Bad fuel or what?

My BN's actin' up. I rebuilt the motor several years ago and went to some pains to keep her lubed over the interim. Once I got her painted and all the parts back on, she ran and moved just fine.

Timing is good. she starts well on the crank or the starter. Governor has new spring and thrust bearing. So between that and her runnin' right from the start, I'm reasonably confident of the mechanicals, including the little that can be done with the carb.

Over the winter I'd open the garage door and run her every few weeks with some paper over the grill to help her heat up good each time. Started and ran right all through that period.

After a couple parades and a show last summer and fall, I never had occasion to actually move the old girl again until last week. She ran like a top on the level ground, but goin' up the hill to the neighbor's brushpile burnin' party, she'd falter/stumble. Sounded and felt like a fuel problem. Backfired once. Coming home that same night, same thing. Downhill riding against the governor was no problem, the flats were no problem, but accelerating was the same faltering.

I've had a look inside the tank with my handy mirror. Nothing but gray metal to be seen. Outlet to the sediment bowl is clear. Sediment bowl is good. The screen at the elbow into the carb is clean.

First troubleshooting runs since then, she ran ragged at startup, but came out of it as she warmed up (after five minutes or better of running ragged), though I haven't yet tested that under load.

I noticed condensation on the tractor early in the winter (before this problem emerged) and so dumped some dry gas in and ran her for a while the next day before filling her with gas treated with StaBil.

So . . . . many paragraphs later, is my question. In runnin' the tractor in the garage (doors and windows open) the exhaust has that old gas, mothball smell. I've had some trouble with water even in fresh gas brought home in cans for the garden tractor on snow-throwin' duty. Am I dealin' with bad/wet gas? Am I dealin' with gas that doesn't store well? (Either would be a bummer, because all the gas around here comes from the Irving refinery in Saint John, NB, no gettin' around it.) Is it possible that filling the tank as I did washed down old varnish that had dried on the walls of the otherwise clean tank? Is it something I can burn through and get past the problem?

I apologize again for the length of this, but I'm about out of ideas and will welcome any you may have.

Your refering to brothers Irving, threw me for a loop. I had you pegged as a westerner. Since Irving is the only gas, you've got to be Maine or NB. I know Irving is pushing south and west, but not everybody's gas come from that refinery futher away.

I can tell you this since moving to Ontario, I miss Irving diesel. Their diesel has an edge on everything in the market as it relates to power, cold weather starting. They do however sacrifice some fuel milage. I've talked with truckers all across North America, most that have experienced it, will tell you they love to get a fill up in New England or Alantic Canada at Irving. I've not seen anything to match it.

I'm in Maine, about halfway betwen Belfast and Bangor.

Appreciate your thoughts. She is gettin a good flow. It's a new rebuild and I think you and the others are right on the mark. She just needs to be worked with new gas and new plugs. I just can't get over how bad this gas is. Fresh from the pump, into the can and into the garden tractor, I've had my fuel line freeze up while blowin' snow, and I'm one to fill my tank when I'm done runnin' to keep the condensation to a minimum.

She hasn't even been worked hard enough or run long enough yet to seat the rings in my opinion. I bumped into a fella today who does a lot of hayin' around the neighborhood. If I don't find some good work for the old girl between now and the first cuttin', he's got about sixty acres along my road or out at the end of it that I can rake for him.
That oughta make her feel better.

Do Maine and Nova Scotia still have the International Ox Pull. Last I heard that event was in trouble taking Ox teams across the border. I saw that event a few times, those guys were better actors than wrestlers. I remember one team taking a pull, almost faltered. While the workers were adding 400#, the teamster got down eyeball to eyeball with with each ox, gave them a lecture, you'd swear was coming out af a law professor at law school. After that was over the oxen pulled the drag with ease, with 400# added. Maybe some of these tractor pullers could learn a lesson from this.

I think if you get the B some work exercise, you'll see an improvment. I know a good workout helps my tractors, and I work them quite hard and often. My 140 had much the same winter as your B. I syphoned most of the gas to my 1/2 full truck then added the fresh to tractor. That first day I was pulling my S tine cultivator with an I beam levelling plank. Quite regularly I was lugging it hard enough in 2nd gear to cut RPMs by 40%. After about two days it came around. The mussle of these old tractors are much like ours, "use it or loose it."

The Airline ends as you come into the north end of Brewer, the city across the river from Bangor. Belfast is on US Rte. 1, mebbe 30 miles down from Bangor, far enough down the Penobscot that it's the Bay by then, instead of the River as it goes through Bangor. The line between the river and the bay is just below Bucksport, where I lived my last stint up here.

Don't know for sure about an international ox pull. I do remember some years back when my pipe band went over to Yarmuth on the old Bluenose as part of a sister city thing between Yarmouth, NS and Ellsworth, ME. Some sort of civic festival going on in Yarmouth at the time that included an ox pull, and I do recall some of the drovers havin' "a way" with their teams that was quite entertainin'.

Whew! That takes me back a while!

The International Ox pull was held rotating one year in NS and ME. Supposedly it was the 1/2 dozen top teams from ME against the 1/2 top teams from NS. In NS it was always held in Bridgewater. I know there is a Bridgewater ME, but I'm not certain that is the ME home base of the event. It took some stretch of the imagination to call it an International event. Actually one would be closer if they called it a family reunion, all the participants being German descendants that immigrated to NS and ME in the 1890s

Hey I saw your gov on the news today. Looks like floods up north of you. As a follicly challenged individual meself I got a kick out of his last name. Just cannot remember what came after B-a-l-d...

Greg

Bill

The old carb was beyond salvation, and I bought a Zenith to replace it at the time I rebuilt the motor, thinking I'd have her painted and running in short order. The best laid plans . . . I'd assume the float level to be good on a new carb, but if the problem doesn't burn itself out, I'll be looking at the teat on the float needle, and check the level out while I'm in there.

Many thanks!

You mentioned the coil. It's got a mag, but I'll allow it may be the coil or even the magnets in there, too, even though it "feels" like a fuel problem. I can check that out.

'Preciate your help!