[AT] After action report: Ford 4000 Quitting Afer Running a While

Alan Nadeau ajnadeau1 at myfairpoint.net
Fri Aug 9 09:10:03 PDT 2013


My thanks to all who replied.  

The pig is now running quite nicely but I never found anything really serious taht I can pin the problem on.

Along the way I found even more reason to hate the lack of easy service on this machine.

I finally found the sediment bowl.  With the loader frame in the way if cannot be seen if you are standing beside the tractor.  If you squat down to just the right height you can finally see just the knurled nut holding the bowl in place.  The sediment bowl filled with what I can only identify as clear liquid.  My first thought was "water" but some of the unleaded stuff is virtually clear so that was inconclusive.  The bowl holds maybe an ounce of fluid, I dumped it out and re-installed the bowl.  Ran the tractor for an hour or more, seemed to run fine but I felt I was hearing the beginnings of the stumble again when it got down to about 1/8 tank.  I got more gas and ran it for 3-4 hours and again thought it was stumbling as it got low.

At that point I suspected a plugged outlet filter in the tank and as the height of fuel in the tank dropped off it was cutting fuel flow just enough to mess things up.

I disconnected the fuel line, drained several quarts of fuel into a clear jug, not so much as a drop of water showed up but the gas from our usual fuel stop is distinctly a dark yellow.  That reinforces the thought that the "clear liquid" in the sediment bowl was water.

Once the tank was empty I removed the outlet valve from the tank to inspect the filter which the book shows is in there. No filter, no evidence there ever was one, and no "muck" apparent when I flushed the tank with clean fuel while the valve was out. 

There is a fuel pump on this engine but it seems to be made from an alloy of hideium/invisibilium and I cannot even see it, much less access it.  I could probably get the line off at the carb to check fuel delivery but at the moment I'm not going to screw with that unless the problem comes back.

I have now run it for several hours more and it seems to run fine, other than an odd "beat" in the exhaust.  That may just be typical sound of a three cylinder engine.  This is my first experience with a 3-holer so I really don't know how one should sound.

I'm not sure how this is connected but the absolutely miserable, eye smarting, exhaust fumes are gone as well.  Those were so bad that it was common that my eyes would be  red and inflamed after an hour or two, to the point I would have to stop and flush them occasionally to ease the discomfort.  Very similar to the symptoms of the discharge from a messed up burner on those forced air, kerosene burning "torpedo space heaters, taken to several orders of magnitude worse.

I never did check any of the ignition system.  There is not one part of that which I can access with the loader installed.  With both hands working 100% I could "probably" get things apart and back together. Even the primary terminals on the coil are so buried that I can't see them, much less get probes in there to check input voltage. 

While I am now inclined to put this down to water in the fuel there are several holes in that explanation.  If the sediment bowl was originally full of water, to where water was going into the card, why did it not just quit completely.  Why would it run fine for a while and then die?  There was no water in the tank when I drained it so it seems pretty amazing that there was just one bowl-full of  water in the system.

I would much prefer to have found something identifiable as I am not much for coincidences.

    Subject: [AT] Ford 4000 Quitting Afer Running a While

    The shooting club I belong to has a Ford 4000 which is having "issues".  I'm 
    not sure where to start trying to narrow it down.  This is the newer version 
    with the 3 cyl. gas engine, not the early one which looks like a beefed up N 
    Series.  We use it, with a 6 foot bushhog, to keep the weed/brush growth 
    down on several acres of old pasture land around the club grounds.  I get 
    along with it as it is the right age, even if it is an off brand(Ford was 
    never real popular around here).  Nobody else really cares to operate it as 
    it is a bit of a clubfoot and is not a shiny compact tractor.

    I starts fine and runs good for the first 1-2 hours.  Then it starts to 
    stumble and over a few minutes gets worse until it dies completely. 
    Sometimes it will restart immediately and run (barely) for a few seconds, at 
    other times it won't restart without sitting 30-45 minutes.  After that rest 
    period it will again run normally but for a shorter time, continuing that 
    sequence until It won't run at all until completely cooled down.

    When it starts stumbling I can usually notice the difference in engine note. 
    If I catch it in time I find I can take the load off it, close the throttle 
    to barely above idle and, by playing with the choke, manage to limp it back 
    to the barn.

    It doesn't backfire when it acts up, if it was going lean I would expect it 
    to belch and bellow.  If the ignition was cutting out completely, then 
    kicking back in I would also expect a horrendous backfire from unburned fuel 
    filling the exhaust and then getting lit off.

    Since I am always alone when I'm working it I don't have anyone around to 
    help in trying to troubleshoot the thing.  Unless I am constantly playing 
    with the choke it dies, there is no pulling the choke partway and having it 
    continue to run.

    One thing that may be relevant or not is that this thing has the absolutely 
    harsh exhaust fumes I have ever been exposed to.  Terrible eye irritating 
    stuff.  I added some to the stack so it is quite a bit higher than my head 
    and I'm still coming home with my eyes so irritated that I often have to 
    pull my eyelids part manually when awakening the morning after a hogging 
    session.

    Anyone have any ideas?  If you want more information ask any questions and 
    I'll answer them as fully as I can.

    As for taking it to a shop, it is really hard now to find anyone who knows 
    diddly about carburetors and spark ignition.  Because it only acts up after 
    being worked for a while I'm not sure how viable it would be to get it into 
    a shop.  Now that I think about it I may well let it run at high idle and 
    see if it craps out without a load.  If it does that would make getting it 
    to a shop a bit more practical.

    Al Nadeau



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