EMERGENCY: Smoke Coming out of Tractor Engine Area!

[GreenAcres]

I have a TC 33DA with a front end loader, 5 years old, 440 hours.


I was outside using it a few minutes ago, cutting high grass -- too high, but I have had surgery and it was the first day I could get to cutting it.


Because I have had so much work go undone for so long, I was pushing it even though it started to rain some. It wasn't a hard rain, and I was taking it slowly.


Then all of a sudden, it got to be a hard rain, and then all of a sudden the tractor cut out, and so I quickly shut it down right there, and I noticed smoke coming out of the opening where you lift up the tractor and I saw smoke coming out from underneath.


My husband is not home, and I don't know what to do.


It's just sitting out in the field now, and there is no more smoke coming out. But that smoke came out of it for a full five minutes, and I couldn't get the lid pulled up over it, and I didn't know what to do.


Do you all have any idea what just happened out there?


Did I burn up the engine?


Have I ruined the tractor?


I am panicking right now -- my husband's going to kill me (figuratively speaking, not literally) if I did something to hurt that tractor. My surgery has already cost us so much money, and now this?


Please tell us, what should we do?

 

[Ivan1547]

Did you hear any noises or did the engine not feel right?

It may be a belt that started to slip and burned up...very easy fix.

Wait until it stops raining and the engine cools off, then open up the hood and have a look for anything that does not look right, also check the oil and all the other fluids.

 

[GreenAcres]

I didn't hear any noise, and nothing felt wrong until the PTO quit running so suddenly, but that happens occasionally when a lot of grass gets trapped underneath the bush hog. And if that happens, it shuts down the engine.

I'm used to this, and if it happens I just shut down the engine with the key (the engine will already be shut down by itself, but I turn the key totally off) and then I move the PTO lever to the off position, shift it into neutral, lift up the bush hog to get it out of the grass, then turn the engine back on again without the PTO engaged and it starts right up.


There is never smoke under this normal shutdown situation.


But this time, it was quicker, it was different. It was like I was going great, and next thing, the tractor was shutting down and there was smoke coming out of the front of the tractor and down under.


It happened so fast I'm not sure all that happened, but this was definitely different.

And the thing that concerns me most is that the smoke went on for a full five minutes before it died down.


That has NEVER happened before.


So you don't think I burned up the entire engine?


(I sure hope I didn't. We just can't afford that right now.)

 

[Ivan1547]

Probably not...if there was a fire, you would know it. It would be more than smoke.

If the engine blew, then you would have heard lots of knocking.

Have a good look at it once everything settles down.

Ivan

 

[GreenAcres]

Oh, one other thing: it was black smoke, not white smoke.


I'm surfing the net right now, looking for some kind of information, because I'm not a mechanical type -- I can't even lift the lid over the engine area. (I tried, cuz I figured it would help it cool down.)


But I can read, and I keep reading about black smoke being different from white smoke. So I thought I'd come back and add that information here.

 

[horsinaround]

What did the smoke smell like? Burning oil? Burning rubber? Burning grass?

What can't you open the engine compartment/hood?

 

[GreenAcres]

I didn't smell the smoke, I just saw it. So I don't know what it smelled like. Yes, that's right, even though it emitted smoke through the hood openings for 5 minutes, I never remember SMELLING anything.


And as far as getting the hood open, I don't know why I can't get it open -- but it could just be me.


You see, when it comes to mechanical ability, on a scale of 0 to 10 with 0 representing no ability whatsoever, I am right down there at 0. I mean, I really have zero mechanical ability. And on top of that, I'm really small in statute.


I had never lifted the hood to the tractor before today, and I called my husband and he said there was a lever and you pushed it and it would release the hood.


Well I found the lever, and it did move, but I could never figure out how to lift that hood. And if you knew me, you would not be surprised by that -- even under normal circumstances.

 

[GreenAcres]

My husband went out and looked at the tractor.


He checked all the fluids, and the only thing that was low was the anti-freeze.


In fact, there was no antifreeze at all in the antifreeze tank.


He didn't see anything obvious to him, but he's not experienced with diesel engines (he actually is pretty good with gasoline engines), so he said there are probably hundreds of things he does NOT know about our tractor.


Obviously, we will not even try to start up the engine until it has the proper amount of antifreeze added to it.


What else should he look for?


What might running out of antifreeze have done to the tractor, especially with the fact that it was running a heavy load when all this happened?

 

[JMynes]

Generally speaking, coming from the exhaust, black smoke indicates a rich fuel mixture, blueish smoke means burning oil, and white smoke would be coolant going into the combustion chamber.

Black smoke coming from under the hood sounds like a fire, but that should be obvious once the flames show up. I would suspect a belt twisted or slipped and started smoking. That might even keep smoking for five minutes.

The absence of antifreeze is suspect, too. But that should have produced a white steam, not black smoke.

I would check all the belts, fluids, and hoses. Fill the antifreeze back up, make sure all the other fluids are good, and try starting it up. If it runs, look for leaks, squealing belts, wobbly pulleys, etc. If it all looks good, run it!

 

[GreenAcres]

He said that -- as far as he could tell, looking at it out there in the field -- that the belt looked OK (he said that he only knows of one belt on it). In fact, the only thing he could see when he opened it up and looked at it was the complete absence of antifreeze.


I understand now why he kept asking me if it was white smoke I saw instead of black.


But I saw BLACK smoke, not white. I am sure of that.


Well, thanks for trying to help. The next step is to get some antifreeze into the unit, and then see what happens.


Thanks guys for helping.