New to Me TO35 Diesel

Hey everyone, I have been lurking around these pages for a while and reading all I can.

I picked up a 59 Ferguson Diesel Deluxe this past sat. SN Sdm191471

I intend to use it to run a finish mower on my property (we moved to Harrisonburg VA) this past October.

I ll get more pictures. But it looks like they plugged the glow plug holes on all but one, which is welded after stripping the threads. Previous owner says it has new pistons and sleeves. Rebuilt injection pump. They added an electric fuel pump for priming. It starts with ether, then hot starts with out it.

We bought a manual and plan to check the pump timing. When it first starts it sounds pretty rough. I can t tell if it s rod knock or not.

Video below is after it had been running. Smokes more than I would like. I m going to keep searching here but any initial impressions would be appreciated.

I also would like to find someone close by that knows these engines.

I want to put it to work soon but don t want to damage it (any further)

One pic is of my son and father.
-Brad

Im not sure the pics and video worked.

https://youtu.be/nFgHfZwpE6E

Welcome Brad!

Hard to tell listening to a diesel, especially if it's new to you and not familiar with what it normally sounds like.

One thing for sure, if it is a bearing knocking, it will soon show itself if that is what is knocking!

A shop manual is a wise move. Study it, get into the design, you'll find all kinds of neat things you didn't know were there.

A known good oil pressure gauge is a valuable tool. Check the hot idle oil pressure against the specs. If it's good, it is safe to run unless there are other symptoms like oil consumption, excess blow by, idle misfire, etc. Might run the valve clearance, good chance to clean out the fuel tank too.

Have you checked the trans/hyd/diff oil? They are known for collecting water. It gets in through bad shifter boots and the draft link boot under the seat.

Let us know! Glad to help!

(quoted from post at 16:45:53 03/23/20) Welcome Brad!

Hard to tell listening to a diesel, especially if it's new to you and not familiar with what it normally sounds like.

One thing for sure, if it is a bearing knocking, it will soon show itself if that is what is knocking!

A shop manual is a wise move. Study it, get into the design, you'll find all kinds of neat things you didn't know were there.

A known good oil pressure gauge is a valuable tool. Check the hot idle oil pressure against the specs. If it's good, it is safe to run unless there are other symptoms like oil consumption, excess blow by, idle misfire, etc. Might run the valve clearance, good chance to clean out the fuel tank too.

Have you checked the trans/hyd/diff oil? They are known for collecting water. It gets in through bad shifter boots and the draft link boot under the seat.

Let us know! Glad to help!

Click to expand...

Steve Thanks for the encouragement. Fuel tank looks pretty clean inside. Fluids look clean. It will be barn kept from here on out.

I did find the air filter pretty full of dirt so hopefully a new one helps the mixture/ not smoke as much. Ideally I find a new head to have ready to swap out over winter.

The oil pressure gauge on it reads. About 37 pounds but I ll get a good gauge on it. I ll monitor fluid consumption as well. I have my finish mower almost set up (used sitrex) so we ll light that off and see what happens.

I do also notice when the the lift arms are under load, even lifting me, they pulse as they go up/stop at a given point off the ground.

Welcome...
I have an FE35 with the 4 cyl. 23c motor. When I bought it 20 years ago, it needed either the glow plugs or a sniff of ether no matter how warm it was. Smoked like crazy in startup, but cleared up as it warmed to a little blue smoke. Oil pressure dropped as it warmed up too, but only to the lower end of "normal" on the gauge. I figured I'd open it up at some point and redo the rings, sleeves and bearings. Fast forward 20 yrs. and 4000 hours later. It still does all of those things and I still haven't touched the engine except for adjusting the valves. I am, however, diligent with oil changes and other routine maintenance.
Put both ranges into neutral as you can easily bump the tractor into gear at idle and low range. Talk about a scare.....

David that makes me feel better! Thanks! I have been putting both levers in neutral and setting the brake when I get off it. Running or not.

There is a port on the front right side of the engine block most of the way forward that doesn t have anything on it/looks broken off. Any idea what that ones for. Right side if you re sitting in the seat.

Just advice, pull the mesh from the air filter if you haven?t yet, and clean that. I bought a gas model and
that mesh was big time clogged with plant lint.

I put a new filter in. Held both to the sun and looked in the open end with my finger on the other. Old one was dark as night. Def seems happier with the new one but still smokes. Will check fuel timing and maybe change oil to heavier weight.

What is "normal" operating temp and oil pressure?

Gonna get some new blades on the mower and light it off and see what happens.

This is a Standard diesel, not a Perkins, right?

If so, what I found on the oil pressure, 60PSI @ 1400RPM. There is an externally adjustable relief valve on the oil filter base. If you adjust it, be sure the engine is up to temperature and at 1400 RPM. Note where it is before turning it. If turning it in doesn't have an effect, return it to where it was.

Any engine will drop oil pressure at idle. As long as it has "some" pressure, it should be good. Typically the general rule is 10 PSI per 1000 RPM minimum, so 5 PSI at 500 RPM is safe. Scary, but safe, I'll let you make that call! LOL

As for the lift being jerky, that's a sign of a bad valve in the pump. A common problem with those. A rebuilt pump is the easiest solution. I tried rebuilding mine, the aftermarket parts were not right. Spent many hours fitting it together. Had I not had access to a lathe and surface grinder, it would not have been possible.

I would go ahead and cautiously run it, at least long enough to find all the problems. That way you can have a better idea what to spend and how far to take it. The last thing you want is to get it all back together only to find another problem and have to go back in!

It is a standard diesel. I ran it for about an hour pulling a 6 finish mower. Ran fine, smoked a lot less after it warmed up. Plenty of power, I ran around in high range first gear.

I am going to get a good oil pressure gauge on it and check injection pump timing.

I to have a T035 with 23C Diesel. It does have glow plugs and I've replaced the factory type with newer 12V glow plugs. It will start at any temperature after a little heat. After the first start it will start all the time with no heat. I've found with mine it knocks and smokes as well when cold and I know it's not a rod or main since I have rebuilt it. When it's cold it at also knocks worse, once it's warm the knock and smoke go away.

As for the air filter, I trashed the original and replaced the housing and element with a Donaldson. I replaced the factory fuel filter arrangement with a Parker/Racor R12T filter with water removal capabilities. Made an adapter to replace the oil filter from the canister to a screw on.

When you rebuilt it did you clean the pre-combustion chambers. Engines with pre-combustion chambers tend to be quitter I have had luck with Lucas cleaner Luc10013 helping with carbon.
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Thanks for the replies everyone! I ll probably get another head this fall and swap out in the winter.

I didn t do the rebuild so no telling what they did. Glow plug holes are plugged. One is welded.

Which 12v glow plugs did you use and how are they wired? Are you on one battery?

When I rebuilt the engine yes I cleaned the pre-combustion chambers, had too. Most of the exhaust ports and the exhaust manifold were all but plugged up with carbon. I replaced all the valves, they were badly carboned up as well.

I have one battery. The glow plugs are 12v wired in parallel now. I will have to find the literature for the glow plugs I'm using now. They are M14 x 1.25 threaded, I believe I used a gam 101 glow plugs by Britparts for Land Rover. I bought a number of different ones to try which I haven't tried since the 1st ones worked well.
More info http://www.soggers.ca/tractor/glow_plug_info/glow_plugs.html

Hard part for you will be finding a good head with glow plug ports. Some have taken none Glow Plug heads and machined them for glow plugs.

alright everyone, after more experience with the tractor, I tried to hot start today, after a min of being shut off. It acted like it was cold and wouldn t start. (I don t have glow plugs) I have a shot of either and it started but it knocked like it was cold. I m wondering if there is another adjustment other than fuel timing that may be going on...

How good it the starter? Does it spin the engine over quickly? I've replaced the original starter with a Lucas M50, it spins the engine over much faster than the original.

The no restart can be caused from any number of reasons. Mine has a worn/weak head on the injector pump. If I set the injector pressure where it's suppose to be it won't start warm or cold, if I give it shot of either it will start. I lowered the pressure setting of the injector to crutch the injector pump for right now. Gonna replace the pump and reset the injectors. I have the ability to test and set the injector pressure.

One way to test for that is remove the injectors from the head connect them to the lines and spin the engine over with the starter. If they spray that's not the problem. FYI the injectors are unique in that they have a auxiliary spray hole to help with starting.

Another issue is a stretched timing chain/worn tensioner. Common issue on old 23C's.

I would check the injector flow first, it's the easier than fixing the timing chain.tensioner.

Find a manual for a MF35 it will have a lot of information about the 23C

The starter does turn it pretty quickly. Yesterday we took the injection pump off to try to time it, it isn t lining up per the manual, I suspect when it was rebuilt it may have been assembled differently. We tried moving gears a tooth to get the G lined up but it ended up over correcting.


We put it all back together and moved the timing as close as we could to the mark, per the manual. It seems to pick up rpms better/have a little more power under load.

It still smokes black/misses when changing throttle positions. But seemed to hit start better.

Otherwise I have been mowing with it weekly and enjoying it. I m still trying to figure out the best patterns for the fastest/least maneuvers cut.

I also replaced the alternator and voltmeter gauge. Cleaned up/replaced some bad wiring.

I m also waiting for a new tach and cable that I ordered from England.

Long term, in the fall I plan on swapping the head so I can have glow plugs, checking timing chain, etc.

I need to figure out how to post pictures from my phone as well.

If the injector pump timing is off and you can't get it closer, since it is run off of the camshaft my guess is the timing chain is stretched and/or the tensioner is bad. Fixing the valve/injector timing on mine even with the need of a rebuild made a difference with the cold start. Warm restarts weren't a major issue.

To be clear, to fix the valve/injector pump timing you need to pull off the front of the motor to get to it. If you decided to do that and want the valve timing information I have let me know.