IslandTractor
Super Star Member
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2005
- Messages
- 17,101
- Location
- Prudence Island, RI
- Tractor
- 2007 Kioti DK40se HST, Woods BH
By some stroke of luck, I stopped to clean out my radiator screens while mowing a field today and when I popped the hood I was surprised by a spray of fuel. It was obviously coming from the fuel bowl and was not subtle. See photos below. I grabbed a photo and then shut it down. No leak then. I pondered whether to leave the tractor in the field for a week or take a chance driving it home half a mile. Decided to drive as the fuel was spraying against the hood side not the engine side. Got it home OK then took off the fuel bowl. One clearly perforated crack clearly visible but two or three other areas that looked like partial cracks. See photos of empty bowl. I also put in a photo of the amount of fuel leaking as I was driving up the apron of the barn. The "drops" are clearly visible on the apron. I figure I was lucky to have stopped to clean out the radiator screens as I was losing about a cup a minute. At least I found it before I ran out of fuel.
So, I'll ask Rick to UPS me a replacement bowl tomorrow and I'll send him the cracked one in case Kioti wants to see it. My DK40se was delivered in Sept 2007 so is about two years old with 130hrs on it. Thought it would be useful to bring this to DK owners attention as I hadn't heard of this problem before outside the older CK25/30 line.
I'm certainly not a materials scientist and have no idea what this type of linear cracking in three or four different places could be related too. The cracks are an inch or so apart and each one is about an inch long. Only one has perforated. There was no visible damage to the bowl otherwise. All the cracks are on the opposite side from the engine so it doesn't seem heat related. I did have a stick get jammed into the throttle cable area just below the fuel bowl a few weeks ago but I couldn't find any evidence that the stick hit the fuel bowl as it was jammed into the throttle cable terminus and there are no scratch marks on the fuel bowl itself. Also, I've put about 15 hours on the tractor since the stick incident with no leakage and I am pretty sure the leak started while I was simply mowing.
So, I'll ask Rick to UPS me a replacement bowl tomorrow and I'll send him the cracked one in case Kioti wants to see it. My DK40se was delivered in Sept 2007 so is about two years old with 130hrs on it. Thought it would be useful to bring this to DK owners attention as I hadn't heard of this problem before outside the older CK25/30 line.
I'm certainly not a materials scientist and have no idea what this type of linear cracking in three or four different places could be related too. The cracks are an inch or so apart and each one is about an inch long. Only one has perforated. There was no visible damage to the bowl otherwise. All the cracks are on the opposite side from the engine so it doesn't seem heat related. I did have a stick get jammed into the throttle cable area just below the fuel bowl a few weeks ago but I couldn't find any evidence that the stick hit the fuel bowl as it was jammed into the throttle cable terminus and there are no scratch marks on the fuel bowl itself. Also, I've put about 15 hours on the tractor since the stick incident with no leakage and I am pretty sure the leak started while I was simply mowing.
