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Definitely not black, it’s bluish white. Not as blue as pictures of blue smoke i see in researching this, but bluish hue for sure. When I bought the tractor there was some slobber from the exhaust and for the first handful of tanks I ran some injector cleaner through and that helped, but i feel there’s always been a minor oil issue at hand here. The fact that the smoke always cleared up had me at ease about it. Now I’m not so sure.

It’s still chilly here, I think I’ll plug in the block heater, let it heat up a couple hours and start it again and take more notes today.

 

Blue/black smoke would be diesel, white would be oil. You could have a bad injector and that causes the smoke on start up and when it gets warm it is able to burn all the extra fuel that injector is dumping in the cylinder.

I had an injector tip come off on a JD 2555 once and it started skipping.

I don't know if yours is related to the hole in the radiator or something else just happened to give up and is coincidence.

 

Here’s a picture. Definitely more on the white side. Maybe I’m just thinking about it too much but it does sound to not be running as smooth as it did before. Maybe I should start with replacing the thermostat, and have the injectors serviced or replaced. I know nothing about servicing injectors or where to have that sort of thing done. I’ve read these injectors need periodic re adjustment, maybe that’s all this is. There’s a whole list of items I’d like to tackle on the tractor this year if funds and time allow. First thing is a good power washing once mud season’s over hah

Btw my oil is always really black too. Even shortly after an oil change. I’m currently at about 50hrs since last change and the oil is darkest black. Not sure if that points to anything.

I’m sure there’s a few oil things going on, it steadily but slowly leaks from the weep hole but not fast enough to worry. This is probably all just a bunch of minor things stacked on top of each other. My main concern is that the smoke stopped clearing right after it ran a bit hot and I caused damage that is beyond my current realm of understanding.

 

Oil in a diesel turns black pretty quick after a change so I wouldn't be concerned about the color. Smell the oil and see if it smells like diesel, if it does then you could have a bad injector(s) and you need to address it. A bad injector can cause "washout". It puts so much diesel in the cylinder it "washes out" the oil and wears the bore/piston/rings out quick and the diesel dilutes the oil and it isn't good for the engine.

 

I did a welding job yesterday for a friend who is one of the bigger farmers in our area. He raises about 100 acres of tobacco, soybeans, wheat, and strawberries. We were talking about tobacco and strawberries. He said his strawberries will be ready to pick the end of the month and his tobacco will be ready to plant next month. The problem is he's been getting help from south of the border for as long as I can remember on a work program. He usually gets about 16 guys a year. He said as of right now they can't come because of this virus and travel restrictions so he may not be able to get his tobacco in the ground (it's in his greenhouse growing right now) and his strawberries will probably rot cause them boys pick them everyday. He has about 3 acres of berries.

He also said Florida and California were suffering because of it now and things that are in season ready to harvest there. Tough times for the agricultural industry!

 

With everybody who's out of work & school right now, he might be able to find somebody locally to do it. Kids looking for spending money, adults out of work, etc.
Of course, he'd have to pay them more, and they'd have to be willing to do manual labor. A few years ago at the local Ag fair I was talking to the farmer that I threw hay for in high school and he said that he wasn't able to find summer help from the local kids even paying $16 an hour (at that point I think minimum wage was $9 or $10).

 

Yeah kids these days don't like physical labor. When we were young and old enough we would pull tobacco, throw hay, whatever to make a buck. Of course dad never paid us to help him but we didn't go hungry

 

When I did it he was paying $8, and at that point the minimum wage was $6. But, it was also before the age of the internet, mostly

That was his main cash crop, so it was all we really did. On rainy days we'd bottle off maple syrup or work with the cattle, but most of the time it was hay, hay, hay. You got into amazing shape but you didn't want to do much at the end of the day other than go for a swim

 

Been working on this engine anymore?

 

Guy I know just contacted me about doing a little tractor work. I politely declined. I can't hook the gooseneck up, load tractor and equipment, drive 20 minutes, unload, do work, reload, unload again and put everything up and make any money. He wants 1/4 acre plowed up for a food plot.

I told him he'd be better off to find someone close to where it is with a tractor and have them do it.

 

Around here most tractor work is hired by the day; usually $150-$175 for a half and then $300-350 for a full day, depending on the job. Some guys also charge mileage, some don't.

 

Gotcha. I need to rebuild one of ours but can’t justify it right now.

 

That’s awesome!

 

My cousin has had a rough several years and he only has one leg. He came by today and ask me to plow 10 strips 10’ wide about 400’ long. He wants to plant sunflowers to sell. It’s right beside his tulip patch he’s selling them now. He had it flagged off and had fun riding around moving flags.

 

Cut more sumac and built another pile. The pallet forks and pallet were the way to go. Hauled a bunch of 16ft long stuff with the rear bouncing because I didn't have my rear ballast---100lb box blade on with 70lbs of weights hanging on it. Below is a small load compared to what the wife and I hauled.

 

My neighbor came by and filled up with diesel yesterday. This is a nice old machine.

 

Did some more on this over the weekend. Mostly just dug out & pulled rocks and stumps. It'll have to dry out more before I can move them all out of the way and start cutting it/leveling it to grade.




I should have put something in there for scale; those are 3 foot rocks...

 

My neighbor works with my brother at a Kubota dealer. Not a really big one, talked to him today and he said they’ve sold 21 pieces of equipment since April 1st and 14 of them are tractors.