should be fine with the 6' size of mower.

Thanks for any assistance you can provide!

Have a great day!

chris

 

[redman135]

Ohhh Dammm.
The knocking indicates crankshaft damage, and since you carried on it is probably major.
White smoke tells me that you have a blown head gasket and the radiator is loosing water.
Sluggish performance say very sick engine, with above symptoms.

 

[Navasot]

Ohhh Dammm.
The knocking indicates crankshaft damage, and since you carried on it is probably major.
White smoke tells me that you have a blown head gasket and the radiator is loosing water.
Sluggish performance say very sick engine, with above symptoms.

Yup... id haul it across the scales

 

[Navasot]

Do not rebuild the engine... youll put more money into that tractor than what its worth and could risk the block already being damaged.

unless you have sentimental value

 

[Agvg]

No nock before you have run it a while? How is the oil pressure? Can be a bad injector.

 

[chrislee]

That is correct. The tractor starts up without knocking. It's only after it's been running about an hour does the knocking start. I did not check the oil level once I was putting it up before it got dark.

No nock before you have run it a while? How is the oil pressure? Can be a bad injector.

 

[chrislee]

Hmm..I was thinking that a rebuild would run around $1000 (but then I know nothing about tractors
I guess the next steps would be to take it to a service center and get the diagnosis of what damage has been done. We've had it since 1991 so we got our money's worth out of it.

If we need to scrap it, do you folks have any recommendation on what we could get that was comparable for under $3000? Since we have a 6' Ford flail mower (907), I believe we'll need something with more than 30 PTO hp.

Thanks again for the suggestions.