Hot Days, Hot Tractor

[Anonymous Poster]

Just finished 2 first days of brushogging and post hole digging with the L3000. Tomorrow I try out the FEL for some culvert work. It would not be possible to work on our property without it, and after getting some prices for mowing, fencing, and dirtwork, it might even pay for itself (someday /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif)

I hope you can help with this question: I noticed that after about 30 minutes mowing with a 5' Rhino SE-5 mower, the temp gauge would start creeping up. Keeping the engine speed a bit lower than the indicated PTO speed range on the tach seemed to help. At all other times and with all other chores, the temp stayed in the lower quarter of the temp gauge.

I was running the tractor in H-5 and the mower was not bogging down. This was on a hot Texas day with high humidity - I checked the radiator screen and it looked OK, and all fluids were fine. The engine was running fine - it was just running hot. If I stopped and took a water break, it would cool back down right away. I was mowing a flat pasture - tall grass, no heavy brush.

Am I doing something wrong here? Where's a good place to have the FEL? I kept it down low in front of the tractor - could this be an airlfow problem? Tractor had 33 hours on it, has been fully serviced before delivery and runs great - just trying to figure this out. Thanks for any help and sorry to be so long-winded.

 

[RoyJackson]

"could this be an airlfow problem? "

It's probably debris clogging your grill or radiator screen. When you see the temp gage rising, stop...let the tractor idle for a few minutes, then shut down and check your grill and radiator for any trash kicked up by the cutter.

 

[EdKing]

Is the temp gauge actually approaching the "red area"? My Landtrac usually runs with the temp gauge at about the 1/2 mark, except when I am mowing, when it tends to run at about the 5/8 mark. They engine will be working harder with a mower as it is turning the mower as well as moving the tractor. As tractors were designed to run at slow speeds anyway, I don't think the posistion of the FEL should affect the engine temp. You are better off keeping the FEL low for stability when mowing.

Next time you mow, keep an eye on the temp gauge to see how far it creeps up. As long as it doesn't get to close to the red area on the temp gauge, I wouldn't be concerned.

 

[cisco]

Puzzling. You've already stated the screen in front of the radiator (and I hope the radiator behind it) are free of debris - and that's where we all encounter problems. Doubt it's the work - I've a 3410 and a medium duty 5 foot brush cutter (1100 lbs) - just got through cutting heavy weeds and brush for a few hours - temp never got over 1/3 level - South Carolina, 96 degrees, humidity 90% (yes, I'm now cooling off in the air conditioning and "rehydrating" with beer). When you figure it out, let us know.

 

[jbs]

Just how hot did it get? Like P.T. MAN said if its not in the red it should'nt hurt anything, but I'm also puzzled because we have the same tractor and like Cisco I also live in S.C. Its 95 to 100 every day, very very dusty(5 year drought) and my temp gauge barely moves regardless of the task

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Sorry, I should have said just how hot.
The hottest it got had the needle just touching the red zone - when I backed off of the throttle, it came down to that last line before the red zone. When I stopped to let it cool down, it dropped down significantly, down to less than halfway on the gauge. Then it would do a slow march back up the gauge as I continued to mow.
I ran it today for about 8 hours, using the box blade and FEL. This was pretty constant grunt work since I wanted to finish up the access from the county road across some earth berms to be able to finally drive onto our property. I buried a small culvert and did a lot of grading and the temp needle barely moved above the first mark on the gauge, so it did fine. I set the dash throttle lever at about 1300 rpm and then used the foot throttle for working.
Airflow at low speed seems to be OK since the temp never even got close to halfway today, just hugged that first line on the gauge. The trouble seemed to come when the rpms went high enough to run the PTO at 540 (mowing). So I wonder if there some type of restriction that is not allowing enough coolant flow at higher rpms, like maybe a defective thermostat. I'm gonna call the dealer tomorrow and maybe use a little of that 3 year warranty. It's going to be summer for a while around here and I'll need to mow again sometime!
Thanks.
PS - there is somethng very cool about finally being able to open your new gates and drive over your new entry right onto your land. Finally got to do that today!

 

[Alan L.]

I have a 2710 with 5' Rhino cutter and it rarely gets past the the 1/3 mark no matter how hot it gets. When the radiator gets some trash in it , then it will get up to halfway, but I have never seen anything close to the red. I think I would take it in, because it shouldn't be getting that hot.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

I was mowing my land the other weekend and it was pretty hot out, I'd say about 85. The outer screen on my bx2200 was totally covered in hay chaff. My temp gauge just barely got over half. When I stopped and clean it out, temp dropped well below half. Plus grass was about 3 feet tall! Yes....shame on me for useing my 60 mmm for this, but, The palce used to be mowed regularly and there were no hidden obstructions to worry about. I'm in the process of closing and will be putting a new cape cod modular this fall. CANT WAIT!!!!

 

[crown]

I will concur with the others I was mowing today 95 degrees with 90 percent humidity, the temp gauge never goes more than 1/3 up let us know what you find out.

 

[ronjhall]

Chevdog
I had similar a problem as yours. After cleaning the screen temp still would not stay at it’s normal reading. Checked again and found that radiator had a collection of grass built up on it just behind the screen. After using a water hose to clean radiator. Readings returned to normal. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Thanks everyone.
I agree there has to be a reason for running so hot, so when I get it sorted out I will post what the solution was - might help somebody in the same predicament sometime.

I still had a great time /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[jbs]

Hey Kenney, just for the record 85 aint hot!!!!!!! Todays high 102. My electric meter is spinning so fast I'm going to have to put a zerk fitting on it

 

[RET]

Nick,
Be sure not to forget to post your findings. I'm having the same problem with my BX and have not found an answer. I'm kinda leaning toward the thermostat myself. Several folks have posted problems with high temp's here...I wonder if there might be some variability in the therostat setting that may be causing this??
Thx
R

 

[RobertN]

If I'm anywhere near the garage, I'll take a short break every hour or so of hard mowing, to clean the radiator screen. I pop it out, and blow it off with compressed air. While I'm at it, I blow off the radiator too.

It is really amazing how much dust and "stuff" makes it to the radiator. The screen catchs the big stuff, but the little stuff still gets in there...

Definiteley take a minute and blow the radiator out ocassionally.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

I called the dealer and he said bring it in or he'll get it. We talked about thermostats and radiators speciifically.

The problem that I've got right now is that there is no barn on the property yet so I've got to take any tools/etc/etc with me. Makes it tough to really do much tinkering with the tractor while I'm out there. I'm keeping it in a separate storage facility until the pole barn gets put up. The dealer's not too far, so it's more convenient to let him mess with it than try to do anything at this time.

The tractor had 33 hours when I bought it and had been completely serviced before I picked it up, but they did not mow with it so this problem would not have come up. Dealer has been good to work with so I'll see what he comes up with and will certainly post the outcome.

 

[dgood1]

jbs,

Don't grease your meter. The sooner the bearings sieze up the cheaper the power becomes.

Don

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Took the tractor in yesterday and they looked at it right away. The coolant in the radiator was fine.
One thing that showed up immediately was that the screen in front of the radiator did have a fair amount of seeds/dirt in it and there's a possibility that the radiator fins have their share of the same stuff. But ... it looked older than a days worth of mowing, so I questioned that the radiator had been cleaned and therefore I also questioned just how well that tractor had been serviced before I bought it. I do know the oil/fluids had been changed - maybe this was an oversight, but it looked pretty obvious. It also taught me - CHECK THE SCREEN and don't assume it's clean.

Anyway, I told them to hang on to it and re-check everything, including the thermostat (or just change it). They were also going to run it on the dyno to try to duplicate the overheating problem.

Bottom line is when I left I was sort of relieved that this overheating may just be due to a clogged radiator, but also sort of aggravated that the screen had old crud in it. I didn't make a big deal of it because in all honesty I did not check that screen before I started using the tractor so it could be my fault.

I hope to know the full story when I hear back from the dealer and I'll sure type it up here. Thanks again for your help for this tractor rookie.