smoke coming out oil overflow tube

I've been getting exphixiated in my cab lately. Just found gray smoke comining out of the oil overflow tube. IH-584 with 3000 hrs.

Is this diesel exhast?
Is this burning oil?
Is this supposed to be there?
Am I looking at a re-build of the engine to fix it?

Thanks,Jim

Older tractors will allows have some, how much varies by make and model and amount of wear.

Cars also have blowby, but you don't see it because it is re-cycled back into the engine by the PCV system and burned rather than just dumped like on your tractor.

Is the engine loosing power, and/or using a lot of oil?

As far as the smell in the cab, is it sealed up properly, and do you have pressurizer fans runing?

Power seems fine. It has always had a slight appetite for oil, but not much.

There are a few places where fumes could get it, but those have always been there (at least since I've had the tractor), so I would have expected trouble before now. But your e-mail did cause me to remember that this spring I'd removed a "trim" panel on the side, right next to the cab, to do some other service and never bothered to replace it. So maybe that's it. It isn't right next to the oil overflow, but maybe it was blocking just enough fumes that I'd not been bothered by it before?

But if this doesn't fix it, how would tell if I'm getting too much smoke? I had suspected rings. If it is that, that's pretty much a full tear-down isn't it?

Thanks!,
Jim

As was mentioned, B4 PCV, you could look under most any car that wasn't brand new and see the little puffs of tell tale smoke.

Mark