Smoking MF 35 (23C)

I've just changed the liners, pistons, rings etc on my MF35 as the engine didn't have a lot of compression and was very, very, very hard to start.
It's now started on the first crank of the day about four times on the trot, (with a bit of a thermostart but it has been freezing!)
Trouble is, when it's cold it smokes a lot of whitish smoke out of the exhaust. It also seems to run ever so slightly rough, with the odd occasional cough, or knock.
As soon as it's warm it runs lovely, no smoke, no funny noises, good pressure, temp, etc...

Help!

Cheers,

Chris

The 23c is an indirect injection engine and such engines have a greater surface area/cylinder volume ratio than direct injection engines. This means that the charge of fuel/air cools quicker becasue of heat loss to the bigger surface. Usually, to get them going, indirect injection engines need heater plugs in each cylinder (like most diesel cars have - i don't suppose you have diesel cars in the US) The 23c doesn't have that but has to rely on the thermostart in the manifold to get things hot enough to fire and it just isn't that good at it. If compression is low, or its cold the engine just can't get enough heat generated and won't start although the driver usually has generated a fair bit by that time. I suspect that what is happening is that after your rebuild, the compession is improved enough to get the engine going but the indirect design is still cooling the cylinder charge quite quickly and so its not firing fully leaving the white smoke of unburnt fuel in the exhaust. (as you get when it turns over but doesn't fire) Once it gets a bit of heat up things improve.

I reckon that basically the 23c needs individual cylinder heater plugs in it like cars have to be able to really start properly. Usually these plugs are used to pre-heat the engine and also run for a short time after it starts (on a relay) to let it get a decent heat up before switching off. I bet that would cure all its starting problems but probably can't be done without a total cylinder head redesign so the theory is not a brilliant practical prospect. I have also seen an article about modifying the combustion chamber to allow a degree of direct injection which allegedly improved things but would be loath to try it myself unless I had a few spare combustion chambers and maybe a head or two to experiment with.

However, if yours will start easily I'd be grateful for that and leave well alone.

Cheers,

Chris

S'funny, but my old one behaved exactly the same way.

Worked great! After it cleared it's throat and sinuses.

Never did get it cleaned up, but I did not have the injectors redone - that might have helped. As I said, it worked great, so why spend the extra money! And after probably 5000 hours, the crank was still standard size.

Sold it two years ago, to standardize the fleet on Perkins.

The hard starting and smoking were probable reasons that Massey changed to Perkins. Plus a possible 15% increase in power. But none of my Perkins pass the first overhaul with standard cranks.

Can't have everything, I guess! The 35 is still probably the best tractor in it's HP class ever made - whatever motor it has. And parts are still available, cheaply from aftermarket sources, 45 years later.