Anybody on here with a new PT-425?

[larrydman]

I went down to Tazewell and got a new PT-425 to replace my old one and was wondering if anyone else on here had one. The differences between the two I'm seeing are 1 Kohler engine, 2 metal gas tank which came with a shut-off valve, 3 1430 wheel motors. I haven't run it enough to see if the Kohler vapor locks like the Robin did but the power seems comparable. Looking forward to see if it will start in the cold. The metal gas tank is fine except you can't tell how much fuel is in the tank (back to the old dip stick from years ago). Funny they still have the fill line sticker on it. Now the main reason for this post is the wheel motors. I'm just tickled they went to these motors knowing the 1430 weighs 1000+ lbs. more, you would think they would hold up well although I never really had any problem with the old ones. Well I live on a mountain and I've noticed that after the thing gets warm, the uphill front tire starts spinning like crazy, on dry ground. The back ones never do it, just the front. I can't see how they would do that because they all have to be getting the same flow so how can the one front be spinning at faster revolutions than the rest? I talked to Terry and he was going to run it by their engineers. I was just wondering if anyone else had seen this. Thinking about weighting the front wheels. I bet you could run duals on these motors other than them getting in the way. Any thoughts?

 

[ernemats]

How old was your old one and how many hours were on it?

 

[larrydman]

It's a 2006 and it has less than 200 hrs on it. I still have it.

 

[ernemats]

I have 2000 422 with almost 3,300 hours on it and I love it wish I had some more attachments at times, my son likes it and has been looking for a used one so we could share attachments, in other words dad can I borrow your mini hoe, forks , mower, etc.

 

[larrydman]

Yea, my kids always want mine too, only they want me with it. I don't mind that, I just wish they'd leave my truck alone.

 

[m5040]

Yesterday I was using my 1430 in the forest, lightly raining and backing uphill, banked to the right with a log in the bucket. The left front tire had to climb a tree root that I guess was slippery and only the left front wheel spun -and since I wanted to finish up before I got really wet, it spun very fast with a heavy load on the engine before it backed up the root.

Usually one front and one rear spin, and you don't even notice until I have dug down a few inches.

I have a Moffett forklift that uses 3 wheel motors. It has a button labeled "diff lock" and it kind of locks all the wheels together. It is just a flow control valve that sends fluid equally to all the wheel motor circuits. I wish the PT had one (or two).

 

[larrydman]

That would be nice, like a tractor differential lock. I never noticed my old PT just spinning one wheel, it always spun one in front and one in back. Maybe it has something to do with the bigger wheel motors on the lighter machine. I would think the front would be a good bit lighter than the rear so maybe that's why it's always the front.

 

[Incline]

I've got a two year old 425 with 200 hours. My rears will tend to break loose and spin before the fronts. This is consistent enough to cause the rear tires to wear faster than the fronts. It also seems to have better power/traction going forward than in reverse. I wonder if there's some human touch in the build process that leads to different outcomes?

 

[larrydman]

Mine is the opposite, the fronts spin and it does better in reverse. Does yours have the bigger wheel motors? (Part # P161X14, The old ones were Part # P142X14) Have you ever thought of loading the tires or wheel weights?

 

[MossRoad]

My 2001 model 425 only tends to break any tires loose if I'm really pushing hard on something with the bucket, or traveling up-hill pushing the mower or brush cutter in float it'll break the fronts loose. Taking the mower out of float and pulling the joystick back just a pinch resolves that quickly. But then again, I have the original wheel motors, not the larger ones.