dumb as rocks

[jdeere86]

I have an open vertical exhaust on my 140...took it out from storage and let it sit outside during a couple rain storms forgetting to cover the exhaust.....

ran the tractor yesterday and seemed to run just fine.....today running it and it was sputtering bad while idling..wouldn't cut out and die but sounded like it wanted to........

any advice ...have I caused serious damage??

[Lt.Mike]

Sounds like moisture where it shouldn't be.
Try parking it in the sun, pulling the distributor cap, and giving it a couple of hours to dry out.
A little CRC electrical cleaner sprayed where the plug wires connect to will help to displace the moisture. A little water around the wires and cap will make the best engine run like chitty chitty bang bang.
Got a hunch it may be that simple.

Mike

[jdeere86]

tried that while at the same time opened up drain on carb and cleaned sediment bowl. fired her up still making chugging noise while idling....gave her close to full throttle and started to run smooth after few seconds...throttle down and back to sputtering.....also if I operate hydraulic starts to making chugging noise as well....

[Matt Kirsch]

Any water that got down the exhaust would have blown right out when you started the tractor, and any residual moisture would have boiled off when the engine warmed up a little.

The only time that leaving the exhaust open like that is a problem is if you let it go for months. Then things get rusty. If you go right out the day after the rain storm and fire the tractor up, there is nothing to worry about in that respect.

Water intrusion elsewhere could cause running problems, but only immediately after the rain storm. It won't run fine after the rainstorm and then run bad the next day BECAUSE of the water intrusion. When you ran it yesterday you boiled off any moisture in the ignition and carb.

[jdeere86]

okay thank you for clearing up water down exhaust...was thinking the worse....hm will have to trouble shoot further now..strange how one day running good and the next not

[Slim140]

Did you have any water in the sediment bowl? How long has your gas been in the tank?

[jdeere86]

emptied sediment bowl and cleaned some red gunk from botom...was some gas left from last year in tank ...added some lucas fuel cleaner and 5 gallons of new fuel....was running fine few times this year til now

[Lt.Mike]

Still thinking is an ignition issue. Go through the usual route, check clean plugs first. Mine did the same thing and I found two fouled plugs which were caused by faulty plug wires. Make sure the cap is dry where the wires connect and inside. Check and cleanup the points.
Check wire connections to the coil, kill switch etc... for grounding and corrosion.
Make sure the air inlet isn't restricted also.
Mike

[jdeere86]

when I was checking the distributor cap it did seem like one of the plug wires was a little loose..during day fired her up and throttled up and down quite few times and let it run..not sure if that helped work out gunk in gas maybe.....anyhow fired her up yesterday evening and adjusted the idle screw (myuncle said to check that) and all seemed well.....was able to mark a row to plant some cucumbers without any issues...i'll see how she is running today...not sure if I mentioned in first post that I did replace all spark plugs just last week with some d21s ....maybe the wires next ...I bought the tractor last year from someone who had it settin in a barn for few years at least without use ..by the amount of trouble it took to get the cultivating shovels off it seems like it had not been worked in the field for quite some time...

[Urbish]

For what it's worth, you can get a little rain cap for about $10. But the other guys are right, one or two nights in the rain followed by an immediate fire-up probably didn't do any harm to your valves or cylinders.