help with stuck 1800 engine

Big Gasser

New User
I have an 1800C gas tractor and the engine is stuck. Here's what happened. I bought this tractor in the spring and did some disc work with it. It handled a 14 foot disc pretty well. Well, recently I was driving it to a buddy's house to borrow his 5 shank 3 point chisel plow when I ran into some problems. It's a good 5 mile drive and I was almost there when all of a sudden I began to get some smoke from the breather tube near the rear of the cylinder head. I was just cruising down the road in high gear so there was no huge load on the tractor. I didn't drive it very far and decided to shut it down to double check the fluids before I continued. Keep in mind the gauges don't work. A week or so prior to this happening I was preparing to add an oil pressure gauge to the tractor and had tested a port in the block and the oil came out like crazy when I fired up the tractor so I'm assuming it had at least decent oil pressure when I took off on the drive. Anyways, when I throttled it down it seemed to want to die anyways. Oil level was good. If I lost any coolant at all it wasn't much cuz the coolant level was up. When I tried to restart the tractor it was locked solid. I towed it to a nearby friend's house where it sat til I could tow it home this past sunday. When we were towing it home I tried to break it free by popping the clutch with the tractor in road gear. It didn't budge and brought my dad's truck to a halt fast. i can't turn the engine with a breaker bar on the front pulley bolt either. I have it tore all the way down to the cylinder head but it's too damn heavy to lift off there by myself. I hope to have it off in the next couple days. Should I try soaking the bores to work the pistons free? Oh, and i drained the engine oil, no debris.

What the heck could have happened here?
 

Sounds like you galded a piston...

A cracked ring or piston could account for the blowby - but if its locked down, its probably galded...

Howard
 
Could have spun a rod bearing or if they were worn bad,a main bearing. A main bearing would have probably broken loose when you towed it though,after it cooled down.
Have you tried turning the engine backwards or only forward? The reason I ask,I had a piston break right at the wrist pin in my 1600 gas one time. The rod bent,the wrist pin went under the sleeve and it wouldn't turn forward at all,but it would turn backwards a little.
 
How about a valve got stuck and bent over by the piston? Made a hole in the piston and then the blowby? You will be able to see that when you lift the head off.
 
My 4010 did this once, it made a funny noise like it came under load, blowed some white steam out the breather tube acted normal. I ran it again till it got warm which was about 20 minutes lost power and shut down. Locked up tighter than fort knox. It had a spun main and rod bearing. If it didnt get alot of gas or coolant into your oil and it didnt run low. Maybe it was just wore out. Sounds like youre going to have to pull engine.
 

Might be a good time for a diesel conversion! :D

external_link has rebuild kits for many many oliver models. rebuild that puppy and you'll be good as new!
 
You might as well drop the pan. I've got a feeling if you try to wiggle the rod caps just a little,five of them will move and one is going to be welded tight.
 
I"m no engine expert but I got the cylinder head off and everything on the head looked ok to me. Nothing stuck out as broken. Same for the pistons and bores. They looked ok. Then I dropped the oil pan and found some debris. It"s thin and flat metal pieces, a few of them. Kind of like you tore a couple small strips out of a pop can, and they"re a little crinkled up. Looked under there and didn"t see anything sticking out like a sore thumb. Only thing I really noticed, I had already drained the oil but everything still had a coating of oil on it, except for the rod cap all the way at the front of the engine. It is bone dry. Could it have spun that bearing and gotten so hot the oil didn"t stick to it like normal? I removed the rod cap nuts but couldn"t get the cap off. It didn"t help that the piston is almost at TDC so it"s tough to get up to the rod cap from underneath.
 
I"m no engine expert but I got the cylinder head off and everything on the head looked ok to me. Nothing stuck out as broken. Same for the pistons and bores. They looked ok. Then I dropped the oil pan and found some debris. It"s thin and flat metal pieces, a few of them. Kind of like you tore a couple small strips out of a pop can, and they"re a little crinkled up. Looked under there and didn"t see anything sticking out like a sore thumb. Only thing I really noticed, I had already drained the oil but everything still had a coating of oil on it, except for the rod cap all the way at the front of the engine. It is bone dry. Could it have spun that bearing and gotten so hot the oil didn"t stick to it like normal? I removed the rod cap nuts but couldn"t get the cap off. It didn"t help that the piston is almost at TDC so it"s tough to get up to the rod cap from underneath.
 
I think you found your problem. the number 1 cylinder you said is dry and the cap don't want to come off because it's galled. Just going to have to tap on the rod cap and stick a screw driver in the hole to the flywheel, and see if you can get it to go back or forward a little bit, then tap on the rod cap some more. I'll bet it's a mess.
 
Sounds like it spun a rod bearing. If you hadn't shut it down when you noticed it laboring, it probably would have broken that rod. Time to pull it and overhaul.
 
I bought all the tractors that I use, resell, or
collect used. Almost every time this has happened to me, I tear it down as soon as possible (might not get together too quickly).
It seems like most of the time the parts and machine work add up it quickly. Crank might or might not have another grind on it. Number one rod going might indicate it was oil starved sometime before. My luck is half thatthe block has to be line bored. Sleeves and pistons will probably be in rough shape.
Usually, I try to figure out how much the tractor will be used. Then spend accordingly.
It is hard to do with one tractor, but I buy parts, extra tractors for parts, etc. If you do not need the tractor right away it will pay off.
 

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