The Fordson Tractor Pages Forum

the story , drove her home {super dexta} bout 6 miles she stopped on lane out side garage fuel prob i thought so new filter later she wont start turns over fast enough and smokes from chimney but wont fire up. she has always breathed a little but now with oil cap off loads o smoke when she s been turned over. can rings break up all of a sudden and prevent her from firing or could it be a holed piston? any help gratefully recieved thanks

Have you bled the fuel system after changing the filter.
Have you also checked/cleaned/changed the fuel tank tap filter.
Was it breathing this much before it stopped, or have you only noticed the breating because it now won't go?

new filter and fuel at injectors she s always breathed a bit but seems worse now and wont fire at all

hi, did u ever get anywhere with starting the engine? i know you shouldnt encourage its usage, but have you tried giving her a sniff of easy start?

hi tried her with a sniff no good she turns over fast enough and smokes a bit looking like surgery im a fraid ,pistons n liner time

Hi, I,d seen many of this engines "from insides" after about 50 year and a hard life mostly of this old smalltractor,s is in bad shape. Some is still ok, (with few houres on its lifetime) but as usual the tractor,s is begin moore hard to start, farmers is beginning use electr.enginwarmers or using starting-gas in the breather, and so on. All this is sign to the owner that it is time for open up the engine. - My wiev on the mainproblems is: a headcheeck with changing of valves and controll of all the parts in the head is an easy job. The second and most importen job is mybee to drill and hoone the cylindres to overzise, and install all three new pistons with ring,s
-All this is cheap parts and the engineblock my still be as good as new again. I even have opened a old engine who not run anymoore, but after open the engine I,d just hooned the cylinders and changed piston and ring,s (only to normalsize) and in the same procedure I,d "rubbed" for the seat for the valves in the head (exosvalves is the most necessery of them) and put it together then.
With first attempt, I,d used the heater for 15 second and sprayed two or three times on fuelpump underneeth the fueltank (on left side of tank) and the engine started at once, and this engin run like hell after this easy repair.
I,d stored the tractor outsaid (but under a sheead) and was in need for starting it up again after winterstore here in Norway, (about three weeks ago) and the same happens; the litle blue did start just as easy as last year, so I ofcourse was happy for this easy overhaulin. -I also think my engine is up to 90% effency again after this.
Ofcourse this % will rise or lower compare to what you want to work out from it, but the learning of this is that many many of this old beautys is so low effiency that it should not be force,d to start again befor the necessary repair has been done.

The very best from Mikkel

Hi Snowman,
Really curious about not starting and you may have already discovered the problem but,
Did it make any noise when it quit?
And does it sound different than before while cranking and/or does it turn over more quickly?
Might be a blown gasket between cylinders but still should fire on one.
I have found the Dextas the most difficult bunch to get all the air out of the fuel lines. Are there any air bubbles at all at the injectors?
Might be worth testing the injectors and then checking compression while they are out.
Best of Luck,
Les

hi she turns over as before diesel at injectors, when she s turning over with oil cap off she s breathin badly so goin to take head off could a liner have dropped ? thanks

head off gasket ok lot o movement at top o piston rings broke? just got to source engine crane to split her.

You're right, must be the rings...
but still puzzling why it just decided to quit while running.

Anxiously waiting to hear what they look like,
Les

on with stripping her down took timing cover off lined gears up ok with marks at crank and cam but on inj pump 2 teeth out ? no matter how man times i turn the engine over always ends the same crank ok , cam ok, inj pump 2 teeth out can only think pump been off in the past . valves look ok but going to have head skimmed n new valves anyway .

If it wont fire at all with easy start, then it cant be fuel related. Mechanical, i cant imagine all three sets if rings/pistons going at the same time. If the timing is ok and it wasnt knocking or banging then it cant be that. Is it something to do with the head, i.e valves or rocker arms?

timing case,gears inj pump all removed ,sump removed all cleaned up bores dont look to bad,feel to bit of a step not scored ,quite clean in sump as well

hi pistons out and , number 1piston top ring broke into about 15 pieces,? number 2 top ring in 3 pieces , number 3top ring in 2 pieces all other rings look ok pistons look ok no carbon at all ? bearings a little wear no copper showing ? why all top rings broke she dident over heat oil ok no sludge either? sorry no pics as no idea how to do any help appreciated thanks

Hi, tired engine...you can try new normalsize pistons with ring,s...(that does alot different) but mybee the engineblock also should be honed and drilled to oversize with oversizepiston,s
Your rings did break faster in old stock pistons becouse they isn,t so tight anymoore.

Mikkel

hi back together all iv done is fit new rings and a piston ,bores cleaned up not that bad, also lapped the valves in ,new head gasget and she started up. she had a diesel knock when started up even with the timing marks all correct so altered timing back to how it was before and she runs like a swiss watch ?anyway shes up to temp and no probs shes been running a hour or so no water loss no oil probs and no breathing at all. she only does a hour or so a month so see how she goes. i used agriline rings and piston + gasget and cant fault them for quality and service

Yeahh, good to heere that your engine runs well again snowman, its an easy repair who lift up the hole tractor for many years again

mikkel

thanks she s done 4 or 5 hours since and shes behaved very well no breathing, no water ,oil loss, my sons been using her and she pulls well .back in the garage now been makin an fitting a foot throttle the same as been posted before to make her a bit easier on the road

hi been following your posts with interest ,glad you got your tractor fixed, am i right in saying you did not fit new liners just standard size pistons and rings.

hi and no i dident fit new fit liners as she s was needed, so just new rings head gasget i dident think the bores where that bad so just head and sump off took about a day not that bad a job including lapping valves as well. she usualy dosent do that much work but since reringing her iv kept her busy to bed them in and she s ok still cant fathom why the top ring on each piston broke . she s had plenty of clean oil and not over heated either sorry no pictures dident take any wouldent no how to post them anyway thanks

I wonder if pump timing was the cause of ring failure.

Did you set as per the manual e.g. Flywheel markings and then setting the pump drive timing by adjusting the gear wheel postion on the pump?

Interestingly, the pump gear wheel on mine was not set as per the manual yet when I re-assembled the engine, it all aligned as the per the book once the correct process was followed.

hi yes i set all timing as per manual she started but with a diesel knock so turned pump timing a little she still had the knock but not as bad, so a little more adjustment at the pump and she was ok as i said in a previous post the timing was out 2 teeth dont no why ? but she s ok now

I have just been pondering with these posts on the pump timing. If the timing marks were out on the gears, that speaks for its self. Someone has assembled them wrong.
So assuming there now ok , then the engine should be turned in the direction of rotation to the spill mark on the flywheel, (and on no occasion be allowed to be turned bakwards) as this would allow slack in the gears,. the pump can then be set on the marks you can see through the small plate on the timing cover. theres no other setting , you should not advance or retard the pump to try and eliminate compression knock. Infact i would be quite happy with compression knock, it means the upper cylinder department is up to mark, no doubt others will have a different view, Jim. Dexta,s , if they did'nt have a mind of there own , i would say they were a bit simple

I agree with Jim. Make sure that the timing gears are timed correctly, then set the pump timing exactly like the manual says. You can't time a diesel engine "by ear" like you could with the older petrol engines. A diesel that is out of time can be hard starting, lack power, over heat, break rings or put holes in pistons, among other things.

she wouldent start with timing gears correctly set she needed a sniff and the air was full of white smokewhen running ,telling me far to much diesel. with timing altered to what it was before she starts instantly she dosent smoke when running and pulls like a train .when she was smoking white out of exaust she knocked terribly and i wouldent have felt comfortable on the road with her. she starts after 10 secs of heat from cold with no use of the cold start button,she starts straight away when warm ,iv made and fitted a foot throttle as the i found the pics someone posted earlier and its transfomed her and recomend the mod, i find very little difference between driving her and a early 135 power wise and would sooner use the dexta anyway