Ford 601 valve rocker arm vent cover smoke

gvogel · Jun 9, 2009

I just bought a Ford 601 (model 641) that looks good and sounds great, but a little smoke comes out of the rocker arm vent cover all of the time. I had it started for about 60 seconds tonight, and a whisp of smoke came out of that vent cover for about 30 minutes afterwords. I took the cover off and everything inside is covered with about 1 mm of oil/gunge. I wiped out what I could.

I assume a little smoke from that cover may be natural (but maybe not?) - has anyone had an experience like this, with a little smoke lasting a full half hour after the engine is shut off? I'm afraid this is a sign of an impending valve job or something more serious, but maybe not? I'm new to these tractors, so would appreciate any suggestions -

john_Bud · Jun 9, 2009

May be nothing.

Can you do a compression test? remove all spark plugs, open throttle wide and crank for 10 seconds on each cylinder. Record highest reading. Then squirt 2 oz of engine oil into each spark plug hole (measure the amount), wait 15 min and repeat the test. Post back the results for discussion / evaluation.

My pure guess is that there is some water in the oil that is being heated and going out the vent. Have you changed all the fluids and filters on the machine? That's always a very wise thing to do. If it has sat for a long time adding 2 cycle oil to the gasoline (32:1 ratio) will help free stuck piston rings. Or you can squirt 3 oz of ATF into each cylinder and wait overnight. About the same result.

jb

jb

souNdguy · Jun 10, 2009

my 850 smokes a lil thru the valve cover vent.. no biggie.. she keep on running and movel round bales of hay.

if it bothers you.. rig up a poor mans egr and suck the smoke into the intake manifold..

soundguy

gvogel · Jun 10, 2009

(quoted from post at 12:12:09 06/10/09) my 850 smokes a lil thru the valve cover vent.. no biggie.. she keep on running and movel round bales of hay.

if it bothers you.. rig up a poor mans egr and suck the smoke into the intake manifold..

soundguy

Thanks both for your suggestions - I completely cleaned out the rocker shaft cover and all of the components underneath it, which looked as if they hadn't seen the light of day or touch of an oil cloth for far too long, and had a fairly significant buildup of black gunk. The oil air filter was just about dry, too, so I cleaned and refilled it. The smoke is no longer an issue, and I'm going over everything else I can part-by-part.

I'm afraid I don't have a compression tester yet, so a full check of the engine may have to wait for a while, but overall it sounds great and I'm convinced it's a dandy little tractor - keeping my fingers crossed for now.

Greg

john_Bud · Jun 10, 2009

It sounds like you were having some blow by from stuck rings. Try the 2 cycle oil in the next tank full of hard work. It should clear up.

jb

Ford 601 valve rocker arm vent cover smoke

gvogel

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john_Bud

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souNdguy

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gvogel

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john_Bud

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