# Massey Ferguson 165 front motor noise going down hill (Weird)



## sroy123 (Sep 12, 2021)

Hi, this is my first post. I just got a 1967 MF 165 with 4 cylinder Perkins. It runs and drives great. EXCEPT it has a rattle or a rub or something like that near the front of the engine going down hill. So I checked everything I could find and I noticed a cracked fan blade. Cool I thought, I'll just weld that. Surely that is my problem.I also checked the blades to insure they were not hitting the shroud. Everything looked great. Also has a new belt on it that is tight. Fired her back up and went for a ride. Same deal. Going down a hill. So...I put the parking brake on and if the tractor is pointing down hill and not moving I still get the same noise. It got dark on me so I had the fender lights on but I really couldn't see anything. Sounds like some sort of chain rattle or chain to cover rattle or something like that. Maybe water pump? Any ideas? Why pointed down hill? It isn't even a steep hill. I will try to point it down hill tomorrow with the parking brake and something in front of the wheels to prevent getting ran over. one other thing. I did have the PTO engaged. Nothing on it but still engaged. Anyone else ran into a crazy problem like this?


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## SidecarFlip (Mar 25, 2021)

Sounds to me like your front crankshaft thrust bearing is either gone or is very sloppy. If it's gone, the parts will be in the oil pan. Drain the oil and fish around insides and see if you find any bronze fragments.

To replace it, you have to drop the crank so if you can live with it, I'd ignore it until something else lets go.


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## Fedup (Feb 25, 2014)

Try it with the fan belt off. Anything fan, alternator, or water pump related will disappear.


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## sroy123 (Sep 12, 2021)

SidecarFlip said:


> Sounds to me like your front crankshaft thrust bearing is either gone or is very sloppy. If it's gone, the parts will be in the oil pan. Drain the oil and fish around insides and see if you find any bronze fragments.
> 
> To replace it, you have to drop the crank so if you can live with it, I'd ignore it until something else lets go.


Ouch. Wasn't expecting that. The property I have is loaded with hills. I'll drain the oil after church tomorrow and see whats in there. So this is causing the crank to move forward? And I am hearing an internal engine rub? 

Thanks


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## sroy123 (Sep 12, 2021)

Fedup said:


> Try it with the fan belt off. Anything fan, alternator, or water pump related will disappear.



Yep. I will do that first. Great idea.


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## Fedup (Feb 25, 2014)

With the belt removed (or even loose) the crank pulley will have little if any resistance to front to rear movement. A quick test with a pry bar in that area will tell you if the end play is excessive or not. I wouldn't be draining the oil and "going fishing" just yet.


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## SidecarFlip (Mar 25, 2021)

Fedup said:


> With the belt removed (or even loose) the crank pulley will have little if any resistance to front to rear movement. A quick test with a pry bar in that area will tell you if the end play is excessive or not. I wouldn't be draining the oil and "going fishing" just yet.


I would, but that's me. A bar between the timing cover and the crank pulley will tell the story too. Perkins have a bronze thrust washer at the balancer end between the last main and the end of the block to take up end play.

If the thrust washer is still intact there won't be anything in the pan and just because you drain the oil don't mean you cannot put it back in (unless it needs changed anyway). If the washer has failed, it will be in the pan and you'll find it there.

Years ago I had a Massey diesel (long time gone).

The deal is, if thee washer is still intact you will have excessive end play (and noise), nothing you can do about that, the crank is contacting the front face of the block, if it has failed however, the crank can move laterally to the point where it puts undue stress on the mains and con rod bearings and it's cutting into the block as well and let go, it will eventually destroy the crank and block and bearings plus the seals will start leaking.

If it was me and I wanted to be sure about it, I'd pull an oil sample and send it to a lab like Blackstone and have it analyzed. The report will tell you the amount of bronze and everything else in the oil sample.

Actually, Blackstone gets a sample of my drain oil and hydraulic oil, every second change. That way I can keep track of what is going on inside where I cannot see plus I get the TBN number which has allowed me to extend my oil changes quite a bit.

In my case, I depend on my tractors for farming so it's imperative they run and run right.


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## sroy123 (Sep 12, 2021)

Thanks for the continued great replies. I took the fan belt off the noise was still there. So that rules out the water pump alt and fan blade. I gently pried against the crank pulley on level ground and I noticed zero front to back play. The pulley felt good and tight. Today I drove up and down a hill while the tractor was cold and nothing, No noise. Then as the motor got up to operating temp the rattle or whatever you want to call it returned (again down hill). It sounds like the front of the motor somewhere. Something hitting inside the timing cover? But why would it only happen down hill? And not even a steep hill. Any more thoughts? My next step is to listen through a screwdriver and see if I can pinpoint it a little better. Also I do not have a front mounted pump for a loader either. Just throwing that info in there.


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## sroy123 (Sep 12, 2021)

So...I hate problems that have no solutions. So here is my final post for this problem. I figured out what my noise was. When going down a hill my camshaft was walking forward. and scraping the inside of the timing cover. There is a c1050 spring inside the cover that puts pressure on the cam keeping it in place. I think mine fell off or was rubbed in two. The only correct way to fix this is to remove the timing cover. This involves removing the front casting and a whole host of parts. Who has time for that? I bought a 90 degree angle drill attachment and cut down a drill bit and drilled right in the center of the two outside rivets putting me at the center of the cam.Then I 1/4-20 tapped the hole. My plan was to put back pressure on the spring with a bolt and two jam nuts but there was no spring. Instead I ended up going pushing inside the blind center hole of the front of the cam, Which still worked great. I made contact then backed the bolt out a little and tightened the nuts. I haven't used thread locker on the nuts in yet. I was going to use the tractor for a bit and see what the wear was like. So that is my solution. Love it or hate it that's what I did. I did a lot of research to be sure what I was going to hit before doing it.


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