IH 354 coolant in crankcase

Cross posted

I have a 70's era 354 (gas) tractor that is getting coolant inthe oil (oil turns an off-white color). I suspected it was the head gasket. Pulled the head expecting to find an obvious blow out but everything looked good. Took the gasket and head to local Case dealer and service guy said gasket looked fine. I confirmed this at another local independent shop. No sign of coolant burning in combustion chamber, or blowing past gasket.

Both suggested cylinder sleeves or sleeve seals. Now at this point Im way out of my element. Went home pulled pan to inspect inside crank case. No "obvious" signs of damage to sleeves when viewed from top or bottom of engine. Problem is I dont know what to look for.

Question: If we rule out worst case scenario being a cracked block or head... Is there any other way for coolant to get into oil?
Am I missing something simple? Some have suggested maybe fuel is getting into oil?
I dont want to pull out pistons and sleeves before I check everything else first.

Any help would be great.

Check out the video. https://youtu.be/RB7L6tBgAEA

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First of all, does the tractor have antifreeze in it? If it does, it is easy. Run the tractor and after running it for some time shut it off and crack the oil pan drain plug. With the plug cracked do you get any antifreeze coming out. If you do you most likely have an O ring on one of the sleeves broke or is allowing coolant to drain down into the crankcase. Now the antifreeze and oil will not mix and the antifreeze should look like antifreeze and not some other color. Cracked or broken sleeves will exhibit the same behaviour, but they are rare on the BC144 engine. I have a BC144 in a B414 I own and never have had these problems. Milky oil is often the sign of condensation in the crankcase from using the tractor on light jobs. I have had that happen to me and I just change the oil more often if using it on light duty jobs. The other way to tell if you have O ring or sleeve problems is to closely observe the antifreeze level in the radiator over a period of time. If the level is not dropping everything should be OK. Had this happen on a 966 many years ago and we had to replace the sleeves due to two of them being cracked around the circumference at the O ring groove. But that was a different set of circumstances where the tractor was manufactured using defective sleeves.

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Another thing about these tractors and especially the BC144 is that they like CIH Low Ash engine oil. They don't like 10W-30, 15W-40 or any other multi viscosity oils. I have seen off colored oil occurring on these tractors from use of non Low Ash oils also. Hope this is of some use to you. From what you describe it is my humble opinion that you maybe all right. Change the oil and put low ash in a BC144 and put a new head gasket on and get her back together and put it on a dynamometer and run it at full power for 8 hours or so. That should tell the tale. I assume you have a gas model and not the BD144 diesel. The two engines are very similar but you should use CIH No 1 Engine oil in a straight grade 30 viscosity in the diesel version.

If it has wet sleeves, with the head on full of coolant, pan off watch the bottom of the sleeves if one has coolant become visible you have your leak.

George 3

Condensation in crankcase? I have had tractor for several seasons and never had a problem with oil turning bad before. That said there was no obvious sign of anti-freeze in oil ( I had been using a 50/50mix orange in colour) I assumed it just mix with oil. Also I did not obverse a noticeable drop in coolant level and no bubbles in radiator. But oil kept going bad after 3 consecutive oil changes. The engine was running like a top, but I was worried about long term damage.

Someone has suggested bolting head back on and filling system with coolant and looking for leaks from bottom?

Currently the head is off and oil pan is off. I don't wanna pull sleeves unless I can confirm they are the problem.

Thanks

Sorry to say but it?s almost always sleve problems or cracked blocked. But you can pressureize the coolant system and if see we?re the leak is going. If the water drips from the outside of the sleeve that means the prints are bad or you have a cracked block. If it drops from the inside you have a cracked sleeve or bad head gasket.