Hi good people.
I am a newbie member but have been reading your forums for years - very informative and also strangely addictive...
I recently bought a second orange tractor - a B8200HST from 1988. 2 previous owners: a city council, where it was used for mowing a sports ground for 12 years, and then the lying ******* that I bought it from. (He is a very lucky man. He sold his tractor AND he lives a long way away AND my back is recovering from major surgery).
And then along came John.
Anyhow, enough of that. I got the tractor home, started it up again, black, and white smoke until all cylinders firing properly. Would move, hydraulics worked properly, seemed fine and ready for a little TLC. Then the engine bogged down and died, with dark grey smoke from exhaust and breather.
Tried to start it again, but it seemed reluctant to turn over, almost like it was seizing up, but it didn't overheat at all. A few minutes later and she fired up just as before, ran for a few minutes and then died, just as before. Dark grey smoke, bogging down, normally means fuel problem. Cleaned tank, lines, changed fuel filter (fair amount of crud and a small amount of water in there), also changed air filter, though it looked fairly new and was pretty clean. Fired her up: same.
Decided to take the muffler off to see what was happening on start-up. Found a coal mine in there! About 1/8" of carbon on all three ports and a small oil well -leakage onto No 2 inlet valve stem. Fired her up, and the same, but much better without the muffler. Turns out that was nearly blocked up, so ordered a new one. Also ordered a compression tester as my workshop only had one for gas engines.
Checked and adjusted valve clearances that were not quite correct. She ran better, and the horrible knock that she had had, disappeared.
Still bogged down and died though! I've 'listened' to different parts of the engine with the old long-screwdriver-in-the-ear trick, and didn't hear anything out of the ordinary.
Compression tester arrived so took off the injectors and discovered that No3 injector was not tightened up properly, with lots of crud around the threads and the port.
Dry test: 1: 200, 2: 300, 3: 100.
Wet test: slight improvement, but not more than about 10psi. Decided to rip its head off (previous owner wasnt around so couldn't do his!), and had a look inside. Plenty of carbon, but gasket looked good, and bores clean and with hardly any wear ridge at the tops. Encouraging...
Rockers and valves off. There were no oil seals in place. Lots of wear to valve stems and guides - they obviously needed replacing. At this point I decided to get a complete new head from Kumar Bros - by the time I'd got valves, guides, springs, etc and got it all back together, that's a fair bit of time and money, plus I'd have to have got the guides removed and replaced by a specialist - no press in the workshop yet....
So, head arrived, rang Kumar Bros to check if valves were honed-in and they said 'yes, just bolt on and go'. So, I bolted it on, and it didn't go.
New compression tests: Dry: all around 200psi. Wet: the same. That was encouraging in a way, as they were all similar pressures, just not enough. Valve clearances checked again, compression test the same. Decided that this MUST be the valve honing not up to scratch so had a look and it LOOKED OK.
I didn't try testing the valves for leakage with a bit of fuel before installing the head; forgot that one. I also feel that the starter isn't turning the engine over very fast, so that might be impacting on the compression figures too.
I have ordered a new starter motor, (battery is new by the way), and also a fresh set of injectors from Oregon Fuel Injection; I reckon the parts these will replace are 29 years old, so it's probably time...
My next step is head off again, check for leaks with fuel in the valve ports, and then hone in the valves anyway. Then Ill re-assemble and see what happens.
I'm not even thinking about the bottom end, partly because I don't want to and partly because there's no blue smoke or significant blow by, and all the bores are clean. I should have said that I've left some ATF in the cylinders for 24 hours, but no discernible difference. I had thought about stuck rings, but then surely I'd get plenty of blue smoke and blowby. Wouldn't I?? And if the rings were stuck 'expanded' surely I'd be seeing some scoring to the bores.....
Mmm. I hope this isn't boring to the scores. Scores of great people on OTT!
So Lovely Orange Tractor People, what are your thoughts please? I'd be really interested and grateful to hear.
Thank you for reading of my woes and thank you in advance for any thoughts you may have!
I am a newbie member but have been reading your forums for years - very informative and also strangely addictive...
I recently bought a second orange tractor - a B8200HST from 1988. 2 previous owners: a city council, where it was used for mowing a sports ground for 12 years, and then the lying ******* that I bought it from. (He is a very lucky man. He sold his tractor AND he lives a long way away AND my back is recovering from major surgery).
And then along came John.
Anyhow, enough of that. I got the tractor home, started it up again, black, and white smoke until all cylinders firing properly. Would move, hydraulics worked properly, seemed fine and ready for a little TLC. Then the engine bogged down and died, with dark grey smoke from exhaust and breather.
Tried to start it again, but it seemed reluctant to turn over, almost like it was seizing up, but it didn't overheat at all. A few minutes later and she fired up just as before, ran for a few minutes and then died, just as before. Dark grey smoke, bogging down, normally means fuel problem. Cleaned tank, lines, changed fuel filter (fair amount of crud and a small amount of water in there), also changed air filter, though it looked fairly new and was pretty clean. Fired her up: same.
Decided to take the muffler off to see what was happening on start-up. Found a coal mine in there! About 1/8" of carbon on all three ports and a small oil well -leakage onto No 2 inlet valve stem. Fired her up, and the same, but much better without the muffler. Turns out that was nearly blocked up, so ordered a new one. Also ordered a compression tester as my workshop only had one for gas engines.
Checked and adjusted valve clearances that were not quite correct. She ran better, and the horrible knock that she had had, disappeared.
Still bogged down and died though! I've 'listened' to different parts of the engine with the old long-screwdriver-in-the-ear trick, and didn't hear anything out of the ordinary.
Compression tester arrived so took off the injectors and discovered that No3 injector was not tightened up properly, with lots of crud around the threads and the port.
Dry test: 1: 200, 2: 300, 3: 100.
Wet test: slight improvement, but not more than about 10psi. Decided to rip its head off (previous owner wasnt around so couldn't do his!), and had a look inside. Plenty of carbon, but gasket looked good, and bores clean and with hardly any wear ridge at the tops. Encouraging...
Rockers and valves off. There were no oil seals in place. Lots of wear to valve stems and guides - they obviously needed replacing. At this point I decided to get a complete new head from Kumar Bros - by the time I'd got valves, guides, springs, etc and got it all back together, that's a fair bit of time and money, plus I'd have to have got the guides removed and replaced by a specialist - no press in the workshop yet....
So, head arrived, rang Kumar Bros to check if valves were honed-in and they said 'yes, just bolt on and go'. So, I bolted it on, and it didn't go.
New compression tests: Dry: all around 200psi. Wet: the same. That was encouraging in a way, as they were all similar pressures, just not enough. Valve clearances checked again, compression test the same. Decided that this MUST be the valve honing not up to scratch so had a look and it LOOKED OK.
I didn't try testing the valves for leakage with a bit of fuel before installing the head; forgot that one. I also feel that the starter isn't turning the engine over very fast, so that might be impacting on the compression figures too.
I have ordered a new starter motor, (battery is new by the way), and also a fresh set of injectors from Oregon Fuel Injection; I reckon the parts these will replace are 29 years old, so it's probably time...
My next step is head off again, check for leaks with fuel in the valve ports, and then hone in the valves anyway. Then Ill re-assemble and see what happens.
I'm not even thinking about the bottom end, partly because I don't want to and partly because there's no blue smoke or significant blow by, and all the bores are clean. I should have said that I've left some ATF in the cylinders for 24 hours, but no discernible difference. I had thought about stuck rings, but then surely I'd get plenty of blue smoke and blowby. Wouldn't I?? And if the rings were stuck 'expanded' surely I'd be seeing some scoring to the bores.....
Mmm. I hope this isn't boring to the scores. Scores of great people on OTT!
So Lovely Orange Tractor People, what are your thoughts please? I'd be really interested and grateful to hear.
Thank you for reading of my woes and thank you in advance for any thoughts you may have!