Is this why my diesel tractor is smoking?

[joegreen]

Recently my small 3cyl yanmar in my jd garden tractor started to give out a faint grey smoke. If you let it idle for a few minutes and then gave it full throttle it would give out a large plume for a few seconds then mostly clear up. It’s annoying as it always is giving a diesel smell around me when mowing. It has 1300 hours on it. It always starts right up even in the cold. This smoking has happened recently before it always ran clear. I decided to take the injectors out today and found one of the injectors was wet and the other two were dry. Could this be my issue? Does this indicate a leaking injector?

 

[oldcodger]

I think it could. You need to get that injector serviced for sure. A dribbling injector will absolutely damage a piston. Might as well have them all serviced.

 

[Greasymechtech]

Any fuel additives used?

 

[joegreen]

I took the injectors apart and cleaned them all up in an ultrasonic cleaner. They came out nice. I think i will reinstall them and see what happens. They are easy to remove if i need to again.

 

[Yourhomiematt]

That does it, I need an ultrasonic cleaner

 

[CDX825]

I would have them pop tested at the least to see if they need rebuilt.

 

[dumkid]

a leaking injector will cause grey/white smoke

 

[joegreen]

That does it, I need an ultrasonic cleaner

It worked very well. 8 minutes in the ultrasonic and all the carbon from the face of the injector and needle was all gone. Required no manual labor or change of scratching any of the surfaces. I just blew everything dry with compressed air and reassembled coating everything in diesel.

 

[Rob_Roy]

Nice job on the cleaning. Let us know if it fixes your smoke issue.

 

[joegreen]

Also noticed the holes in the cylinder head where the injector injects were almost completely plugged with carbon. I used a straight pick and it crumbled right apart. Im sure it will run even better with the larger opening.

 

[joegreen]

All the little seals came into today to put everything back together. It runs beautifully. No more smoking. Pic is while its running.