Warning-this may be a long post.
I bought this Hino about 2 1/2 years ago. It's my first tractor, and I'll be the first to admit I knew nothing about them. I know a little more now-thanks to resources like this great group-but I've still got a long way to go. For instance, I didn't know you couldn't use ether-the guy at the place I bought it from (I guess it's one of those "roadside lots" you guys keep talking about) used ether on it when it was a little hard to start when he was showing it to me, so I thought that was okay to do. Shoot, the starter fluid I buy even said it's for diesels! Of course, after reading here, I know better now, but the damage is probably done. It's always been a little hard to start, so when it was cold I'd just give it a little shot to help it along. Always concerned me somewhat when I'd hear a bang or thud during the starting process, but I just assumed that was part of it.
Also, the tractor has a FEL on it, and I've worked it hard. Now I read on here that my model shouldn't have a FEL installed on it, that it might make the front end go out. Well, that may have happened also, as I'll describe later.
A week or so before Christmas I used the tractor with a subsoiler attached to it to break up some ground so we could dig a trench to lay some conduit in. I worked it pretty hard, as our soil here in Middle TN has a lot of clay in it. In the middle of doing this, it suddenly overheated. Turned out the belt broke this time, but it has overheated several times in the past, and I always wondered about it, as I was always careful to keep a good mix of antifreeze in it, and checked the level often. After hard use the level always seemed to go down-a lot of it was blowing out the overflow. I put a new radiator cap on it, sprayed out the fins in the radiator a lot, and when I was working in a dusty area I even put a furnace filter in front of the radiator to keep the dirt out of it, and changed the filter often (I'm in heating and A/C and had a bunch of scrap filter material to use). I thought maybe the water pump was going out. Now I believe that it's possible the head gasket is blown (which I actually had also wondered about).
Anyway, the tractor worked okay except for having to replace the belt. I got the new belt on, and finished what I was doing. It was probably a little over a week later when I used the tractor again, this time to push the dirt back in the ditch and to move and spread some gravel. While I was doing this I had headphones on and was listening to an MP3 player. In the middle of doing this, all of a sudden the tractor starts losing power and putting out black smoke, then quits. Since I had the music playing in my ears, I didn't really hear what it sounded like when it did this. The fuel gauge said 1/2 full, but I decided to fill it up anyway. Guess what? When I took the cap off the tank appeared to be dry (it was after dark and I couldn't see it very well, but it did indeed appear to be empty). I added fuel to it, and, knowing it probably wouldn't start, tried it anyway. Sure enough, no go. Since it was already 10 PM and I figured I was ticking the neighbors off anyway, I figured to let it go until the next day. Now I've gone through the pain of bleeding this thing once before, when I changed the fuel filter, and I know how hard it can be. I cracked the nuts at the top of the injectors and cranked it over until fuel started seeping out, then tightened them and tried again. Still no go. Had other holiday things to do, so I basically left it there until last weekend. Then my son and I used my truck to drag it to the garage. First thing we notice is the front wheels are dragging, not turning. I've got it in neutral, and I then pulled back on the 4WD lever to make sure it's disengaged. They still drag. I figure maybe I have to get it started and get the gears turning to totally disengage it. The drive is wet and the wheels are muddy, so we decide to drag it on over to the garage (when it quit it was only about 30 yards from the garage door anyway). While we are pulling it the rest of the way, one of the front wheels frees up. We get it close to the garage door and jack it up to put it on dollies to get it in the garage. When we jack up the front end, if we spun the free wheel, the other wheel turned also. ????
Got it into the garage, and have been tinkering with it a little here and there since then. Checked out the glow plugs, found 2 of 3 were dead. Ordered some, they came in today. Tried 'em, no luck. Since it had run dry and had put out all the black smoke, at one point I ended up pulling the injectors out, carefully taking them apart and cleaning them, and then put them back together and reinstalled them. Wouldn't start then, but I figured the dead glow plugs didn't help there.
While waiting for the plugs to come in, I ran across this forum and started reading. Stayed up 'til 11:30 last night reading, cutting, and pasting info into a word document. Today the plugs came in, but before I installed them I went to Harbor Freight and bought a cheap ($25) diesel compression tester. Another poster had said the pressure should be 398-454 PSI with a minimum of 327. Now I don't know how accurate this HF tester is-I know it's nothing like you professional diesel mechanics that post here use-but it showed the following; cylinder closet to steering wheel, 460 PSI, middle one, 240 PSI, the farthest front one, 260 PSI. I blew air in the middle cylinder and couldn't feel any coming out of the other two. I should also state that when I did this I was using the ports for the glow plugs, before I put the new ones in, so this might not be accurate-I guess the pressure might bleed back through the injectors, now that I think about it. What do you guys think? I just really didn't want to disturb the injectors again, and wasn't sure this kit had the right size fitting for them, whereas it did for the glow plug holes.
Anyway, I put in the new glow plugs and tried starting it. Nada. BTW, I've kept my automatic charger on the battery since this weekend. It periodically kicks on to keep the battery charged, so I don't think that's the problem, although I also read that a car battery, which is what this probably is, may not crank it fast enough. What kind of battery should it be? I replaced the starter earlier this year, so it should be working properly. I even pulled the rubber hose between the intake and the filter body off, and sprayed a little WD-40 down the intake; somebody here had suggested that to another person with a similar problem-I figured it was to increase compression. After spraying a little in, I then directed a heat gun to blow down the intake. When I cranked it over, nothing really happened at first, then about 25 or 30 seconds into cranking it would start to sound different, like it was about to catch, and then start putting out black smoke. It would do this for a few revolutions, then sound like nothing was happening, then for a few revolutions sound like it was about to start again. I was afraid to crank it very long-as it is, the starter overheated a couple of times and I had to let it cool off. Tried this a few times, then gave up and decided to come here and post. A couple of times when I was cranking it, it almost seemed like it was blowing smoke back out of the intake, like a valve was stuck open or something.
So, what's everybody's opinion(s). Blown head gasket? Stuck valve? Just haven't gotten the fuel system bled out properly? Somebody mentioned injection pump 180 degrees out of time on another, older thread. Can that happen w/o taking it off? Speaking of timing, how do you time this engine?
And the front end-think a gear's busted, as another poster had experienced, or do I just need to get it running again to get it out of 4WD? I kinda like this old tractor, but as everybody points out, Hino's are tough to get parts for. If it's going to take a lot to get this thing going right, I don't want to waste money on it. My wife is open to me getting a brand new tractor
, and with all the 0% financing going on, I could see myself on a new one, a brand that parts are available for. I just hate to give up on this one if it can be fixed for a reasonable amount. But the chores are backing up-post holes need to be dug, dirt needs to be moved, gravel needs to be spread, and the drag harrow needs to be drug over the horse manure....
Let me know what you guys think, and thanks in advance for any help you can give.
Tad
I bought this Hino about 2 1/2 years ago. It's my first tractor, and I'll be the first to admit I knew nothing about them. I know a little more now-thanks to resources like this great group-but I've still got a long way to go. For instance, I didn't know you couldn't use ether-the guy at the place I bought it from (I guess it's one of those "roadside lots" you guys keep talking about) used ether on it when it was a little hard to start when he was showing it to me, so I thought that was okay to do. Shoot, the starter fluid I buy even said it's for diesels! Of course, after reading here, I know better now, but the damage is probably done. It's always been a little hard to start, so when it was cold I'd just give it a little shot to help it along. Always concerned me somewhat when I'd hear a bang or thud during the starting process, but I just assumed that was part of it.
Also, the tractor has a FEL on it, and I've worked it hard. Now I read on here that my model shouldn't have a FEL installed on it, that it might make the front end go out. Well, that may have happened also, as I'll describe later.
A week or so before Christmas I used the tractor with a subsoiler attached to it to break up some ground so we could dig a trench to lay some conduit in. I worked it pretty hard, as our soil here in Middle TN has a lot of clay in it. In the middle of doing this, it suddenly overheated. Turned out the belt broke this time, but it has overheated several times in the past, and I always wondered about it, as I was always careful to keep a good mix of antifreeze in it, and checked the level often. After hard use the level always seemed to go down-a lot of it was blowing out the overflow. I put a new radiator cap on it, sprayed out the fins in the radiator a lot, and when I was working in a dusty area I even put a furnace filter in front of the radiator to keep the dirt out of it, and changed the filter often (I'm in heating and A/C and had a bunch of scrap filter material to use). I thought maybe the water pump was going out. Now I believe that it's possible the head gasket is blown (which I actually had also wondered about).
Anyway, the tractor worked okay except for having to replace the belt. I got the new belt on, and finished what I was doing. It was probably a little over a week later when I used the tractor again, this time to push the dirt back in the ditch and to move and spread some gravel. While I was doing this I had headphones on and was listening to an MP3 player. In the middle of doing this, all of a sudden the tractor starts losing power and putting out black smoke, then quits. Since I had the music playing in my ears, I didn't really hear what it sounded like when it did this. The fuel gauge said 1/2 full, but I decided to fill it up anyway. Guess what? When I took the cap off the tank appeared to be dry (it was after dark and I couldn't see it very well, but it did indeed appear to be empty). I added fuel to it, and, knowing it probably wouldn't start, tried it anyway. Sure enough, no go. Since it was already 10 PM and I figured I was ticking the neighbors off anyway, I figured to let it go until the next day. Now I've gone through the pain of bleeding this thing once before, when I changed the fuel filter, and I know how hard it can be. I cracked the nuts at the top of the injectors and cranked it over until fuel started seeping out, then tightened them and tried again. Still no go. Had other holiday things to do, so I basically left it there until last weekend. Then my son and I used my truck to drag it to the garage. First thing we notice is the front wheels are dragging, not turning. I've got it in neutral, and I then pulled back on the 4WD lever to make sure it's disengaged. They still drag. I figure maybe I have to get it started and get the gears turning to totally disengage it. The drive is wet and the wheels are muddy, so we decide to drag it on over to the garage (when it quit it was only about 30 yards from the garage door anyway). While we are pulling it the rest of the way, one of the front wheels frees up. We get it close to the garage door and jack it up to put it on dollies to get it in the garage. When we jack up the front end, if we spun the free wheel, the other wheel turned also. ????
Got it into the garage, and have been tinkering with it a little here and there since then. Checked out the glow plugs, found 2 of 3 were dead. Ordered some, they came in today. Tried 'em, no luck. Since it had run dry and had put out all the black smoke, at one point I ended up pulling the injectors out, carefully taking them apart and cleaning them, and then put them back together and reinstalled them. Wouldn't start then, but I figured the dead glow plugs didn't help there.
While waiting for the plugs to come in, I ran across this forum and started reading. Stayed up 'til 11:30 last night reading, cutting, and pasting info into a word document. Today the plugs came in, but before I installed them I went to Harbor Freight and bought a cheap ($25) diesel compression tester. Another poster had said the pressure should be 398-454 PSI with a minimum of 327. Now I don't know how accurate this HF tester is-I know it's nothing like you professional diesel mechanics that post here use-but it showed the following; cylinder closet to steering wheel, 460 PSI, middle one, 240 PSI, the farthest front one, 260 PSI. I blew air in the middle cylinder and couldn't feel any coming out of the other two. I should also state that when I did this I was using the ports for the glow plugs, before I put the new ones in, so this might not be accurate-I guess the pressure might bleed back through the injectors, now that I think about it. What do you guys think? I just really didn't want to disturb the injectors again, and wasn't sure this kit had the right size fitting for them, whereas it did for the glow plug holes.
Anyway, I put in the new glow plugs and tried starting it. Nada. BTW, I've kept my automatic charger on the battery since this weekend. It periodically kicks on to keep the battery charged, so I don't think that's the problem, although I also read that a car battery, which is what this probably is, may not crank it fast enough. What kind of battery should it be? I replaced the starter earlier this year, so it should be working properly. I even pulled the rubber hose between the intake and the filter body off, and sprayed a little WD-40 down the intake; somebody here had suggested that to another person with a similar problem-I figured it was to increase compression. After spraying a little in, I then directed a heat gun to blow down the intake. When I cranked it over, nothing really happened at first, then about 25 or 30 seconds into cranking it would start to sound different, like it was about to catch, and then start putting out black smoke. It would do this for a few revolutions, then sound like nothing was happening, then for a few revolutions sound like it was about to start again. I was afraid to crank it very long-as it is, the starter overheated a couple of times and I had to let it cool off. Tried this a few times, then gave up and decided to come here and post. A couple of times when I was cranking it, it almost seemed like it was blowing smoke back out of the intake, like a valve was stuck open or something.
So, what's everybody's opinion(s). Blown head gasket? Stuck valve? Just haven't gotten the fuel system bled out properly? Somebody mentioned injection pump 180 degrees out of time on another, older thread. Can that happen w/o taking it off? Speaking of timing, how do you time this engine?
And the front end-think a gear's busted, as another poster had experienced, or do I just need to get it running again to get it out of 4WD? I kinda like this old tractor, but as everybody points out, Hino's are tough to get parts for. If it's going to take a lot to get this thing going right, I don't want to waste money on it. My wife is open to me getting a brand new tractor
, and with all the 0% financing going on, I could see myself on a new one, a brand that parts are available for. I just hate to give up on this one if it can be fixed for a reasonable amount. But the chores are backing up-post holes need to be dug, dirt needs to be moved, gravel needs to be spread, and the drag harrow needs to be drug over the horse manure....Let me know what you guys think, and thanks in advance for any help you can give.
Tad
