shrew
New member
Hi all. I apologize for my long windedness in advance but I hope to provide every detail. I'm new to tractors. I just got an 02 Kioti LK3054 with ~725 hours and I've mowed a couple acres and scraped grass to prepare a new garden plot (it has a BushHog 2245 QT Loader).
While scraping the grass I lost throttle control so I idled back to the garage and opened up the throttle housing (if I may call it that). The spring between the throttle lever and the governor(?) had come loose and fallen down next to the gear that drives the high pressure pump(!!!). I was able to fish it back out. In all my wisdom I wanted to put a kink in the throttle spring and the idler(?) spring which was still attached so they would not slip off - ever. Since I was in a rush and I had the helpful hand of Murphy I figured I could kink the idler spring while installed. That was a big no-no with nothing stuffed down below to catch it just in case. Of course not stuffing the orifice below the springs is the 20-20 hindsight in this whole debacle. The spring broke free of the pliers and I heard nor saw nothing when the spring disappeared.
Now I have no idea whether the spring is inside the motor or outside in the (very messy) garage. As I said before, I saw nor heard nothing - so I cannot be sure - at all - of where it is. I am certain that it did not fall directly within the vicinity of the motor because I looked and looked and looked. I have looked and searched and searched and looked down inside the housing where the high pressure pump gear is accessible and another access panel on the side of the high pressure pump and see no indication of a spring. I even developed a technique for looking with a long skinny LED trouble light by touching the back of it to my nose and forehead so I can see with both eyes directly down at the most intense part of the light it casts! Try it - you'll see!
I have the small Craftsman dental mirror and can see the cams(?) beneath the high pressure pump but no spring. I have used a telescoping magnet to gently probe down past the high pressure pump drive gear to try and pick up anything loose. I cannot sense anything being attracted to or stuck to the magnet neither by vision nor hearing nor feel. I cannot, for the life of me, believe that the spring made it completely out of sight inside the motor by writhing and wiggling its way into the bowels of my machine in a fraction of a second!!! What are the odds of it making some left and right turns on its journey like it was out for a Sunday drive!? Especially since the throttle spring just lay in there within easy reach while I bounced around idling back to the garage! It could be hung up on the crankshaft, I suppose. My last resort before tearing down further is to see if it miraculously made its way into the oil sump. If I can cause it to make some noise with a rare earth magnet (from an old hard disk drive) then I'll have her licked but if not....
I could clean up the garage but I'm not optimistic - I probably won't find the spring and the garage will get messy again. I just don't think I'm going to find it in some far flung corner of the garage - I had zero tension on the critter when it disappeared.
Although I have the mechanical ability to tear down further (minus stupid incidents like the above) I am not too familiar with diesels. I don't have a shop manual for it either. To get any further down into the beast I would have to remove the water pump cover to get to the next cover further down into the gearing and crankcase. Come Tuesday I'll call the local tractor shop and see what they have to say.
I'm in Maryland. I don't have a trailer so a mechanic would have to come to me or trailer it back to the shop. What kind of price could I expect for a mechanic to hunt for a rogue spring? What kind of price could I expect for a mechanic to fix a tractor that was started and swallowed a rogue spring? What would you do next? I'm afraid that when its all said and done I will have paid a Kubota/JD price for a Kioti!
Thanks for reading and any advice,
-Pete
While scraping the grass I lost throttle control so I idled back to the garage and opened up the throttle housing (if I may call it that). The spring between the throttle lever and the governor(?) had come loose and fallen down next to the gear that drives the high pressure pump(!!!). I was able to fish it back out. In all my wisdom I wanted to put a kink in the throttle spring and the idler(?) spring which was still attached so they would not slip off - ever. Since I was in a rush and I had the helpful hand of Murphy I figured I could kink the idler spring while installed. That was a big no-no with nothing stuffed down below to catch it just in case. Of course not stuffing the orifice below the springs is the 20-20 hindsight in this whole debacle. The spring broke free of the pliers and I heard nor saw nothing when the spring disappeared.
Now I have no idea whether the spring is inside the motor or outside in the (very messy) garage. As I said before, I saw nor heard nothing - so I cannot be sure - at all - of where it is. I am certain that it did not fall directly within the vicinity of the motor because I looked and looked and looked. I have looked and searched and searched and looked down inside the housing where the high pressure pump gear is accessible and another access panel on the side of the high pressure pump and see no indication of a spring. I even developed a technique for looking with a long skinny LED trouble light by touching the back of it to my nose and forehead so I can see with both eyes directly down at the most intense part of the light it casts! Try it - you'll see!
I have the small Craftsman dental mirror and can see the cams(?) beneath the high pressure pump but no spring. I have used a telescoping magnet to gently probe down past the high pressure pump drive gear to try and pick up anything loose. I cannot sense anything being attracted to or stuck to the magnet neither by vision nor hearing nor feel. I cannot, for the life of me, believe that the spring made it completely out of sight inside the motor by writhing and wiggling its way into the bowels of my machine in a fraction of a second!!! What are the odds of it making some left and right turns on its journey like it was out for a Sunday drive!? Especially since the throttle spring just lay in there within easy reach while I bounced around idling back to the garage! It could be hung up on the crankshaft, I suppose. My last resort before tearing down further is to see if it miraculously made its way into the oil sump. If I can cause it to make some noise with a rare earth magnet (from an old hard disk drive) then I'll have her licked but if not....
I could clean up the garage but I'm not optimistic - I probably won't find the spring and the garage will get messy again. I just don't think I'm going to find it in some far flung corner of the garage - I had zero tension on the critter when it disappeared.
Although I have the mechanical ability to tear down further (minus stupid incidents like the above) I am not too familiar with diesels. I don't have a shop manual for it either. To get any further down into the beast I would have to remove the water pump cover to get to the next cover further down into the gearing and crankcase. Come Tuesday I'll call the local tractor shop and see what they have to say.
I'm in Maryland. I don't have a trailer so a mechanic would have to come to me or trailer it back to the shop. What kind of price could I expect for a mechanic to hunt for a rogue spring? What kind of price could I expect for a mechanic to fix a tractor that was started and swallowed a rogue spring? What would you do next? I'm afraid that when its all said and done I will have paid a Kubota/JD price for a Kioti!
Thanks for reading and any advice,
-Pete
