Heating Hydraulic Oil

[1715]

I have a 200 watt Katz magnetic heater that I bought on amazon.com for $28 including shipping.

I use it in conjunction with my Kubota's block heater and the combo is terrific when it is cold (-10C/0 F) and it's cold here all the time in the winter. I put the block heater on and the magnetic heater under the hydro fluid reservoir for 1 to 2 hours and even at -20 C the tractor is good to go right away.

Without the magnetic heater I had to wait way too long (15+ minutes) to use the FEL and PTO effectively. The block heater alone helped the engine run smooth right away but that didn't do me any good when I needed to plough/blow snow.

Did the heater ever burn the oil or remove the paint? Just curious as this seems like the way I might go to make a quick fix to a current problem and then look into a long term solution this summer.

Thanks for the help!

 

[Northland]

Did the heater ever burn the oil or remove the paint? Just curious as this seems like the way I might go to make a quick fix to a current problem and then look into a long term solution this summer.

Thanks for the help!

No, it's only 200 watts so it never heated anything up hot enough to do any damage. The bigger 300 watt one might be a problem but based on my daily experience the 200 watt is fine at any temperature.

I use to have my tractor in the garage beside the wife's car and my truck but she tripped over the rear blade one day. That and the general overcrowding in the garage lead me to leave it outside with a tarp on it. It's much better now with mucho room in the garage and the ROPS is always up. I hated taking it up and down to get it into the garage.

I could have used the heater last winter when one of my water lines froze up after days of -25C temperatures.

 

[4720 OWNER]

Have a 300w and put it on the oil pan, no problems, and little finagling to get it to stick but the geese have not pulled it off yet.

 

[Farmerford]

This will undoubtedly prompt heated (pardon the pun) replies, but on the few occasions it gets seriously below freezing here in south Georgia I use the built in 5,000 watt to 10,000 watt (approx) fluid heaters on my Cat and John Deere crawlers and Kubota tractors. They work very quickly because they heat only the fluid and not all the metal around them, and in some cases I can drive while the fluid is heated.

The heaters are the relief valves in the hydraulic system. Just extend (or retract) a cylinder on the FEL or blade fully and hold the valve open by hand so that all the pump output flows through the relief valve. Virtually all the power of the pump is turned into heat. For example, the 9gpm pump on my Kubota Grand L 4330 produces over 10,000 watts of heat. That warms up 15 (?) gal of UDT enough to function in just a few minutes.

Does it hurt anything? I don't think so. In fact, Caterpillar and John Deere recommend it as the method to warm up the fluid for pump testing. I guess it may wear the pump a little, but in the overall scheme of things it can't be much.

Furthermore, in most small tractors the power steering is powered by the single hydraulic pump, and obtains its fluid through a spool type priority flow control valve. That spool valve restricts the flow of the excess fluid (say 8 gpm out of a 9 gpm flow) in order to force the 1 gpm of fluid into the power steering unit by reducing the orifice through which the excess fluid flows and increasing pressure up to the system limit. That's the buzzing noise you hear when the front wheels are turned to lock.

The only possible harm that I know of is breaking of the long stream polymers used to improve the viscosity index of multi-viscosity oils. The test for the viscosity maintaining capability of a multi-viscosity oil is to pump the oil at high pressure and temperature through a small orifice, because that breaks up the chains of long stream polymers and turns, say, an SAE 15W-40 into a 15W-20. I don't know, but I suppose the relief valve could do the same.

But I don't think my short time of running the fluid through the relief valve adds much to the VI improver breakdown that might be occurring in the power steering system and in the FEL when heavy loads are lowered slowly (which makes the return fluid flow through the narrow valve opening at high pressure). And wet brakes (and clutches in the Glide Shift Transmission) subject the fluid to shear stresses every time they are used.

But the hydraulic oils I use are single viscosity anyway (John Deere J20 and Cat TO-4 20) so viscosity breakdown is not an issue with me.

Course last three snows here were in 1973, 1977, and 1993. So I don't have to heat the fluid a lot.

 

[patrick_g]

This will undoubtedly prompt heated (pardon the pun) replies, but on the few occasions it gets seriously below freezing here in south Georgia I use the built in 5,000 watt to 10,000 watt (approx) fluid heaters on my Cat and John Deere crawlers and Kubota tractors. They work very quickly because they heat only the fluid and not all the metal around them, and in some cases I can drive while the fluid is heated.

The heaters are the relief valves in the hydraulic system. Just extend (or retract) a cylinder on the FEL or blade fully and hold the valve open by hand so that all the pump output flows through the relief valve. Virtually all the power of the pump is turned into heat. For example, the 9gpm pump on my Kubota Grand L 4330 produces over 10,000 watts of heat. That warms up 15 (?) gal of UDT enough to function in just a few minutes.

Does it hurt anything? I don't think so. In fact, Caterpillar and John Deere recommend it as the method to warm up the fluid for pump testing. I guess it may wear the pump a little, but in the overall scheme of things it can't be much.

Furthermore, in most small tractors the power steering is powered by the single hydraulic pump, and obtains its fluid through a spool type priority flow control valve. That spool valve restricts the flow of the excess fluid (say 8 gpm out of a 9 gpm flow) in order to force the 1 gpm of fluid into the power steering unit by reducing the orifice through which the excess fluid flows and increasing pressure up to the system limit. That's the buzzing noise you hear when the front wheels are turned to lock.

The only possible harm that I know of is breaking of the long stream polymers used to improve the viscosity index of multi-viscosity oils. The test for the viscosity maintaining capability of a multi-viscosity oil is to pump the oil at high pressure and temperature through a small orifice, because that breaks up the chains of long stream polymers and turns, say, an SAE 15W-40 into a 15W-20. I don't know, but I suppose the relief valve could do the same.

But I don't think my short time of running the fluid through the relief valve adds much to the VI improver breakdown that might be occurring in the power steering system and in the FEL when heavy loads are lowered slowly (which makes the return fluid flow through the narrow valve opening at high pressure). And wet brakes (and clutches in the Glide Shift Transmission) subject the fluid to shear stresses every time they are used.

But the hydraulic oils I use are single viscosity anyway (John Deere J20 and Cat TO-4 20) so viscosity breakdown is not an issue with me.

Course last three snows here were in 1973, 1977, and 1993. So I don't have to heat the fluid a lot.

Very informative post, thanks a lot!

Pat

 

[bjcsc]

farmerford:
That's the same theory as my jumper suggestion on page 1, except with the jumper you don't tax the relief valves. It does heat the oil up quickly...and comes straight from my Owner's Manual...

 

[frank_f15]

i ususlly just start the tractor, let it warm for 5 min. then cycle the hydraulics a few times and give it a few more min. then good to go,

 

[Farmerford]

bjcsc:

You are right. I overlooked your post about the jumper in the remote circuit. What size and length hose do you use for the jumper? It seems you would get a faster warm up if the hose were fairly restrictive, say 1/4" ID.

I must have really been asleep when I posted. Not only did I overlook your post, in my post I referred to those little plastic bits that roll up in a ball when cold and unroll into a string when hot as long "stream" polymers when I should have called them long "string" polymers. Its those long strings that get broken up when fluid flows through small orifices at high pressure or when it gets squeezed between the faces of a wet clutch.

 

[bjcsc]

bjcsc:

You are right. I overlooked your post about the jumper in the remote circuit. What size and length hose do you use for the jumper? It seems you would get a faster warm up if the hose were fairly restrictive, say 1/4" ID.

I must have really been asleep when I posted. Not only did I overlook your post, in my post I referred to those little plastic bits that roll up in a ball when cold and unroll into a string when hot as long "stream" polymers when I should have called them long "string" polymers. Its those long strings that get broken up when fluid flows through small orifices at high pressure or when it gets squeezed between the faces of a wet clutch.

I didn't mean to say you overlooked anything, just the theory of both of our suggestions was the same. I use a 2' long 3/8" hose, because that's what I had. I've only used it a half dozen times or so (not very cold here). It works very quickly, but then again my flow at the remote is 14gpm...