smoke coming out breather

toby74 · Sep 6, 2005

The respirator/crankcase breather coming out the side of a Jinma 28HP 3cyl diesel is blowing greyish smoke out of it. Smoke smells and looks kind of like exhaust. The tractor has 10 hours on it. The tractor seems to run fine for the most part. It does have a slight miss when you first start it up, but seems to straighten out pretty quick, then when you run it at full throttle, it is skipping a beat every couple seconds. Exhaust looks fine, nothing out of the normal. The tractor was full of oil with around 6 hours on it, and now at 10 hours it is about half way to the fill line. So it is eating oil. Oil pressure is good. Does not appear to be any water or anything in the OIL, the oil looks brand new, no darkening. Antifreeze is still full, and does not appear to be dropping, no bubbles or anything in the radiator. Air filter is clean, no blockages. I have used the pump to make sure that there is no air in the fuel lines, does not appear to be any. As I was checking it out and it started to warm up, I noticed a strange squeaking noise when I would idle it down, and when I would pull the fuel stop. It sounded like it was a squeaking coming from inside or around the exhaust pipe.

Does anyone have any idea what this problem could be?
Is it safe to run it in this condition?
All help is greatly appreciated!!

rdbrumfield · Sep 7, 2005

I would have to say it is a cracked piston or rings on that one cyl that is missfiring. It would explain the blowby that is pressurizing the crankcase and the loss of oil. I lost a piston on a brand new engine once. A defect in the top of the piston. Might do a compression test on the cylinders to see if there is a weak one for insurance on this line of thought.