Farmall H C152 piston ring help

My H started sputtering and lost 2 cylinders the other day, not smoking really, tried tinkering with carb a bit to no avail. Running like a John Deere 2 cylinder and hardly enough power to drag itself along on level ground. Checked plugs and number 2 and number 4 were fouled with oily goop, cleaned them and reinstalled, started up and ran great for 5 minutes then began missing as before. Managed to limp it into the shop today and started into it, valve cover off, all seems good, head off, all seems good, oil pan off, nothing in there, seems good. Funny thing, tractor started to run better just as I was pulling into the shop, like it had a big burp and could breathe. Pulled the plugs and all were dry and normal looking. Popped out number 4 piston and for the life of me the rings seem fine, sleeve is mirror smooth. I really hate to pull all those pistons for nothing. If some of you gentlemen who know more about piston rings on the H engine could look at these photos I would appreciate it. I expected to find broken piston rings falling out all over the place, or worn to nothing, but these seem fine. My only other thought was that possibly a big chunk of carbon had broken off inside and somehow managed to lodge itself in the valve seat of one of the valves giving effectively zero compression, then finally it worked its way out? I dunno.
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There is some urgency with this as I was due to haul the tractor this week to a cedar swamp logging job too wet to get in with the horses, it has a big winch driven off the belt I use to pull out the trees. Now I'm sitting here scratching my head. Here's a video of the winch just after I built it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjbcYPUD9JY
 

I can't even IMAGINE tearing down the engine to that point without doing some troubleshooting.
 
Interesting rig, very cleverly built! Seems you should have applied some of your intelligence toward properly diagnosing your issue before you laid your engine out to the mercy of your tools. First a compression test should have been performed to help evaluate your problem. Secondly, before you pulled the head did you check the closed valve clearances to see if any were zero or nearly zero? Probably all water under the bridge now. Do you only have the number 4 piston out and all the photos are of it? To me you are not showing the view that tells the most important part of the story, that is a view of the top of the pistons. Does the top of 4 look washed clean around the outer edge? How does the top of the others look? If 4 and 2 have clean outer edges that means they are both letting oil past the rings leading to the fouling of the plugs. If the cylinder sleeves have a minimal amount of ridge at the top where the rings stop and none of the other cylinders have any bad scoring.. vertical scratching, get a set of rings and rod bearings sized properly per the stamping on the back. Hone the cylinders and re-ring it. Take your head to a machine shop and have it gone through and the valves ground. You can chince by with lesser options but since you have it this far apart you may as well do it as nearly correctly as possible.
Now for the ultimate possibility of disgust. How long you had this tractor? If not very long I will give you this hint. Old Farmalls need very little choke to start. They definitely DO NOT need a warm up period running with the choke partially on. If you do this STOP IT! Doing that easily soots up the spark plugs and fouls them from firing. The fact that there is black goop on your plugs does speak to evidence of at least some oil use. However that can easily be aggravated by the above process at which point your dirty plug will not be able to self clean and start firing again. So starting it and running it rich during warm up could have very well been at least part of the problem. Soap box now put away. See link for possible parts options. I directed you to the H parts because you said C-152 even though it is shown in the video with Super decals.
YT Farmall C 152 parts options
 
I agree, it was a bit extreme to tear the engine down before even trying to troubleshoot. Compression check at least. Ignition tune-up at least.

If you need it, put it back together and run it.
 
Piston is number 4 only. Valves were checked prior to removing head, all good as I stated. Have had the tractor a couple of months but prior to that drove an H for 10 years as a kid/teenager, yes, no choke required at all really. Installed new plug wires coil wire and plugs when first got tractor. Carb reset to factory settings and was working fine. No visible difference between piston tops, all 4 the same. I don't own a compression tester, thumb over plug hole while cranking indicated some amount of compression.
Have not noticed blowby from draft tube, so my other thought is that possibly a bad head gasket was somehow allowing oil into combustion chamber in miniscule quantities. Super H hood is from another tractor by previous owner. I'm no mechanic, and obviously stupid as several have pointed out and should not own tractors or attempt to diagnose or repair them. So I'll end this conversation.
 
No need to go away mad. Look at it from our point of view. You say you have an important job coming up with ..some urgency.. You are pulling it in the shop and it seems to start running better. Yet you go ahead with ..open heart surgery.. you really do not think that is an unusual approach? I have given you my suggestion. And if what you see proves TO YOU nothing is wrong do as Barnyard suggests and put it back together. You say nothing about checking the points. In this day and age ..what is done is done.. as far as the ignition may not apply even if it was two months ago. The set of points you got may be elcheapo especially if the ignition switch was accidentally left on some amount time without the engine running. Everything works together to make an engine run properly fuel, ignition, timing, valves and compression. Best of luck!
Editing to add: Your theory of oil getting in the cylinders from the head gasket would be a very rare possibility. Pressurized oil only passes through the head one place for lubing the rocker shaft. I have never heard of a Farmall with that problem, and the drain back oil is even far less likely to migrate into the cylinder.

This post was edited by used red MN on 10/10/2023 at 07:04 am.
 
As noted by others, the real issue could be a cracked distributor cap that caused misfire when damp. or plug wires swapping spak where they touched or where they are touching metal. We can assist with all sorts of ideas. please give us an early chance to reduce your frustration. Welcome to our tiny slice of reality. Jim
 
now that u have the pistons out ,... remove the top ring and put it back in the bore and measure the ring gap at the bottom of the bore and at the top of the bore. measuring at the top of ring travel will give both cylinder and ring wear. at the bottom you will only be measuring the actual ring wear. use a feeler guage in the ring gap. the gap should be .003-.004 for every inch of cylinder bore. so if you can stick a .020 feeler guage in the gap you have badly worn rings. a compression test is mandatory when searching for engine problems. i repeat myself many times on that. i would not put then used rings back in unless it was the last set in existance. the cylinder now need to be deglazed even if reusing them. do you ring stagger also. and check wrist pin bushings and the snap ring orientation also. post a picture of them rod brgs. also. make sure they are matching also. same cap to same rod the correct way installed. plastigage them also to check for brg. and crank wear that way also using both the new and used set. periodic valve adjustment is another greatly overlooked part in tune ups, which could have very well been you problem. i can get a worn out engine running pretty darn smooth but no guarantee on it oil comsumtion. how much oil was this engine going through? so a bit to ponder over.
 
just for information for you,... the only real way to check the valves is to remove them then do and inspection on them. checking the compression tells you they are sealing , but the valves and seats can still be worn out. i am sure everyone or some posting here have made mistakes also. your ahead of the game as it appears this is your first engine teardown i gather. you just started your apprentice program here.
 

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