diesel SMOKE

I most recently purchased a IH B 414 falsely reported as a good running tractor when it was suddenly stored in barn as the owner became deceased. So, I gave the man $800 for the tractor which was said to be a one owner equipment. He said he could not start it but it was all intact which it is. Once I got it into my gararge I quickly discovered the engine had been only recently equipped with a "new" injector pump where someone had terminated the one and two cylinders in reverse order. I merely changed them to the correct order and the tractor started right up. However, it seems to be hitting on 3 cylinders and SMOKING to high heaven. I mean really big time SMOKE! My question: Outside of the strong possibility in a broken piston ring what else could cause the engine to miss and SMOKE like I have described? The tractor has some pretty good parts considering the new injector pump, looks like new water pump, stout clutch and excellent hydraulics with the same sort of PTO. Just SMOKES and I am talking BIG TIME SMOKE! Any hints or advice is appreciated.

If one cylinder is not firing, there will be vast white smoke. If it is not firing due to a blown piston there will be unbelievable smoke.
A compression check is needed, as is other diagnosis. Abything from a bad injector, to a wrecked engine is possible. JimN

(quoted from post at 19:13:48 04/24/09) I most recently purchased a IH B 414 falsely reported as a good running tractor when it was suddenly stored in barn as the owner became deceased. So, I gave the man $800 for the tractor which was said to be a one owner equipment. He said he could not start it but it was all intact which it is. Once I got it into my gararge I quickly discovered the engine had been only recently equipped with a "new" injector pump where someone had terminated the one and two cylinders in reverse order. I merely changed them to the correct order and the tractor started right up. However, it seems to be hitting on 3 cylinders and SMOKING to high heaven. I mean really big time SMOKE! My question: Outside of the strong possibility in a broken piston ring what else could cause the engine to miss and SMOKE like I have described? The tractor has some pretty good parts considering the new injector pump, looks like new water pump, stout clutch and excellent hydraulics with the same sort of PTO. Just SMOKES and I am talking BIG TIME SMOKE! Any hints or advice is appreciated.

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The color of the smoke would be very helpfull in diagnosing the problem. A bad injector (one that is not sealing and dripping fuel) would cause lots of white smoke and a cylinder misfiring and possibly even knocking. If it is a cracked or broken ring then it should be heavy blue smoke. More info would really help us help you with this problem. Don't assume the worst at first, always check the simplest but be prepared for the worst.

Yes, I should have mentioned the smoke color. It is heavily white when in constant engine speed. when accelerating to higher RPM it will turn more blackish. Not certain if it was blue or not but will check once again sometime today.

If there is a heavy white smoke, you are not burning all the fuel, I would start with a few easy things first. If the timing is badly off it can cause heavy white smoke but usually would be hard to start as well. If there is a diesel shop near you, it would be a good test to have the injectors pop tested and checked for a good spray pattern, if one or two are spraying early it will throw the timing off and if they are streaming instead of spraying it will not be able to mix and burn the fuel. Also a compression test will go ahead and rule out cylinder problems, if there is not enough compression the fuel will not burn either and lead to lots of white smoke, but I woul like to think you have an injector problem first. Like I said try to think simplest first. If I remeber correctly those engines where Indirect Injected, so that leaves another thing to check if all else fails and compression and injectors are decent. Me and a friend were working on an old 1030 case a while back that was showing all the signs that you are describing, blowing loads of white smoke and it was even spitting what the owner said was oil out of the exhaust (turned out it was actually fuel). When we tore into it, everything checked out fair, compression was good and the injector spray patter was marginal but not horrible, the problem turned out to be that the precombustion chamber was caked full of gunk where the injector went into it. I assume the marginal spray pattern had lead to a build up of crap around the injector in the precup and was not letting the fuel mix, so it was just running into the cylinder and getting blown out the exhaust with lots of smoke. We took a pipe cleaner if I remember right and dug crap out of there for a while, a little bit at a time and within 30 minutes it was purring like a kitten.

Hi William, the BD-154 engine are a very durable engine and it took a lot to destroy one. We had B414, 434 & 384 all with BD-154 engines. I would chech the air cleaner for being clogged. It is an oil bath type and you can pull some of the wire mesh elements out the bottom to clean them.
There should be timing marks on the pump mounting flange at the outer mounting stud. The mark on pump should be between large and small mark on the mounting flange. I would suspect a sticking injector and would try some injector cleaner or ATF in the Diesel fuel and run it for a time.
You can isolated the bad cylinder by loosening one injector line at a time. BE CAREFUL OF THE HIGH PRESSURE DIESEL FUEL. You can even swap injectors between cylinders to see if it follows cylinder or injector. The compression ratio is 22:1 on the BD-154.

Good Luck
JimB

Alright...it was a faulty injector as someone or all mentioned the possibility. It now starts up with MUCH LESS SMOKE and running pretty good. Think I may have another injector not performing at optimumm, however.

Aside that issue I am indebted to your expertise, I must ask yet another question:

The hydraulic system has been idle for as many years as the tractor has sat idle. Thus, it does not respond to up and down action with lever. Any hints?

Also, the PTO will not engage with much pressure on the lever I am afraid I will break if pushed any harder. Any hints?

THANKS!

I know this may sound overly obvious, but have you checked the hydraulic fluid level yet. If your fluid is filled to the correct level and the filter is not plugged, then you may have a by-pass valve stuck open that is not allowing the sytem to build any pressure. best thing to do is check on the fluid, possibly new filter and then pressure test and see exactly how much pressure you are getting.

I have performed only limited troubleshooting with the hydraulic system at this writing. However, I found the hydraulic system fairly low having filled it to capacity with some tractor fluid I had in inventory for other tractors on this farm. As for the filter, possibility of an air bound pump,proper setting fluid velocity, etc. are things I will check on Monday. At this stage of troubleshooting the tractor, I am of the opinion it may be a good idea to forget it as a parts tractor for my IH 444 and use it in my small tractor fleet of now 4 tractors. Depends on the PTO and hydraulic system diagnosis on Monday. THANKS!

Hi William, will PTO engage with engine turned off? If so then either the clutch pedal or the fingers on the pressure plate are out of adjustment.
Re 3pt hydraulics, check shut off valve on the front of the seat, also suction line filter. There is also a filter behind the small plug on the valve control body at the front of the seat.

JimB

Thank each of you for the feedback concerning the B 414. I think I have mentioned I have a IH 444 that is similar to the B 414. In fact, that is tractor where I got another injector to verify the one on the B 414 was faulty. I have since put it back on the 444 and undecided to continue trying to salvage the B 414 as an operational unit. The PTO will not engage running or not running? The hydraulic ports mentioned by several is exactly like that on the 444 which I have set the ports in that order. As for the filter, I plan to check that tomorrow. It don't look good from all that I think I know about both the PTO and 3 Pt lift. I most likely will begin parting it out as a result. Probably get 10 more years on my old IH 444 with some of the good parts on this unit??? THANKS TO ALL.