MT160D

[Capricious]

Saturday I found time to install water temp. and oil pressure gauges on the Mitsubishi tractor:



"Hot rodders" would not call this a "sanitary" installation.

Considered trying to keep the warning lights but decided to simplify things and installed the senders in the "idiot" light sender locations

Also have a voltage gauge but did not have the time to deal with it. Also, did not and probably will not install the gauge lights. Taped up the openings for the lights to try to keep dust out of the gauges.


Sunday I went brush hogging:



I off-loaded in a ravine- did not even have to use the ramps.


Cutting 10-months of growth:







Highest temp I saw was about 170 degrees; lowest oil pressure was about 43 lbs or so, with a hot engine @ idle:




For some reason the engine will not idle down to below about 1250 when hot, whereas it should idle down to 900, which it will do when cold.


Used the differential lock a lot. The pedal is pretty rusted and won't release- have to reach down and pull it up, but not a big hassle. Used 4WD a few times just to get out of holes, but could have easily gotten by without it. Didn't really even need the diff. lock, but if you have a toy you play with it.

Used #1/ high most of the time (3 speed with high/low). In some really thick areas had to drop down to #3/ low. Got pretty good at shifting back and forth fast enough so that the cutter would not spool-down. By the way, I don't know how it is supposed to be done, but in starting from a dead stop I would go to neutral, engage the PTO, engage the clutch and hit the foot throttle to "spool-up" the cutter, then disengage the clutch, shift into gear, engage the clutch and advance the hand throtttle to get proper PTO rpm's. Thought that would be easier on the machine than to try to start the cutter and the tractor moving all at once.

There is too much of a ratio difference between #3/low and #1/high; manual says about 1.8 mph vs about 3.1 mph.

Didn't get it all cut, but got a lot done:












Need to look into the idle rpm issue, and the valves are noisy.

 

[oliver28472]

Where did you put the temp sender?

 

[Capricious]

Where did you put the temp sender?

Same hole the "idiot" light sender came out of.

Did the same with the oil gauge.

 

[techwrtr2]

I probably ought to install a set of similar gauges on my old Beaver, particularly since the idiot lights died a long time ago.

 

[Capricious]

It was a pretty simple job, since I obviously did not care what the installation looked like.

The oil hole threads would have caused me issues, but Oliver28472 had already posted the part number of the correct adapter.

I was worried about hooking up the oil pressure gauge- I was afraid that I would see something i did not want to see, like real low pressure. I get about 43 lbs @ a real fast idle of about 1250, so I'm guessing I will have about 38 to 40 @ the 900 it should idle at. Get about 60 to 65 @ about 2500, which is PTO speed. Not real great but could be a lot worse.

 

[techwrtr2]

It's an older tractor with a dubious maintenance history. I'd say the oil pressure is pretty darn good. That gauge set looks to be around $30 or so, not a bad investment.

 

[Capricious]

Was looking to see if I had "before" & "after" photos. These two, while not exactly aligned, show pretty-much the same area:

 

[skylarkguy]

That gage installation looks good. I have been contemplating something similar. It kind of slid down the to do list, and I find gages often ludicrously expensive for what they are.

Looks like your machine will mow that property out really well. You might even have more fun doing it The biggest hassle will be trailering it back and forth. Any chance you could have a 20 foot inter-modal truck box dropped there to use as a garage? It might be stout enough to keep out the tweakers.

 

[Capricious]

techwrtr2 hit the gauge price on the nose: 30 bucks on Amazon, plus about 8 bucks for the oil sender adapter.

Trailering is a hassle, and I have seriously considered a shipping container for storage, but another issue is maint. & repairs, which I can do at home when I have a little free time. If the tractor is 200 miles away, then I have to devote some of the limited amount of time I can spend "on site" to working *on* the tractor, and not working *the* tractor.

Have also considered a shipping container for a lockable, secure cabin. One can find some pretty interesting adaptations on the internet.

Since the land joins a lot of public property (Corp of Engineers) I get a lot of people roaming around out there, especially during hunting seasons. Fencing would help, but that is yet another project, and at the moment I am having a hard time just keeping the weeds & brush cut!

 

[techwrtr2]

If you had a cabin there, you could make a weekend of the visit. And plan to bring the tractor home during the winter maybe etc. I think having to drive 200 miles to mow the grass would be a serious hassle regardless of how I cut it. But that's me. I'm not exactly fond of long drives.