Ploughing problems

jasonteem

Member
I am new to ploughing and have a 1959 Fordson Dexta 3 cyl. diesel pulling a two furrow plough through a grass field. The tractor runs fine when driving around, but overheats when I plow a couple of furrows. I need help and have many questions. I assume the tractor should be able to plough through grass. The soil is sandy clay. Which gear should I plow with and how much throttle? My temp guage is broken. I will fill / check coolant levels, remove radiator cap and check flow. Is it my ploughing speed gear that is wrong or as I fear, the thermostat that is broken. How do I remove and check thermostat? All help or advice is welcome. I do not want to overheat and ruin the motor.
 
Should be able to plow at walking speed. Make sure the rad fins are clean, rad is
full, you car remove the thermostat temporarily and see if that helps. Engine should
run at 3/4 to full throttle when working hard. You may need to clean and flush the
rad and block. That Tractor should have no problem with a 2 furrow plow. Ben
 
(reply to post at 07:53:38 01/30/17)
Thank you Ben. I am trying these things. I have drained the block and radiator. Fluid will not really drain down into the radiator again. It just takes a half liter and sits in the top hose. A friend has recommended ploughing with it to get it up hot enough to get the thermostat to open and then filling
the coolant in the radiator. This sounds dangerous to me. Won't that overheat the engine? The rad fins are clean. The fan belt is not slipping. Any advice?
 
No, no no! Never refill a hot Engine! If the drain is open on the bottom of the rad,
or the lower rad hose is off, any coolant should run out as fast as you can pour it
in. If not, your rad is clogged internally and needs to be cleaned out, as well as
the block. Get a proper temp. gauge and check the engine temp. before it gets cooked!
Ben
 
The coolant drains out fine. When I close the drain and fill with new coolant it will not pour in. How do I fill the radiator? The only way I can get coolant in is to pump tje bottom hose until air bubbles come out. Then about 10 ml at a time can be poured in. Isnt tjere a better faster way to fill? I can only get 5 litets in and it shoyld hold over 8.5 liters. The block must not have any coolant. How do I get the coolant in the block? Just running it with open throttle does not get it hot enough to open the thermostat and allow coolant into the block. What do I do??? Help!
 
Take the thermostat out. If this solves the problem, and you have flushed and cleaned
the rad and block, either put in a new one or try it without one. If it still
overheats, then the timing could be off, or the impeller on the water pump is not
turning.Ben
 
Thanks Ben. I am checking things one at a time. I will start by removing the temp guage and seeing if air comes out then running it with the coolant that is in it and see if I can get the thermostat open. If this doesn't happen, I will remove the thermostat and test. does this sound right?
 
(quoted from post at 00:09:16 01/31/17) Thanks Ben. I am checking things one at a time. I will start by removing the temp guage and seeing if air comes out then running it with the coolant that is in it and see if I can get the thermostat open. If this doesn't happen, I will remove the thermostat and test. does this sound right?

Had a Jeep one time that would not fill like you are describing. What we found was that the system was creating an air lock that would not let the system fill properly. We took an empty anti-freeze jug and cut the bottom out, then using electrical tape, taped the neck of the jug to the fill neck of the rad. Then filled the cut out jug about 1/4 full and let that drain in slow. Had to do this a few time to get rad full. The we popped off the top hose (hold end of hose high) at the engine block to get the block full. Reconnected hose at block then put another 1/4 in jug on top if rad and started the engine. Once up to temp the thermostat opened and we got a big burp and a couple small burps of air in the jug. The air locks can drive you nuts sometimes.

I agree with those that have said remove the thermostat and fill and see if it still over heats. If so drain the system and try to fill rad and block with vinegar let set about an hour and start and let it get pretty warm. Drain vinegar and flush rad. Then back flush the block and see what comes out. I had some good results using vinegar depending on what the blockage is. Sometime not. Your mileage will vary and vinegar is cheap enough to try usually about 3-5 gallons.
 
I have gotten so much advice that it makes no sense. Many say run the engine to get the air out. Others say I should not run it or it will destroy the engine. I have drained the rad and block. My rad has the bottom drain missing. That is why I could not find it. I filled the rad with great difficulty 10 ml at a time by pinching tje bottom hose to bubble air out. The rad is Not blocked bevause fluid drains with ease from the bottom hose. There is NO coolant in the block! I have removed the temp gage. No air bubbled up from the rad.I ran the motor and drove around. The tjermostat did not open. I can still get no coolant in the block. I am getting frustrated and get contradictary advice from everyone I ask. I love my tractor and depend on it. I do not want to ruin the motor. Isnt there anyone that knows what I should do? Is the next step to remove the thermostat?
 
If you are having trouble getting it to fill, take out the thermostat. Not a big job.
If it is still slow to fill, then you have a blockage elsewhere, and you may have to
service the whole system to clean it out. If it fills easily, drive it with an
accurate temp. gauge and see what it reads.If it reads low, then the old thermostat
was faulty, replace and operate further. If it still overheats, and the rad, hoses,
and block are flushed and clean, then either the timing is late or the impeller on
the water pump is loose or broken and not circulating the coolant. I would not
operate an engine that is not getting coolant into the block or head. My money is on
a faulty thermostat. Hope this helps. Ben
 
Well... I got my courage up (I am not much of a mechanic) and came home after work and began taking stuff apart to remove the thermostat. I also removed the temp. gauge. Unfortunately, the temp. gauge is sitting very fast in the block. It will simply not come out. I remove the flange for the thermostat and...imagine my surprise when I found that THERE WAS NONE. Also, the block is completely full of coolant. This is both good and bad, because I was afraid the thermostat was stuck and there was air in the block, etc. That is apparently not the case. This means either the tractor overheated due to me trying to plough in third gear low (which someone told me was actually fourth gear) and therefore also the reason it stalled and lugged or...the water pump impeller is broken. Any thoughts on this new development. I really appreciate you folks that write in and help. I am also following your advice...slowly. Should I now...
A. Drive the tractor as it is without a thermostat and pull a plow in the appropriate gear (2nd low) and see if it overheats? This must mean the water pump is bad, right?
B. Install a thermostat first.
C. Do something entirely different.

When I look in the radiator fill cap while the tractor is running, it is hard to see if the fluid is running or just jiggling due to the vibration of the tractor. So I am not really able to trouble shoot the water pump this way. What should I do????
Boiling blues :cry: The continuing saga of a nostalgic idiot.
 
If the water pump impeller is broken you will need to replace the impeller or get a new water pump. A broken impeller will not let the pump circulate the coolant correctly and the tractor will overheat.

Best get that pump repaired or replaced before you do some real damage.
 
How do I test the water pump? I can not tell if coolant is circulating when I look under the fill cap. I can not tell if it is flowing or just jiggling from vibration.
 
Water pumps are non-positive displacement pumps.They do not develop pressure and
only flow when there is no restrictions. If the engine still overheats and all other
causes have been eliminated, then pull the pump and check the impeller. Ben
 
Hi Ben! Just to recap and let you know what is new...
I have a 1959 Fordson Dexta 3 cyl. diesel. I tried plowing with it in the wrong gear (3rd low) but it overheated and steam started coming from the radiator. I let it cool off and drove into the barn. It did not overheat when I just drove it around. I drained the coolant and flushed a tiny bit with some water and then filled it with coolant/water. I have checked the thermostat and found out that someone had already removed it! The radiator fins are fine and clean. I have filled it completely up with coolant and there is no air in the system. The temperature gauge is broken. I then took it out and tried plowing with it again to test it under load. This time it did not overheat at all. Some coolant came out of the overflow hole under the fill cap, but I have heard that is normal if you have filled it all the way up. The radiator hoses and the water pump got a little warm and you could tell that it was slowly warming up, but nowhere near overheating and it handled plowing fine. Can I assume the water pump is OK? Remember there is no thermostat. Should I install a thermostat and how important is it? How do I install a temperature gauge? It looks like I need to raise the fuel tank. How do I do that nd is there another way? What is the result of driving it without a thermostat? All advice and help is appreciated. It is very important to me to restore the tractor and have it working correctly. I also rely on it for my hobby agricultural production with plowing, harrowing, etc.
 
Without coolant recovery, radiator tank when cold should have coolant just above the fins. The fins do the cooling, not the tank (operator
manual info). Working pressure cap helps. Mine is 6 psig for a similar tractor.

Water has a better cooling efficiency to mix but mix is needed in the winter and to help in controlling corrosion. Be your own judge.

Thermostats limit the flow but also force coolant to circulate to places where it otherwise might not go per shop manual information. Get a stat
and put it in. Temp to get is up to you. In the North and especially with diesel engines people seem to prefer hotter, like 180F or so. Down here
we (I, my previous owners from whom I bought tractors since the tractors came with them) use 165F.

You ought to be able to see through the fins of the radiator if you take the front grill off the tractor. If you can't clean it out. On the inside of
the fins, you can look down through the fill hole and see their condition. Obviously if they are sealed off with scale they can't cool. Time to try
a chemical flush.

The water pump is cast iron as is the impeller which moves the water driven by the V belt attached to it's shaft. The only problems you have
with them are worn bearings and shaft seals meaning either they leak water externally, or the shaft wobbles. Otherwise the only problem you
can have is a loose V belt driving it and it doesn't take that much to turn the fans on those tractors.....you'd have charging problems before
you'd have cooling problems with a loose belt (opinion).

Gear is very important. I use the number 10% as my ultimate loading with 5% or less the norm. With the plow up, in whatever speed and gear
you plan on using, record the rpms. Drop the plow, have it rolling sod like would happen when plowing and read them again. If the tach drops
more than the above you need to drop a gear or two to get the number posted (opinion). If you don't have one get one.

Weight (plus tread type and condition) just determines slip. On a 2 wheel drive with a good load 10-15% slip is reasonable (opinion). The
condition of the ground when plowing helps to determine that. If pulling over untouched sod and slipping, with proper engine loading and
noticeable slipping of the rear tires, then you need to add some weights, either bolt on pie weights or fill the tires with liquid....be careful of
using CaCl as it is salt and rusts the rims if it gets on them. Pure water freezes in the winter. There are other options.

If you are on prepared soil and get slip, expect it and that means weight to reduce it. Hard to completely stop it if pulling a heavy load, like a
moldboard, course you should have already had that plow in the soil anyway and would be in the process of discing or other type harrowing to
smooth things out which are not usually heavy loads (opinion).
 

Sure sounds like it is time to remove the radiator and have it looked at...the CORE may be completely plugged..

If you put a new thermostat in and the cooling system now will not fill quickly.. the Radiator Core must be the problem...

I do always make sure there is a 1/16" hole in the thermostat to allow air to escape when filling the cooling system..
 

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