1010 oil from head gasket"

[Hive23]

I have a 63 1010 serial above 35000 that I have been working on. I got the tractor running and used it for several hours over the weekend. There appears to be a slow leak of oil from around the head gasket in the #4 cylinder area. I say appears because I recently changed the valve cover gasket and it could be from it. However, with good light, the head gasket area all the way around the head looks "wet" but I can only see puddling around the #4 cylinder area where the clutch housing and battery tray are located. I feel that anytime a leaky head gasket is suspected it should be changed, but this tractor hasn't ran in almost a decade except recently, there is not oil in the water (from what I can see), and there is not water in the oil.

I am curious to what your thought are as I was thinking maybe this was normal for this model or that the exterior portions of the gasket are deteriorated from being outside and not running.

 

[Mnethercutt]

Could be cylinder head gasket. However, the 1010 uses a deck liner plate for the sleeves. There is a gasket that goes between the deck plate and the block that could also be the culprit. Start with the easy things first--check your valve cover gasket and go from there. The head gasket is much easier to replace than the gasket between the deck plate and the block. See the parts diagram below, the gasket I'm referring to is no. 2.

 

[Mnethercutt]

Pi

 

[Hive23]

Could be cylinder head gasket. However, the 1010 uses a deck liner plate for the sleeves. There is a gasket that goes between the deck plate and the block that could also be the culprit. Start with the easy things first--check your valve cover gasket and go from there. The head gasket is much easier to replace than the gasket between the deck plate and the block. See the parts diagram below, the gasket I'm referring to is no. 2.

View attachment 144985

PiView attachment 144986

Thank you so much. I was looking at the tractor real close yesterday and noticed that it looked like the sleeve deck probably had a gasket also. I don't know why I didn't think of that sooner and you confirmed. In your opinion/experience is that tractor known for leaking oil around he sleeve deck to block gasket and to your knowledge - is that gasket cork, metal, paper... I know I could probable use the almighty google, but I would rather use experienced wisdom. For what it is worth, I already replaced the cork gasket around the valve cover when I checked and reset the valve lash.

 

[Mnethercutt]

I don't know for sure how common it is to leak there. I've been on this site for about 8 years and can't recall anyone else asking about this particular problem and the cause being that gasket. I will say that my tractor has a slow oil seep from that gasket but its not bad enough to warrant me fixing it (for the reasons I'll highlight below).

I would highly encourage you to clean the area of the leak extremely well and verify that its indeed coming from that gasket before you do anything. You have to tear the whole engine down to remove the sleeve deck and replace the gasket (you can do it inframe with the crankshaft still in, but pistons have to come out). The deck is over $2500 for a new one and they're prone to warping/cracking when being removed, so its a difficult, tedious job, and its more difficult (although not impossible) with the crankshaft installed. If you determine that you need to pull the deck, you'll also need to replace the sealing washers that seal the bottom of the cylinders to the block (part no. 3 in the diagram).

Long story short, if you've got to replace the gasket in question, you might as well do an engine rebuild, because you're gonna be there anyway. I *think* the gasket is a semi-metal gasket (I think copper?), but I'm going off memory of a 1010 parts engine I tore down years ago and could certainly be wrong.

If you can post a picture of the leaking area we might be able to give you better advice.

 

[Hive23]

I don't know for sure how common it is to leak there. I've been on this site for about 8 years and can't recall anyone else asking about this particular problem and the cause being that gasket. I will say that my tractor has a slow oil seep from that gasket but its not bad enough to warrant me fixing it (for the reasons I'll highlight below).

I would highly encourage you to clean the area of the leak extremely well and verify that its indeed coming from that gasket before you do anything. You have to tear the whole engine down to remove the sleeve deck and replace the gasket (you can do it inframe with the crankshaft still in, but pistons have to come out). The deck is over $2500 for a new one and they're prone to warping/cracking when being removed, so its a difficult, tedious job, and its more difficult (although not impossible) with the crankshaft installed. If you determine that you need to pull the deck, you'll also need to replace the sealing washers that seal the bottom of the cylinders to the block (part no. 3 in the diagram).

Long story short, if you've got to replace the gasket in question, you might as well do an engine rebuild, because you're gonna be there anyway. I *think* the gasket is a semi-metal gasket (I think copper?), but I'm going off memory of a 1010 parts engine I tore down years ago and could certainly be wrong.

If you can post a picture of the leaking area we might be able to give you better advice.

 

[Hive23]

From the look of the last reply the pics rotated 90 degrees even though the thumbs in my pics are correct. Anyway, I know they are not great pics but these were taken a couple days after it had been cleaned and ran for a couple hours. It's not a "bad" leak and old tractors will always have a leak somewhere, I was more curious about how common/worried I should be about this one. Also, I will post this in a different thread but I would love to find someone with a set of the original fenders that come on the '63 1010RUS. The current fenders on this one are definitely not original and beat to hell. I am treating this tractor as a dress rehearsal for some other automotive themed "rod building" and would like to try my hand at fabricating OEM style fenders with rat rod style metal shaping techniques.

 

[Mnethercutt]

That's definitely from the deck plate to block gasket; leave it be. It'll probably last another 10+ years before you need to do anything with it.