Oil in Super A radiator

Just bought a 1952 Super A to restore a little bit (oil change,anti-freeze and paint) Scared to go further since my engine skills pretty much stink. I am planning to use this tractor on my small produce farm in the spring. I found some oil in the radiator which obviously I know can't be good. I am pulling the tractor apart now and was wondering how much I should be concerned and is it a major job to fix if need be.

There's fewer possibilities this way than the other way around (anti-freeze showing up in oil).

Easiest, simplest and least critical is a head gasket giving out. Replacing it involves (naturally) removing the head, which you'd have to do anyway to check out the other possibilities, a crack in the head or the crankcase. Sometimes but not always, a bad head gasket will show up a leak across the two systems. In the absence of anything obvious, a crack in the head or block might take a more practiced eye.

Removing the head on an A is a pretty straightforward job that can be done with a basic socket set, but it would be good to have a service manual at hand before you get into it.

I would not tear it down yet but since i just bought it i would drain the coolant and replace with new. Change oil and filter. Then i would use it and keep checking rhw levels. You bought a tractor and there is no way you will ever know the real truth of its history so maybe someone added oil in the radiator by mistake. The oil in the radiator wont cause any problems anyway. Go slow on this tractor just dont tear into something without knowing first if its realy a problem.

Joe: gene and Scotty have given you some very good advice, and like gene, I'm assuming you know very little of the past history.

To add to what has been already said, do you see any evidence of anti-freeze or coolant in the crankcase? Oil in the radiator will not have any adverse effect, however anti-freeze in the crankcase will. It will destroy the crank and rod bearings quite quickly, plus do significant damage to the crank. My guess is 95% of all cranks ever requiring turning and machining was brought on by anti-freeze in the crankcase.

Having said that, I'd drain both liquids, look them over very closely. Anti-freeze in oil will make it sticky when you rub it between your fingers. Oil alone should be quite slippery. If you find pure oil from crankcase, fill crank case and radiator with fresh clean liquids, carry on and watch both closely as you use the tractor. If your getting one way movement of liquid from crankcase to radiator, you should see bubbles in the radiator after tractor is warmed up. Then and only then I'd go looking for a cracked head, cracked block or bad head gasket.

On the other hand if you find coolant in the crankcase oil, you best get the wrenches out PDQ.

Thanks for the advice! It looks like my worst nightmare came true. I took the top of the engine cover off and on top of the cover is a milky cream colored gue. Any thoughts on what this is, hoprfully not anti-freeze but I'm sure it is

Don't send her to the breakers yet!

What you found under the valve cover isn't at all unusual. Water in the crankcase doesn't really mix with oil but it does get dispersed and suspended in it along with the usual fine bits of ash and crud and when left to sit will create the milky sludge like you're seeing.

What will be more important is what you find when you drain the crankcase. With the motor not running for a day or two, to give everything time to settle and separate, loosen the drain plug but hold the plug so that it flows slowly, and drain the first quart or so of what comes out of the crankcase into something like a mayonnaise jar that you can see into. Once you are getting just oil, go ahead and finish draining it in the usual fashion.

If all you get in the jar is oil, that would be a good sign.

If you get water, there's two things to consider. 1) is how much. Less than a pint could be from condensation from sitting and not being run to boil it out. 2) is what's in your radiator. If you get clear water, and you have antifreeze in your radiator, that's still a good sign, as far as it goes, suggesting that the oil in your radiator may not be the result of a bad gasket or crack in the head or block. That's not to say that it isn't -- the water may still have gotten in that way if at some time the radiator ws filed with straight water, and the antifreeze added later.

Here's how I'd proceed, provided you didn't get an excessive amount of water out of the crankcase. Drain the crankcase as I described and see what you get. Scrape and wipe off as much of that sludge as you can, then get some diesel or kerosene and a brush and clean up the rest of it. It will run down into the pan and drain the same as your oil. When I've done this, I've chased it with a dose of kerosene from a bottle down through the various openings in the head to help rinse everything down to the pan and out the drain.

Replace your drain plug and valve cover, change your oil filter, and put five fresh quarts of oil into it.

Then drain your radiator. It may not drain completely, which means that the oil that is in there already might remain. To get around that, I'd mix up some washing soda (a couple of pounds worth, about half of the size of box most commonly found) into four gallons of water (mix it together first!) and refill your cooling system with that.

Then, like the others have said give her a good run, making sure she warms up and circulates well. Then drain it. (It will come out black when you drain it, but that's not necesarily oil and no reason to panic. The rust and sludge in the motor turns black in reaction to the caustic nature of the soda. Let the engine cool for a while and, with the drain still open, flush what you can out with a garden hose running down the filler neck until you're getting clear water. Replace the drain plug and refill with an appropriate amount of water and anti-freeze. (In the summer, I'd say refill with water just to avoid having to deal with the antifreeze disposal later if you do have another problem, but I'm asssuming you're not in Key West, so use antifreeze as appropriate to your location and weather. The other advantage is that with your clean crankcase, any problem with the gasket, head or block should now put antifreeze if anything at all into your oil, not clear water. Kind of like using a dye to find a leak.)

My thinking is that the washing soda will break up and suspend whatever oil remains, so that when you drain it you'll have a cleaner system.
When all this is done, you should have relatively clean oil and cooling systems and, at the very least just done some maintenance that sounds like the tractor needed anyway.

Then it's time for running it the way Hugh and Gene suggested. Check it periodically and, if you have no new oil in the radiator and a little sample drain of the crankcase (again, after being given the chance to settle afer running) doesn't show any anti-freeze, you're safe to go.

Like one of the others pointed out, there's noting to say that somebody didn't dump waste oil out of a jug and then use it to mix the antifreeze, or use their dirty oil drain funnel to fill that radiator.

Great info, I will do that. The other thing I found was when I took the bottom of the air filter off there was at least a 1/4 inch of straight water at the bottom. I assume this tractor was left outside at some piont of time. Hoping thats what all my concerns are about in the engine. One last thing, would you recommend detergent or non-detergent oil? I have no idea what has been used in the past.

[I would use a standard Service-SM detergent oil like you'd use in any automotive engine.

The detergent oil carries particles in suspension to the filter where they can be removed.

A non-detergent oil is more appropriate for something like a vacuum pump which runs hot but the detergent additive can cause foaming. However, the oil isn't really being "contaminated" and any foreign particles just accumulate in a quiet area of the sump...some may never be removed unless the pump is thoroughly cleaned in an overhaul.

Water in the bottom of the air cleaner is a good indicator that you'll likely find some water in your crankcase, too, but also suggests that it comes from condensation, so we're gettin' there. Any sigificant amount of antifreeze you might find in the crnkcase is another story, but we'll deal with that if you find it.

As far as oil, any automotive grade motor oil will do. With the cleaning and flushing you will have done to clean up the sludge on top of the head, you'll want to change it out along with the filter after five to ten hours or so of running.

It will be important to warm the engine up well each time you run it at this stage, for a couple of reasons. First is that you can count on there being more of that grey sludge further down in the engine where you can't see it or get to it to clean it up. A lot of that grey is moisture, and warming the engine up well will help to evaporate it out. The other is, if your tractor has a pressurized cooling system (some don't), warming it up enough to pressurize the cooling system will force antifreeze back into your oil system if there is any leak (gasket, head or block) that requires attention, and that will show up when you change the oil. Of course, we're hoping that that will not be the case, but getting things warmed up well will be the best, surest way of checking things out.

The fan and radiator are VERY efficient on these tractors and their engines don't warm up quickly or easily unless you're really working them. If you don't have the opportunity to really work her hard, I've been known ;8^) to start one up and put a tall kitchen trash bag over the grille -- the suction of the fan will hold it in place and, while it isn't as effective as radiator shutters, it will block off enough air flow to allow the engine to warm up. It might take a half-hour or more like that, but run it each time until the block, not just the head, is too hot to rest your hand on comfortably behind the oil filter or behind the carb on the other side. This would apply as well to the first run with the washing soda in the cooling system, though I would keep the radiator cap OFF for that run.

This thread is starting to sink down a few pages, so please start a new thread so it will be at the top to let us know what you find and how you're making out.

G'luck!