[biged5033]

So, I was given this tractor after the passing of a family member. I decided to do a full maintenance on it because I have no clue when it was last done. It had been sitting for a few months before I got it running.

Now, on to my question. I drained the radiator and the fluid came out a black-ish color. We changed the engine oil prior to this and it was clean, no evidence of water or milky appearance. We flushed the radiator for over an hour with water trying to clean this soot looking stuff out. We didn't see any typical signs of a blown head gasket, warped/cracked head or cracked block. We added some radiator cleaner and are going to do the deep-clean (3 days, run 1-2 hrs/day). I've been searching on google for a while now and haven't seen anything that really resembles my situation.

Does anyone have any advice? Is it possible that this could be some sort of stop leak in the radiator?

 

[black05dmax]

I would go by a tractor repair shop and ask. or maybe a industrial radiator repair shop and show them the rad. Might need a rodding out.

 

[biged5033]

I would go by a tractor repair shop and ask. or maybe a industrial radiator repair shop and show them the rad. Might need a rodding out.

Awesome! Thanks for the suggestion.

Today was day 2 of running it with the heavy duty cleaner in the radiator. Ran it for 2.5 hrs at 1200 RPMs and it it stayed cool and ran exactly like it should. I checked the inside the radiator fill cap with a flashlight at all looked good. Checked the engine oil dip-stick and it had nothing but fresh oil on it.

I'll run it again tomorrow to complete the deep-clean. I'll drain it after that, flush it, and then refill with heavy duty diesel grade coolant water 50/50 mix.