Water in oil

[stickandtin]

As a guest searching for info on a relaible used tractor, I found this site to be a wealth of info. It helped me make my decision to buy a '94 model Ford 3930 with a FEL and heavy duty 6ft shredder. When I went to look at the tractor, I examined it closely. Pulled dipstick, oil was black and nothing unusual. Pulled the oil fill plug, looked normal. Cracked oil drain plug on pan no drips of water. Tractor started right up, no smoke, no missing, purred like a kitten. FEL worked as it should. PTO and shredder worked, no problems there. 3 pt worked fine. Ran through the gears in both hi and low range, no problems. The tractor was everything I needed and I closed the deal.

First job when I got it home was shred my 10 acres which it did flawlessly. Over the next several weeks I used it to move dirt, fix my driveway and move some junk. I have a vintage travel trailer restoration business. I fabricated a 3pt. trailer mover for it and it worked wonderfully. I used the FEL to remove an RV rooftop AC unit. For me, this tractor was as handy as having thumbs. Since buying it, I've put 18 hours on it.

Yesterday disaster struck. I used the tractor for about three hours moving dirt to fill in some eroded areas around the foundation of my shop. Then I moved some trailers around. About an hour after I shut the tractor off, I decided to check the oil to see if it was using any. Pulled the dipstick and the oil level was overful and the dipstick was covered in "mayonnaise" and water droplets. Pulled the oil filler plug and found the same thing. Took the radiator cap off and no coolant visible. The tractor ran fine while I was using it, no smoke and no missing.

This 3930 has the older 201 cubic inch 3 cylinder diesel motor. Where do I start to figure out what's causing coolant to get in the oil? Are there any defects/faults specific to this year model 3930 and the 201 diesel that will cause this problem? Any help/advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Ron.

 

[Ed of all trades]

Ether it just happened and rather quickly I might say, or the seller had it patched up with some stop leak and hoped it held until you got it away from his place. Don't know that model but I hope it is not a too costly fix. Ed

 

[Fawken]

Usually its just a head gasket.

 

[Paul N]

The same thing happened to me this year on my Allis 180. I tried stop leak and it didn't help at all, so I had a mechanic look at it. He thought it was an O ring around a cylinder sleeve. No matter what the cause, he said it had to be rebuilt, because antifreeze in the oil pan is like 80 grit sandpaper on the bearings. $5,800 later, it's fixed. The mechanic was right, it was an O ring around the sleeve. It turns out that the previous mechanic that rebuilt it was an idiot. He not only twisted the O ring during installation, but he also put 1 connecting rod in backwards, and that took a chunk out of a different sleeve.

This is probably not the answer you wanted to hear, but you may need to do a rebuild.

Paul

 

[stickandtin]

Water in oil is never good news. I'm hoping it's just a head gasket. Wife's uncle farms 10,000 acres and told me he's had o-rings on sleeves go bad and put coolant in oil. Still hoping it's a head gasket LOL. First step, bought a 7 vol. set of shop manuals for this series tractor so I can study up on how this 3930 engine is put together. The first $250 spent on this repair. Yesterday's tractors has an in frame rebuild kit if I need one. So....how do you get the sleeves out and the new ones in??