Leaking head??

[Korishan]

Yeah, i've already changed the injector out and still had the same response. Now, the injector was messing up before I had them cleaned. That's how I found a problem to begin with. Pop the #2 injector line loose and the tractor ran a lot smoother. Still rough, but smoother. It will kind of still do the same thing now, but it still sputters and burns the blue smoke. An oil galley I am hoping in the gasket has started to fail. At least a head gasket is a lot cheaper to replace than a whole head, or worse, a block.

I do have a diesel compression tester. It has a one-way valve on it to hold pressure as the engine turned over. This allows for the build up of pressure to be read accurately. I just need to pull the glowplugs out and check from there.

Now the local diesel guy at the parts department said that we could try putting Red Devil in the oil. That could potentially stop the leak. It costs like $35 a bottle. but we need to do an oil change when we do that. I'm still leaning towards possibly needing to replace the gasket soon. It's not a super expensive item, though it is still >$70. And the tractor is easy to work on from that standpoint as the we just need to disconnect the 16LA loader and take the hood off and everything right there. No trying to be a contortionist to get to stuff

Thanks for the input.

Kori

 

[rScotty]

Yeah, i've already changed the injector out and still had the same response. Now, the injector was messing up before I had them cleaned. That's how I found a problem to begin with. Pop the #2 injector line loose and the tractor ran a lot smoother. Still rough, but smoother. It will kind of still do the same thing now, but it still sputters and burns the blue smoke. An oil galley I am hoping in the gasket has started to fail. At least a head gasket is a lot cheaper to replace than a whole head, or worse, a block.

I do have a diesel compression tester. It has a one-way valve on it to hold pressure as the engine turned over. This allows for the build up of pressure to be read accurately. I just need to pull the glowplugs out and check from there.

Now the local diesel guy at the parts department said that we could try putting Red Devil in the oil. That could potentially stop the leak. It costs like $35 a bottle. but we need to do an oil change when we do that. I'm still leaning towards possibly needing to replace the gasket soon. It's not a super expensive item, though it is still >$70. And the tractor is easy to work on from that standpoint as the we just need to disconnect the 16LA loader and take the hood off and everything right there. No trying to be a contortionist to get to stuff

Thanks for the input.
Kori

Kori, I'm still not convinced that you have a head leak. BTW, did you pattern the injector against a piece of cardboard after cleaning it? It's not too late to do that. Statistically, injector problems are common; diesel head leaks are not. In fact, most diesel problems end up being somewhere in the fuel feed system. And usually an injector that looked good. How about swapping the #2 injector with either a known good one? Or at the least swap it with one of the other injectors. That's easy and simple to do.

Depending on what swapping injectors tells us, you might want to then measure the injection pressure that the pump is delivering to all three injectors. What we would be looking for might be a fuel pump with a flat cam, or maybe something inside the fittings or fuel line.
Unfortunately that is a very high pressure test and probably does have to be done at a diesel shop.

Yes, all the compression gauges I've used have that same type of one-way valve you describe. But then none of them were rated at diesel pressure. Still, that part shouldn't be all that different. I am not sure that even if you do have a leak between the combustion chamber and oil passage that it is going to show up on a simple compression gauge. What do you think?

I don't know anything about those oil additives. I've wondered about them myself but always ended up fixing problems the tradtional way.
rScotty

 

[Korishan]

I did say I changed #2 cylinder injector. I had bought a new one and that's the one I put in there. The symptoms are still there.

I haven't done a pattern test as I need a new piece of steel tubing so I can position the injector away from the motor (the space is too tight to try and test right against the motor).

All 4 fuel lines were cleaned with carb cleaner (soaked) and then blown out with air.


I can't imagine some dark fluid coming from some other location than from a leaky head gasket. The fluid is showing up between the head and block, above the injectors. And they aren't spraying up that far. As far as I can tell there isn't any water coming out from any anywhere, either.

 

[rScotty]

I did say I changed #2 cylinder injector. I had bought a new one and that's the one I put in there. The symptoms are still there.

I haven't done a pattern test as I need a new piece of steel tubing so I can position the injector away from the motor (the space is too tight to try and test right against the motor).

All 4 fuel lines were cleaned with carb cleaner (soaked) and then blown out with air.


I can't imagine some dark fluid coming from some other location than from a leaky head gasket. The fluid is showing up between the head and block, above the injectors. And they aren't spraying up that far. As far as I can tell there isn't any water coming out from any anywhere, either.

I must have missed your having bought a brand new injector for #2. From what I read my impression was that you had simply cleaned the old one & replaced. As several have noted that doesn't always work.

I'm curious about the Red Devil oil additive. How does it work? What are people's experiences with it?
rScotty

 

[Korishan]

No biggie, there's a lot goin on. I miss stuff in forum listings too

I'll definitely do some more research on it before we add the red devil. At that cost, it better do some good. If it was like $10, no biggie.

 

[ericm979]

I'm confused- your video shows the injector and the "cylinder head" leak ABOVE it. But all the tractors I've owned or looked at had the injectors in the head. They kind of have to be as the injector fires at about TDC. (ok I could come up with a stepped piston that would allow the injector to be on the cylinder wall but it'd result in a poor combustion chamber shape. Or the head could be one piece like on a chain saw or early gas engines but that's hard to manufacture).

That joint doesn't look like the valve cover though I could be mistaken about that. Could the head be one of those two piece ones? Seems unlikely as that's normally done on DOHC heads not simple pushrod two valve ones.

 

[Korishan]

I hadn't looked at it, and didn't think about it, but I think it is a split head. *was tryin to explain it, but I think a picture is better served here *

I circled the sections of the motor from block-head, head-head, head-cover. I also included a picture of the head parts assembly. As you can see it is in 3 parts total for the head section.

 

[Korishan]

eric: I'm actually glad you asked this question. I didn't realize the head was 2 sections. After thinking about it, the problem is probably not quite as severe as I had originally thought it might be. So, it's not a head gasket, in the traditional sense from a more familiar block-head gasket. It's between the two sections of the head.

So, with that enlightenment, could it be that the upper gasket is leaking oil down into the chamber through the valve or some other means? I'd like to try to figure out what I might be needing to look for before I start pulling the top of the motor apart. As the tractor is usable right now; so I don't want to shut it down and find something else is possibly wrong and have to wait longer to get it back up.

Thanks for the input,
Kori

 

[ericm979]

Dang, it is a two piece. The upper part is the rocker box. Your problem gasket is #35. It's just leaking to the outside, not the combustion chamber. The valves are already operating in oil. Often there's an oil seal on top of the valve guide (possibly its #8, it looks too short for a guide). Sometimes the tight clearance between the valve and valve guide is enough to keep most oil out of the combustion chamber. The oil in the rocker box is not under pressure and there's not a huge amount of it. I'd be leery of oil additives that plug leaks. What else do they plug?

It should be pretty easy to replace the #35 gasket though you'll need to loosen the valve adjusters before removing the rocker box and adjust the valves afterwards. You'll probably want to replace #34 too.

In any case I don't think the gasket weeping is causing the rough running problem.

 

[arrow]

Personally. I think you are doing a stellar job with this with no experience. All smoke colors from diesels are a clue. Blue, black and white smoke pretty well covers it. You have blue smoke and the following are all tell tales for blue smoke. Blue smoke will be emitted when the engine is burning oil, this can sometimes be accompanied by
oil coming out of the end of the exhaust pipe, common problems are:

A. Worn cylinder liners or piston rings
B. Piston rings sticking
C. Faulty valve stem seals
D. Engine over full with engine oil
E. Dilution of the engine oil with fuel
F. Wrong grade of oil,I.E.Too thin
G. Too good a quality of oil in an old classic engine, I.E. Using semi synthetic or fully synthetic oil.
E. Glazed cylinder heads

Doing a compression test may tell you if rings are shot in a particular piston.