Colt Case Ingersoll Garden Tractors

He he, good catch guys! Just checking if you're paying attention.

Hope to be able to replace them all.

If anything, since I first met Dave, I've learned to listen carefully to what he says.


For completeness I'll write again what I've done today.

Got my workplace ready.


Supposedly it was -9C but I honestly think they were wrong, it didn't feel that cold at all. Slight annoyance was the snow drifting on me and tools.

Minor booboo happened me not realizing the oil pump was connected via hard line which got bent when the pump went down. Silver lining, no kinks.

Then here I was, facing this.

Getting the rod cap bolts off was easier than I thought, now being armed with the right cheater pipe. Even access to the cylinder above the cross section was not so bad. This gave an encouragement and so I took all pistons out.

Thanks Eugen , I don't have a lot of experience with diesels , but 30 years in automotive and all the years in racing when I was younger . I learned a few things . I can even remember some of it

@Eugen Your pictures of wrenches and tarps on the snow make my bones ache and make me cold. There will never be enough candles on my cake to warm me up.

Well done! Glad you were able to get them all out. Also glad you decided to take a look under that other head. Hopefully it won’t take long to get the kit you need.

@Eugen Take a look at each of these pistons . Is the gap on the top ring at the same place as the failure . If so , that is your cause on all of it . Wear , as the ring / cylinder wears the gap opens up . The aluminum erodes from the hot gasses passing that point repeatedly .

DavidBarkey wrote: ↑Sun Feb 26, 2023 7:10 am @Eugen Take a look at each of these pistons . Is the gap on the top ring at the same place as the failure . If so , that is your cause on all of it . Wear , as the ring / cylinder wears the gap opens up . The aluminum erodes from the hot gasses passing that point repeatedly .

One piston right at the gap, one about half inch away, the other about 2" away from the gap.

My wife says yesterday, what else you still need to do, and I say nothing for now, order the parts. Then it dawns on me the three sleeves are still in! Oops!


Puller comes to rescue though.



Here's something interesting on one of the sleeves. A crushed o-ring bleeding mostly upwards. Does this mean the original installation may have been botched a little? I can't think of another reason for this.

@Eugen That one with the bad o ring . check for burr in the block . Too much lube in behind the o ring in the grove at time of install can cause this as well .

It's been very busy on this side of the screen. Much time has been spent with people on the phone and scraping the internet for parts. All those nice "rebuild kits" on every single website, are just nice pictures. None of them are available, and they can't tell you when they'll be available, nobody knows, because nobody can get the sleeves anymore. At first I asked myself why they would list these parts that they obviously are not able to get. But it's not important.

At that point I've started thinking that I have no choice but to use the old sleeves with new pistons and rings, and new rod bearings. So I've measured the bore on all sleeves, pretty unbelievable but, although worn, they are still within specs, towards the end of the range where they should be replaced soon. For odd jobs here and there I think these sleeves could be used another few 2-4 years, especially with new pistons and rings.

Just when I was about to give up, I found a different source of sleeves, Mahle/Clevite, that are on backorder until April. They say it's not 100% sure they'll come in, but there's a good chance. So, I might wait until mid April and give it a chance.