RK37 regen

[4570Man]

Every time I read about the regen process it makes me cringe. I can't believe manufacturers can't come up with something better than letting a tractor sit there for 30 mins wide open. Idiot tree huggers.

I’ve only operated one machine that was equipped with that garbage but what you describe is far from accurate. It revved to about 1800 or didn’t rev at all if your were already above that rpm. Definitely not “wide open”. And you continued working as normal. If it wasn’t for the indicator you’d probably never notice. You didn’t have to take a 30 minute coffee break and wait for it to finish the cycle.

 

[4570Man]

Sure! Is called "gasoline".

Which is probably good enough for homeowner tractors. The downside is you lose the macho effect. Probably the biggest actual problem is fuel storage. A lot of homeowner tractors sit a long time between usage. For commercial equipment it’s not as good of an option. I’m kinda surprised no tractor manufacture is offering that option and see if the $$ makes the decision.

 

[MF1735Guy]

My RK37HC now has 64 hours on it and I have yet to see a regen request. Several months back I seem to remember someone mentioning that theirs did a regen right at 50 hours when the first service was due. Just curious at what point other RK37 owners are seeing for having to start the regen process. Thanks..........Don

I don't own the RK37 but I was talking with the manager at my local RK when I was tractor shopping and the RK37 was something I heavily considered. The manager mentioned to me that it has "passive" filtering and "active" filtering. So if you're constantly running PTO implements or keeping it revved up high, you're most likely keeping it above the 1800 or so RPMs it looks for. This keeps the DPF hot enough to keep the DPF clean-ish. DPF's have a sensor that reads the soot level and won't set it off unless it gets clogged up enough to need it. He told me he's heard of people going past 80-90 hours and still not having a cycle. Don't know how true it is, because he was trying to convince me to buy it, but it sounds pretty probable to me.

 

[DonRybak]

MF1735Guy, thanks for the thought. Sounds very reasonable to me because 90% of my use is mowing my pasture which keeps the rpm up between 2000 - 2300. We use to have a member on this forum that was the lead RK tractor rep and he jumped in quite often to answer issues such as this. But he left RK back in July if I remember correctly. I'll be heading to RK this weekend for horse feed so if I see the lead tractor guy there I'll see what his opinion is......Don

 

[DonRybak]

MF1735Guy, you were spot on with the thought of the non-regen issue. I talked with the tractor rep over the weekend and he said the regen is kicked off by carbon buildup on the sensor. Working the tractor hard keeps the rpm up so that most of the carbon gets burned off so the sensor doesn't start the regen cycle. Can't believe that never crossed my mind. Thanks again.......Don

 

[MF1735Guy]

MF1735Guy, you were spot on with the thought of the non-regen issue. I talked with the tractor rep over the weekend and he said the regen is kicked off by carbon buildup on the sensor. Working the tractor hard keeps the rpm up so that most of the carbon gets burned off so the sensor doesn't start the regen cycle. Can't believe that never crossed my mind. Thanks again.......Don

That's good to hear. Glad I could help.

 

[Grumpycat]

That I know of, on Ford Powerstroke diesels the DPF has fore and aft pressure sensors, and temperature sensors. Regeneration occurs when the DPF is blocked sufficiently by soot. The temperature sensors verify something is really happening, and that not too much is happening.

During regeneration the fuel injectors fire during an exhaust cycle with exhaust valves open to provide raw fuel to heat the DPF. Problem is that this results in oil dilution with raw diesel fuel.

 

[Pintsize1974]

My personal pinion and experience is that RK tractors are garbage and would never recommend one, and have told everyone I know and even people at the local RK to run away as fast as you can and don't look back. But I guess it goes back to that day ole saying " you get what you pay for", but hell I didn't even get that before I had to start dumping money into ours. Broke down with tranny problems just after first payment, want to chrge me $3000 to fix because they said" Well you dented the front bumper so you caused it" really I wanted to ask for a glass of water to wash down the load of **** he was feeding me but was told don't even say it.

 

[ljjhouser]

I’ve only operated one machine that was equipped with that garbage but what you describe is far from accurate. It revved to about 1800 or didn’t rev at all if your were already above that rpm. Definitely not “wide open”. And you continued working as normal. If it wasn’t for the indicator you’d probably never notice. You didn’t have to take a 30 minute coffee break and wait for it to finish the cycle.

That is correct. The higher rpm produces sufficient heat to burn off particulates. You can simply continue work, and then return "normal" operation. But I always thought "normal Operation" was always at high rpm anyway. And there is not exact number for the process. It happens when your filter needs to be burned off. If you run low rpm or idle a lot, that may be a low number of hours to regen.

 

[cowpen]

169 hours on my RK37 and have yet to see a forced regen cycle. I've had 3 or 4 "passive" auto-regens where the display showed the high exhaust temp and I could smell the diesel being dumped. Just kept on working through those.