A , airfilter oil cup question

[Lt.Mike]

I’m putting more attention to my A now having knocked other things higher up on my extensive to do list.
It’s valve cover was leaking badly and it’s fan belt was shot. Those things are now repaired.
One issue I’ve had with it is it blows a lot of smoke when first fired up. After a couple minutes it clears up. I checked the air/oil bath level which was at the mark but the inner cup was filled too. Isn’t just the outer area supposed to have oil? I drained and filled the outer ring but it leaked into the center area. Could this contribute to the tractor smoking at startup?
Could it be sucking oil droplets into the intake?
Another thing is when I had the valve cover off the top of the head and passages were clean and clear of any sludge.

[Shane Nelson]

The center is supposed to have oil in it as well. Wouldn’t think that has anything to do with smoking at start up. Does that engine have valve seals? I’m unsure if it does, but if it does they could be hard and letting oil by causing the smoke at start up.

[Lt.Mike]

Valve seals would have been my first guess too but it’s a ‘46 which I’ve been told didn’t have valve seals ??? Is that right?
If it does have valve seals I can either replace them or dump some kind of a miracle additive designed to recondition them and cross my fingers it actually works.

[Lt.Mike]

Update, the valve cover had a small leak and I wanted to see if there was gunk preventing oil from returning to the pan. Pulling it off I was relieved to find it was as clean as a fresh rebuild. Ok but it doesn’t explain the smoke out the pipe on startup. I wiped it down and reassembled with a bead of permatex.
The smoking stopped.
I’m not complaining but I’m at a bit of a loss why?
It’s better to be lucky than good right (?)
Now I’ve got that restart issue to deal with (my other post)
Mike

[John *.?-!.* cub owner]

I am only slightly familiar with an A, but does it have a small breather pipe running from the intake to the block, if so, the vlave cover could have been letting enough air in to prevent burning the fumes, but my prime suspicion is that it just took a while for the rings to seat after the rebuild, which is normal.

[Lt.Mike]

No no, it was “ as” clean as a rebuild but as far as I know no one has gone inside that block since it was built in ‘46. I had run seafoam through it awhile back to clean it out and well I guess it did. That was some time back though, no seafoam in it now. I just had a look at the intake, no pipe that I could see.

[Stanton]

You are correct; no breather tube to the block, unlike a Cub.

The intake air enters the dome strainer, travels down the pipe, passes thru the oil then back up and out to the carb intake. Passing thru the oil is where the dust and dirt gets left behind; just like a Cub.

[Lt.Mike]

Update, the valve cover had a small leak and I wanted to see if there was gunk preventing oil from returning to the pan. Pulling it off I was relieved to find it was as clean as a fresh rebuild. Ok but it doesn’t explain the smoke out the pipe on startup. I wiped it down and reassembled with a bead of permatex.
The smoking stopped.
I’m not complaining but I’m at a bit of a loss why?
It’s better to be lucky than good right (?)
Now I’ve got that restart issue to deal with (my other post)
Mike

Ok this was back in July, but the result is still the same. When the valve cover was leaking and making a mess down the side of the block the tractor would burn off A LOT of smoke at start up out the exhaust. The longer the tractor sat between use the more smoke it it blew. It was comparable to firing an outboard motor that had been fogged prior to storage.
Once warmed up it ran clean and if restarted that day would burn clean.
This went on for a couple years from the day I brought it home. I dealt with the mess and added oil as necessary. The leak did get gradually worse which is why as stated above I pulled the valve cover and fixed the leaking gasket.
What was unexpected was that along with fixing it’s leaking oil it also completely fixed the oil cloud at startup!
It’s been over 6 months since I made that repair and it still burns clean at startup.
I am grateful two issues were fixed by repairing a leak but why would that prevent oil making its way into the cylinders during storage?
I know I should probably just say ok then and move to fixing the next issue but I’m somewhat stumped on this.
Maybe with winter weather and cold keeping me from my projects I’ve just got too much time on my hands.
Mike
PS- that restart issue I’ve identified as a weak coil in the mag.

[Jim Becker]

Are you absolutely sure the smoke was coming out the exhaust, not next to it? Oil can leak from the valve cover and accumulate on the exhaust manifold. It will burn off during the next start-up.

[Lt.Mike]

Oh no, it was out of the exhaust pipe. There wasn’t a mosquito left in my yard on some days and in the summer I’d cringe if the wind blew it towards my neighbors house. It’d look like the shed was on fire. Another comparison would be to a cold Detroit diesel startup. But that would last only about 30 seconds. Now with the valve cover sealed to the head, next to nothing. Does it hold oil now against the valve seals?
It’s baffling.

[BullDAWG]

glad it fixed it, but to me it sounded like either the piston rings were frozen from sitting up and between the sea-foam and running it more you broke em loose and now it doesn't smoke at start up. but the smoke sounded like it was that and once the pistons heated up it sealed better or burnt off all the excess oil on em. I'm saying this just because fixing the leak in the valve cover shouldn't stop the smoke unless it was oil getting onto the exhaust manifold but as stated this would have been on outside not out the actual exhaust pipe. The 2 main things that would cause that is excess valve clearance and oil getting past the valves and getting on the pistons OR the oil rings on the piston being frozen. and without putting new valve guide seals or new valves n guides I'm thinking it was most likely the rings were frozen. I use both sea-foam n marvels oil to help free them up on engines that have been sitting up for a while. Also when doing that I've had a mustang that I poured a ton of sea foam in and for 30-45 minutes it smoked so bad even though I drove it the whole time. I tried explaining to friends it didn't smoke when I bought it but they saw it smoking like that n thought I was a fool for buying that car. The next time they saw it I had changed the pulleys on the supercharger n the only smoke they saw then was from the tires n the over 600 HP ripping the tires to shreds.

[Lt.Mike]

I had run seafoam thru it years ago but it’s oil had been changed since. I suppose maybe a valve wasn’t seating or something and was accidentally corrected when I was fiddling around with the cover off.
Before that oil would burn off in the cylinders for the first few minutes each time I fired it.
Now it fires clean. Definitely a puzzle but it’s better than it was so I’ll take it.

[Jim Becker]

What "fiddling around" did you do while the valve cover was off? Did you unbolt the rocker arm shaft assembly? adjust vales? anything else?

[Lt.Mike]

What "fiddling around" did you do while the valve cover was off? Did you unbolt the rocker arm shaft assembly? adjust vales? anything else?

Nothing mechanical, I wiped it down maybe bumped it some but I guess I’m grasping at straws here trying to figure why it quit smoking.
I probably shouldn’t care but if I ever need to know how to fix that issue again I’d like to know what I did.

I’m almost tempted to break the seal on the cover again to see what happens.