More Tractor Troubles

Seems like I am just stumbling over myself trying to get the old tractor up and running.  The new fuel pump solved the problem last week but it suddenly started running rough, puffing black smoke and finally it shut off.  Removing the air filter cover, I found that it would crank up and run but would shut of when I put it back on.  Besides that, it puffed a geyser of air/fuel out the top of the carburetor on every other stroke.

Tractors don't get ventricular fibrillation.  Normal ones don't but something had to be holding the intake valve open.  The attack came on so suddenly that I convinced myself that the intake valve seat must have dislodged from the block.

Pulling the front head revealed the culpret.   I took the picture after I solved the problem so the intake valve is closed but the shiny metal on the block next to the intake valve at about 4:00 to 6:00 O'clock is where a small screw was rattling around on the valve seat.  It was big enough to get stuck between the valve and the seat but too big to fall completely through into the cylinder.

How'd it get there?  Well, when working on the fuel pump, I also checked the carburetor's float level and when I did that I dropped some nuts, washers and screws.  I thought they all fell onto the frame in front of the engine and that the little carburetor screw was just small enough to have fallen down into some crevasse where I couldn't see it.  In reality, it fell into the carburetor.

No harm, no foul and maybe I'll learn something from it.  As soon as the battery is charged we'll be back in business.

In the mean time, just to make Buckshot happy, here's one of those pictures of hot chicks working on a car.