JD 2210 360 hours, blown head gasket

zx6rrider · Jun 2, 2014

Recently purchased a used JD 2210 with a FEL and 62" belly mower. I bought this for my wife to use, figuring that a "Good" name like JD and lower time tractor should be pretty reliable for her without me having to work on it all the time. She put a little over 10 hours on it when I borrowed it from her when she was mowing. The over temp light was on so I asked her how long it has been on but of course she didnt know it was on at all, too busy watching where she was mowing. I took it to the garage and blew the radiator and side covers out, let it cool and added coolant as it had spilled out the overflow bottle. I hoped that since it got hot, it just boiled out. I got on it a couple days ago and noticed that the valves were ticking, shut it off and added oil to bring it up to full and the tick went away. Got looking into it and noticed the coolant was low again and what was left was dark so obviously got a blown gasket. I added water to see if the raditor had bubbles and sure enough there was.

I got around to tearing it down this morning and got the head off, that is going to go to the machine shop tomorrow to get checked out. The one cylinder wall has some scaring so I will pull the piston, hone it and measure...hoping I can get by with just rings. Good ol' JD said it will take at least 2 weeks to get a manual, fortunantly I found the Yanmar manual online so that covers me for the torques I need. Ill by the parts through Yanmar I guess, hopefully cheaper then JD

Is this a common problem on these or am I just unlucky? There was some RTV on the valve cover and a couple other spots so somebody has been there before, maybe it was bad when I bought it. All the fluids looked good and I made sure they were topped off before letting her start using it. Dont understand how they can have saftey switches all over the place but just an idiot light for overheating, why the heck couldnt that cut off the tractor?

This is my first tractor engine adventure, play with bikes and planes so I'm handy but always open for any advice as I couldnt find much elsewhere as far as rebuilding these engines.

GGB · Jun 2, 2014

You ask a great question about why the manufactuers don't install a shutoff in the event of overheating. It would seem to be a good feature to have. Even when you are trying to keep the radiator clean, you can still get debris building up quickly.

My MIL may have overheated my JD 345 up at the farm this past week, but won't know for sure till I can get up to look at it. An auto shutoff might have prevented damage to the machine.

I would think it should be possible to make something which would shut down the engine. Any thoughts on how it could be done?

raheimdal · Jun 2, 2014

An auto shutoff may seem like a good idea, but sometimes the worst thing you can do to an overheating motor is turn it off. When you stop the motor it would stand to reason that it will get cooler, in reality the opposite happens. This condition is called heat soak. With the motor off you get no air movement from the fan, the water pump stops, and the oil also stops circulating. All items that would help cool the motor under normal conditions.

Best thing to do when you notice overheating is to open the hood, clean the radiator and side shields, add air temperature water (too cold of water could cause damage in itself), get the tractor out of the direct sunlight, remove any extra load on the engine. Let the motor cool itself down gradually.

Of course this won't help much if you've really got it hot, or ignored the light for too long.

zx6rrider · Jun 3, 2014

Good point, I guess I figured that shutting it down would be better then running it for an extended period of time.Since it's my wife's tractor, I don't know that she"ll notice the light right away, and where it's at, I'm not really inclined to look there when mowing either so I can't blame her. Maybe my best bet would be to hook it up to a horn or better yet an electric charge in the seat

kennyd · Jun 3, 2014

These small Yanmar engines have a great history of reliability in small tractors, generators and boats. In all the years on the forum's I've read of very few failures. Sounds to me like the screens where not kept clear and it suffered from lack of circulation.

zx6rrider · Jun 3, 2014

I agree that the airflow was restricted, but unless it was already leaking when we got it, I would have thought that these tractors should have been designed to be wife proof for more than 10 hours. I went through it and cleaned it all out before using it , just didn't get the time to look it over since then

Labrat · Jun 3, 2014

Sounds like it may have had a preexisting problem when you bought it. could the hour meter been tampered with? You will also need to have the machine shop check the pre-chambers because when you overheat an idi engine the pre-chambers are vulnerable to cracking. The Yanmar engines are extremely reliable and will last thousands of hours with minimal maintenance, Thermo King has hundreds of thousands of them on reefer and gen-set units that easily ring up 15 to 20 thousand hours.
I have a digital temperature gauge on mine and I overheated it once to 235° and it didn't do any damage. it was about 200 hours ago.

zx6rrider · Jun 3, 2014

Dont think the hour meter was messed with since it was residental use and the rest of it looks solid. Thinking it was a problem for the past owner, which is why there is RTV on the gaskets getting to that point.

Just got a voice mail from the machine shop that the head is cracked. Havn't talked to him yet but he didnt indicate that it could be fixed. Anybody have any thoughts on sourcing used parts? A new head is 1300 bucks, plus gaskets, plus anything I end up doing as far a rings and what not.

ovrszd · Jun 3, 2014

And the head being cracked probably came from the previous owner driving it with no regard to the "hot" light.

I've never had mine come on. But I'm OCD about keeping the screens and radiator clean. I've even shut off the engine and cleaned the outer screens while mowing.

These tractors do not have a safety system in place to protect themselves other than the idiot light.

My previous 455 would turn the deck off if the engine got hot. I thought that was very cool!!!!!

I'm anxious to see/hear of your fix. As Kenny said, this is very rare. Actually the first time I've ever heard of it. Sorry for your troubles. These engines are generally very dependable with little or no repairs required.

Lastly in the future, realize, the screens are the first line of defense. Attention also needs to be paid to the radiator and it's screen.

zx6rrider · Jun 3, 2014

Before I bought it I did a good bit of googling and didnt see any issues either so thought I would be safe, guess I was wrong. When it got hot on her, I did blow the radiator out as well and it had a good bit of dirt in it. After that I was blowing it out every other time or so that she mowed. I think I am going to put an airchuck through the wall in the garage and make it easy for her to pull up and blow it off after each use.

Ill start looking at my options after I talk to the machine shop tomorrow but I guess if it needs a new head, I might as well overhaul the whole engine