IDLING DIESELS

[bkc]

I'm located in chautaqua county Galen. The tractor only has 40 hours on it and has only had on road fuel in it "dyed green".I have put fuel treatment in the last fill up per the bottles directions, don't remember what the name of it is but got it at tsc. Thought maybe water in fuel from condensation in tank, treatment sayes gets rid of water so I'll give it a try
Been working on cars and trucks since I was a kid, pretty good mechanic, just no diesel experiance or computer experiance sorry bout caps lock.
If per chance it is just water will it pass or should other actions be taken?
thanks Brian

 

[GaryCrowell]

There should be a water seperator drain somewhere around the fuel filter, try draining it. If that doesn't work I honestly wouldn't worry about it. It's likely that your fuel control unit is shooting too much fuel into the cylinders when you advance the throttle and some of it isn't getting burned, therefore the white smoke. Most of the older diesels would do this. I wouldn't expect that out of a new kubota, but mahindra is mostly "old school" technology so it wouldn't suprise me. If it's running okay then I wouldn't worry about it.

Idling doesn't hurt a diesel, and I've never bought off on the wet stacking idea. I've let my dodge/cummins idle for up to six hours (while I took a nap with the A/C running) and never had a problem from it. It's got 320K miles on it now so I guess it hasn't hurt it too much.

 

[Mike_Lipke]

Wet stacking is real, just not on every engine and not under every condition.
I used to run an over the road truck (Mack) and if I let it idle for a long time, especially in cold weather (below 20 deg), raw fuel used to be visible running down the outside of the stack. Very real.
That wet fuel is everywhere in between the end of that exhaust pipe and the valves in the head.
Now, when you put that engine back to work, under a load, especially if it has a turbo, you can get flames coming out of that exhaust. Not a good thing, and on a big engine, it can melt and warp things.
If you run it easy till everything heats up and evaporates that fuel, no problem.

 

[bkc]

Thanks guys, must have been water or bad fuel I did add fuel conditioner and everthing has cleared up. No more smoke thanks for all the imput.
Brian

 

[Tim_in_IA]

I've got a 6500 4wd. After reading this thread I realized that I dont use the tractor at full power a whole lot since it has so much. I am getting ready to run a round baler that should work it pretty good, but wanted to make sure I didn't have this white stacking issue. I was driving down the road and revved it up to pto speed and about a 1/2 second white poof came out and then left. Thanks for posting about this. I'll make sure to give it a good workout every now and then to keep it cleaned out. I use the fuel additive as well so that probably helps me out.

Only other thing I have read in the manual about idling is that to make sure you have all of your gear selectors in neutral or damage to gears may occur (Forward/reverse, hi-low, and the gear selector).