Smoking 8N

Poor little thing smokes bad. 40 weight oil. Oil pressure at start is 30. Hour of run time in hot weather it's 12-15 under load. 8ish at slow idle. Used 4-5 hours and used 1/2 quart if oil. Starts easy ,runs smooth and quiet. Plenty of power. Will just rings help the issue? I have an opportunity to buy a good motor at a decent price.....what would y'all do? Sorry video is side ways.......I ain't good at everything!! Lol.
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I put rings in one of my tractors. It doesn't use any oil now. The advise that a friend gave me is "You can buy a lot of oil for the price of an overhaul". If you are afraid that you may forget to check it and burn it up, then rings are a good way to go. If you are good about checking the oil and will not be putting a great deal of hours on it, then adding oil is the cheaper route to go. Totally your call.

Hard to say if ring will help or not. Do a compression check on it since it could be rings or valve guides or just flat out wore out and need sleeves pistons and rings and valve job

If you can get by with a different tractor for a while, pull the head off (flat heads are easy). If you can feel the ridge where the top ring stops on its way up the cylinder, with your finger nail, it needs more than rings. Jim

A couple things to try...

Try running it a quart low, especially if you are there to keep an eye on it. Sometimes that will help, especially with rear main leaks.

Have you cleaned the crank case vent tube? If not, take it off, clean it out. It may be packed with carbon and pressurizing the crankcase.

Is there a thermostat in it? Running it hotter can make a difference.

But from the video, it looks like the rings are gone. If all else is good, no knocks, acceptable oil pressure, you "might" get away with an inframe ring and bearing job, decarbon and lap the valves. Something commonly overlooked is the condition of the ring lands. If they are wide beyond spec the rings won't seal. I would not buy any parts until you get in. No way to know what size bearings, how much wear, lots of guess work, and my guesses are always wrong!

With the old gas motors, you can get by with some shortcuts. Just be cautious, consider the cost of doing it right or doing it over. The intended use is a consideration too, how much and how hard does it get used?

The "good motor", do you know it really is a good motor? Too many times a good motor is only good to the pocket book of the seller! Just be careful, dealing with something this old, one thing for sure, it ain't gonna be low mileage!

The good news is every part for an 8N is available,the bad news is sooner or later you'll need them all(LOL)

I sent you an email. I may have a solution for you.

DO NOT GO FOR A REPLACEMENT ENGINE, REpeat DO NOT GO WITH A REPLACEMENT ENGINE unless you find a cracked block. Way too easy to if you need to replace sleves to do that. Front mount or side mount distributor? You could have a .045 steel sleve, standard on earlier 8N's or a .090 cast sleve on later units or earlier could have been bored for the thicker wall sleve but then there was an overbore sleve-piston set avaible for the engines with the .090 sleves. The cast sleve can be honed to remove ridges but the steel one cannot due to its thin thickness. My 9N same engine had a knock and told by mechanic was a wrist pin but was actually a too long a bolt put in to hold distributor, Used a bit of oil so I had sleves put in but the thin sleve had ond cracked otherwise would not have had to replace sleves. If the cast sleve they should clean up good enough to leave them in. Would not wory about that oil pressure. 9 & 2N don't have anymore than that.

Has this tractor been setting for a while or is it a daily worker that
smokes like that? If it has set for a while, it may have stuck rings.
If that is the case, simply working the snot out of it could cure it.
Not pulling a trailer. Try adding ATF or MMO to the gas, hooking up
a plow and pulling it as deep as you can for as long as you can.

Here's a [b:2c9c0450a3]link[/b:2c9c0450a3] to one example.

On the positive side, it should keep the mosquitoes down.

Royce, so just pulling a trailer
won't help it? What about moving
a bunch of dirt with a box blade
for a couple hours? Some hard
ripping...... Tractor did sit out
for 2-4 years. I ran it about an
hour before I took plugs out and
put atf in the holes. It drained
through by the next day. Gas tank
must be rusty. The gas in the
filter is orange. . . There is a
short rubber hose in the fuel
inlet so trash doesn't get in the
line.

Pulling a trailer long enough may, or may not.
It doesn't work the engine hard enough to get it good and hot and
keep it that way long enough to unstick rings. If that's the issue.
Box blade might, if used hard. A plow or a brush hog works well.

"There is a short rubber hose in the fuel inlet"
What inlet? The one inside the tank or the one to the carb?
Both should have screens on or in them. No rubber hoses originally.
If you mean the one in the tank, that had a metal stand pipe with
a screen around it. Opening the fuel valve two full turns was
normal operation and it drew fuel through the top of the stand pipe.
Opening the valve all the way opened the "reserve" which is at the
bottom. Fuel then flowed through the screen and into the lower
hole, bypassing the stand pipe. If the valve is open all the way,
that standpipe isn't helping anything. Same on many others.
Especially other Fords.

And you'll still have an 8N when you are done.

"The good news is every part for an 8N is available"

"the bad news is sooner or later you'll need them all"

This is true for most any tractor that's earned it's mettle
for 60 years. Parts for some other brands are not available.
Even if you bought a "better tractor", if you can't get parts
to fix it, it's not a "better tractor" in the long run.

It's got an odd fuel cut off on
bottom of tank. Some one stuck a
couple inches of rubber fuel line
up in the tank ,wedged in the
cutoff. Another thing I gotta fix!

Sounds like it had tank/fuel issues and someone cobbled it instead
of fixing it. That happens. Easy enough to fix when the time comes.
I would decide if it were worth it after I figured out what I had to do
to fix the smoke. New tank and sediment bowl are less than $150.

I will run for a long time with that oil pressure.

If is an important part of your operation and the oil consumption bothers you, budget around $2500 for a thorough overhaul.

Or just buy a few quarts of oil when it's on sale.

JWA said:

I sent you an email. I may have a solution for you.

Click to expand...

Send me email about the fix as well? [email protected]

grandpa Love said:

Poor little thing smokes bad. 40 weight oil. Oil pressure at start is 30. Hour of run time in hot weather it's 12-15 under load. 8ish at slow idle. Used 4-5 hours and used 1/2 quart if oil. Starts easy ,runs smooth and quiet. Plenty of power. Will just rings help the issue? I have an opportunity to buy a good motor at a decent price.....what would y'all do? Sorry video is side ways.......I ain't good at everything!! Lol.
Untitled URL Link

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ROOT CAUSE: Worn Engine. DO NOT BUY another engine until full testing is done. How do you know yours is blown? Rebuild yours. We will need more info too. Is it 6V or 12V? Front Mount or Side Mount Distributor? Wired correctly for your system? So, your 8N tractor is 75+ years old. Did you think it would last forever? When was engine last rebuild? Do you check the oil level with the dipstick as part of your pre-starting procedure/check list? Engine must be cold to get an accurate reading. If level is in an acceptable range, leave it alone. You can add more or do an oil change once tractor is running efficiently. If oil is low can add fresh to within range. At start up, engage IGN key ON but do not crank. Observ AMMETER immediately. Needle on Gauge should bump slightly to the "+" region. OK? Start engine. No AMMETER reading or starter motor/relay just cranks but won't turn over is sign battery is weak or dead. Get it tested at a shop. Next, if engine starts up, observe Oil Pressure Gauge. What does the Gauge read? Normal should be about 25 PSI plus or minus at idle start up. Allow engine to warm up. A worn engine will start to lose oil pressure as it gets hot. Operating tractor under load like mowing at 7/8 Throttle will show a higher oil level but that will start to drop as it runs more. Throttle down to idle and will show how low and bad it really is. DO NOT OPERATE TRACTOR with Oil Pressure below 10 PSI at idle. At risk now to blow the engine. Time for a rebuild. Best to use a good,relable machine shop who knows old FORDS for a rebuild. Take tractor in to him, or, If you like to wrench, can strip engine down to the bones and take it in to a shop. Machinist will boil the block and head, Magna-Flux and inspect for cracks or any weld jobs, then advise the next step. If block is OK, he'll precision measure the bore diameter and crank journals and then tell you exactly what size engine kit you need or will supply the correct one. Kit will have new pistons and sleeves. Get them. Do not try reusing any old parts. FORD engine blocks til 1950 used steel cylinder sleeves and were ID'g as such by a STAR (★) symbol prefix and suffix on the serial number stamp. In April, 1950 FORD changed sleeves to cast iron and ID'd with a DIAMOND (⬦ ) symbol in s/n and never looked back. It's all a moot point now because they no longer make steel liners. Machinist will regrind crank and get correct new bearings for it. If head needs re-decking he can do that but not required -he will inspect and advise. Rebuilding the oil pump and system is part of the rebuild job. Forget 'trailering' or attempting to pull-start, or jump starting. Do you know the correct way to jump start? Avoid buying any new parts and replacing without testing them first. Invest in The ESSENTIAL MANUALS and read religiously.

Tim Daley (MI)

NW-FLORIDA said:

Send me email about the fix as well? [email protected]

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The solution was simple, we sold this 8n...... This post is 4 years old