John Deere 335 fuel consumption

[jcmseven]

Fellow posters,

Last summer, I bought my father a new 335 LGT with a 48" center mount deck. This was to replace a 17 hp Gravely tractor that had nearly 2000 hours on its original Kohler engine. That tractor still runs pretty well, and is actually being restored by my parents' neighbor. The question I have is that my father likes his new (free) machine but complains about its fuel consumption. According to him (he is very detail oriented) the tractor will burn about 2.0 gallons per hour when mowing. He says he cannot mow his lawn (about one acre) twice on a full tank of fuel, which I believe is about four gallons. The lawn takes him almost one hour to mow secondary to the number of obstacles in the lawn. I had the local dealer pick up the tractor but found no fuel-related problem. Does this sound reasonable for the 20 hp Kawasaki gas engine? The engine is run at nearly WOT when mowing. It has 40 hours of use. This is certainly not a big deal, but I want to comfort my father that his machine is not malfunctioning. He was spoiled by his very old tractor, which would consume less than one gallon per hour. Thanks for the help.

John M

 

[deere755]

I don't know much about the 335's but I can tell you this my 322 with a 3 cylinder yanmar liked its gas' but not 2 gallons per hour. I would say it used about 1 gallon per hour. I used my diesel for an hour and 45 minutes today mowing the lawn and used 8/10 of a gallon.

 

[JINMA224XR]

<font color="blue">The question I have is that my father likes his new (free) machine but complains about its fuel consumption. </font>

Hey John,

My first #1 rule is, "If IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T TRY TO FIX IT".
And if the engine is running good, then, I wouldn't try to make too much fuss about it.

However these are the things that I would check about to make sure that my engine is making good use of gasoline economy.

1. Air Filter-- make sure that it is clean.
2. Spark Plug-- On cold engine, pull the spark plug out and see what color the ceramic insulator is. It should be just a tad bit on the very light brown/tan color on the white ceramic.
3. Replace the SparkPlug and make sure that it has the correct gap.
4. Adjust the fuel/air mix on the carburetor, if it has easy adjustments and you are competent and knowledgeable to do it. But only adjust, if the engine is not accelerating smoothly or if the spark plug is too dark on the ceramic,, which would indicate a too rich fuel condition. Too light a color on the ceramic would tend to indicate a too lean a condition, which is bad for the engine, and is using the least amount of fuel to air ratio, which isn't good either.
5. Also, believe it or not, the new engines with closer tolerances, are more suseptible to different weights/viscosity in motor oils and make sure that you are using the correct viscosity for your temperature range and your engine.

Check out these things and call me in the Morning. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Have a nice day,
Joe /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

[wolfe1]

My X485 is a gas hog. Liquid cooled 25 horse Kawasaki engine. It has gotten a little better now that it is broken in (almost 100 hours) but it is a hog no matter what- I have EFI too which is supposed to provide better fuel economy- I love the machine and this is my only complaint-

 

[bontai_Joe]

I'll bet his old Gravely's Kohler was a single cylinder. Almost all the twin cylinder engines are thirsty compared to the old singles, and the Kawasaki twins are no exception.