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White smoke (steam) is water, white smoke (real smoke) is automatic transmission fluid. You don't have that. Blue smoke is oil. Black/grey (grey can look very white btw) is excess fuel or poor combustion. Black/grey smoke will also make your eyes water if you stick your nose into the exhaust pipe. That's a quick coughy/sneezy check btw. Now white's pretty fair indicator that you're getting water into the engine. How's the coolant in the radiator look? If you really are steaming out the exhaust, your coolant level should be dropping as you run, and most likely you'll have sludgy motor oil (will look like chocolate milk) and oil globs in the radiator. If so, this will not be just a simple rebuild. Prepare thine self. Might want to consider trying something like Barsleak in the radiator for a stop gap. If you don't have water in the oil, and oil in the water, and a constantly dropping water level, I'd be inclined to suspect you aren't quite in the bad shape you suspect. That perhaps the guts of your tractor aren't needing a rebuild. If she doesn't make interesting clanking thudding clicking noises out of the engine guts, and the oil pressure seems ok, and compression isn't too low (worth a check, with at least a thumb), it's a pretty good guess that the engine innards are passable, and that you don't need to rebuild it. So I'd be inclined to spend some time with the ignition and carburetor. The carb is crude with a kapital K. They're also old, almost always neglected (filthy, worn) and frequently abused. So a dropping of the bowl and cleaning out with a brush, fingers and a can of carb cleaner can do wonders. You could even spend money and buy a rebuild kit. But before you spend too much time with the carburetor, I'd be giving that ignition a good looking at. Starting at the plugs and working backwards. Pull a plug, set it on the side of the engine, and crank it. What kind of spark do you have? Should be nice and blue and have a very sharp sounding snap, able to jump easily a quarter inch from the wire to the block. Frequently able to jump better then a half inch with a good and healthy ignition. Then I'd still pull the cap and admire the conditions of my points, and other things in there. Are the points pitted? Is the gap correct? Just how rusty and nasty are things in there? If you have a timing light, I'd check timing and advance with it. If you don't have a timing light, you can still check it with a flashlight bulb and some wire. And if you're really high tech, you can go tracing up the circuit for adequate voltage. Especially if you had only so so spark at the plugs. Heck, with a 50 year old tractor, you won't hurt things to simply go ahead and clean up the connections regardless. There aren't many and it isn't hard. The old ink erasors on the back of some pens does a dandy job. We'll be interested in hearing followups! :-)
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