Fan uner BX24 mid-section

[fishpick]

This weekend - before I did some servicing of my tractor - I spent a great deal of time hosing it down and getting rid of the caked on mud. During one of the various time/angle combinations of hosing the BX24 off, as I was on my hands and knees spraying back towards the mid-PTO - the idling tractor decided to spray back at me... after looking up in there, I discovered a spinning white fan. It is located under that "hump" on the floorboards right where the bleed valve for the 3PT is.
I would assume - that fan is used to assist in the cooling of the hydro fluid... am I correct in that assumption (no parts manual yet).

 

[Mike_Lipke]

Bingo.

 

[KeithInSpace]

A) Watch your hands if you're removing the MMM shaft with the engine running. Started to on Saturday then got nervous with the breeze of the fan on my hand. Quite disconcerting.

B) Consider Bro-Tec skid plates. Seen several links. Cost of replacing the fan (a stick jambed up in there does wonders to white plastic spinny things) easily eclipses the cost of the skid plates. Buying mine as soon as I get back from vacation.

 

[HomeBrew2]

... Cost of replacing the fan ...

Just to clarify, (unless the '24 is a lot different than the '23) the fan is cheap but, if someone has to have a dealer do the labor, that might be expensive. As I understand it, it's not a bad job but can be time consuming.

 

[ourplace_Tn]

JTwillie
New Member

Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Redwood Valley, Ca
Posts: 14

Default BX24 New Fender replacement
My BX 24 with maybe 55hrs on it had the fender replaced this week. Took almost a month from the time the dealer said it would be covered under warranty. They welded some additional support to the frame rail and mounted some hard rubber which sandwiched between the new support and the floorboard. Looks pretty well done. I will add a pic later.

Now the bad news for other BX24 owners. I also had to have the HST fan replaced. I must have gotten a stick up under the tractor and took all the blades off the fan. Would have never known it except for when I had the 50hr service done. That was not covered under warranty.
Dealer was going to replace it when he put the new fender on. This was going to be a minor thing since it would be so exposed with the fender off. Probably as no charge.

Now the bad news. Unlike a BX23 which has room to pull the drive shaft out far enough to remove the fan, the BX24 does not. My dealer called Kubota since they could not get enough clearance to pull the shaft out and find out why. Seems with the BX24 you have to either pull the engine or in my case disassemble the rear end to remove shaft and replace fan. Total cost to me... $607.82

I have a skid plate on order and should be here anytime. So BX24 owners. Protect that little plastic fan as it is really expensive to have it replaced.

Cheers JT
PS... I live in Ca. and it seems that everything is more expensive out here.

 

[ourplace_Tn]

I didn't do that right but I think you get the message. Skid plates are made by Bro Tek in Canada. Do a search for Bro Tek.

 

[HomeBrew2]

JTwillie .................

Ok, good info. Thank you for the diff betw a '23 and '24.

Now for my opinion (and, no offence to you but great offence to Kubota): I know for a fact that I can find a 12V electric fan that I could hang from bailing wire or even mount sanitarily to replace that shaft driven fan. Possibly even syn hydro oil could eliminate the need for a fan. No way in hades that I would ever spend that kind of money on labor for a cheap part. Many more ways to skin a cat.

I am sorry for your bad experience.

 

[bird1968]

I didn't do that right but I think you get the message. Skid plates are made by Bro Tek in Canada. Do a search for Bro Tek.

Here the link on ebay

eBay.ca: Kubota Skid Plate BX22 BX23 BX24 BX1830 BX2230 Bro-Tek (item 330037613216 end time 16-Oct-06 13:37:22 EDT)


Homebrew2, I know how good you are at getting stuff done, so send me a photo of that thing.electic fan..when you get it done! Did you get your BX ready for the snow yet?

Thanks

Richard

 

[rdsaustintx]

Now for my opinion (and, no offence to you but great offence to Kubota): I know for a fact that I can find a 12V electric fan that I could hang from bailing wire or even mount sanitarily to replace that shaft driven fan. Possibly even syn hydro oil could eliminate the need for a fan. No way in hades that I would ever spend that kind of money on labor for a cheap part. Many more ways to skin a cat.

Gonna have to be a pretty fancy electric fan, since I think that plastic fan is mounted directly on the driveshaft, and there ain't much room up there.

I am paranoid about sticks with my 23, I would be psycho about it with a 24...

RDnT

 

[Berniep]

I haven't seen a bx24 but I think you could cut the driveshaft near one end and take it out then take it to a driveshaft place and have them put a couple of flanges on it so it bolts together. Would be a lot cheaper than 600 bucks.
It also seems like a lot of money just to pull the engine. Does it really take more than a couple of hours shop time? Or are they up to 150 bucks an hour labor now?

 

[HomeBrew2]

Homebrew2, I know how good you are at getting stuff done, so send me a photo of that thing.electic fan..when you get it done! Did you get your BX ready for the snow yet?
Thanks
Richard

Hello Richard, long time no hear from. Hope your business is doing well, I've sent a few folks your way. Keep up the great work.
I hope I never have to mess with the electric fan idea. I've been lucky so far with no skid plate and I'm nearly done with my stick cleanup.
No real snow here in sunny California. I'll probably still be in shorts and sandals at christmas.
Cheers!

 

[Singlecoil]

I put the skid plate on my 24 a couple of weeks ago as I now have the tractor on 20 acres of somewhat rough terrain. Boy am I glad I did! $600? wow. It was kind of a pain to install on the BX. You will probably need to purchase additional hardware, i.e., longer bolts. The problem is, they don't tell you how much longer you need. I was able to finagle it using the factory bolts, but it was a pain to get on there. If the U bolts they provide were a little longer as well, things would also be easier. The skid plate is a one size fits all with different mounting options for different tractors. That makes sense from a manufacturing standpoint. What I don't understand is writing the installation instructions in the same manner. Each step is filled with caveats for different models; like Step 3: For BX-23 do ...., for BX-24 you may need to do ... or ...
I think they should reorganize the instructions completely so that it reads more clearly. Like, BX -23 owners do these 5 steps, BX-24 owners skip to page 4 and do those 5 steps or something like that. That would be much less confusing.
Other than that, the thing is built extremely well and I'm convinced has already saved me money.

 

[fishpick]

Singlecoil - can you post some additional pictures of the Skid plate - and specifics on how you attached it. Did you have to drill the frame? (where and how many times?) - What sort of hardware, does it use any of the existing hardware already on the tractor? What does the tranny drain-plug look like now - is it covered up or exposed?
I have been thinking about one of these for a while after reading old posts - but I can't get my head around how it really attaches and what it really protects - the picture on eBay only does so much fore me - I'm very touchy feelly...

 

[bird1968]

Hello Richard, long time no hear from.
No real snow here in sunny California. I'll probably still be in shorts and sandals at christmas.
Cheers!

Rubbing it in, Homebrew2! I guess I would do the same....

BTW for the Skid Plate, here a photo, to help understand the mounting location.

Richard

 

[Billy_S]

I ordered a skid plate from Richard today for my BX2230. He said it will probably take a couple of weeks to get here. I will tell you guys why I ordered it.

I have 40 acres. About half of that is woods. The remainder is in yard or horse pasture. The woods is very overgrown and has caused me a few problems, with my tractor, trying to get a handle on it.

The tractor has almost 200 hours on it already. We bought it in March of this year so we do use it a lot. The tractor is currently broken. I ripped a rear axle seal out of it. This is the second time I have done that, both times working in the woods. It costs about $300 to get it fixed.

A couple of weeks ago, I ran a stick up into my HST fan and had to have that fixed. It really didn't look like something I wanted to handle myself. It cost around $100 to have that fixed.

So today, I ordered the skid plate. Might be a little like closing the barn door after the cows are out but anyway....

It doesn't look like the skid plate will do much to protect the axle seals but it can't hurt. I just hope it doesn't make hooking up the PTO shaft for the MMM more difficult.

I really bought the wrong tractor for working back in the woods, but I needed something to mow the yard and the pastures as well as work the woods. I could only afford one tractor so this is what I got. The tractor is fine on the yard or pastures but is really out of its element in the woods. Back there, I need something with more ground clearance. Maybe when we get the SD through college in another year.....

 

[AceDeuce]

I haven't seen a bx24 but I think you could cut the driveshaft near one end and take it out then take it to a driveshaft place and have them put a couple of flanges on it so it bolts together. Would be a lot cheaper than 600 bucks.
It also seems like a lot of money just to pull the engine. Does it really take more than a couple of hours shop time? Or are they up to 150 bucks an hour labor now?

Have you seen how that engine is shoehorned in there? It's like pulling an elephant out of a tophat! I'm surprised it isn't MORE expensive.

 

[KeithInSpace]

Quote from Billy: "It doesn't look like the skid plate will do much to protect the axle seals but it can't hurt"

Not to be the village idiot, but how is it that working in the woods can hurt your rear axle seals? I've been trudging in light woods recently myself and have been very careful for my fan (until I install skidplates) and am curious if I should be careful of another woe/foe.

 

[Billy_S]

Not to be the village idiot, but how is it that working in the woods can hurt your rear axle seals? I've been trudging in light woods recently myself and have been very careful for my fan (until I install skidplates) and am curious if I should be careful of another woe/foe.

The first time it happened I ran over some bailing wire while working over my burn pile. Wrapped it around the axle and shreaded the seal. This last time, I really have no idea. I was hogging along when I thought I smelled hydraulic fluid. Dismounted to discover fluid absolutely pouring from the same seal as before.

My woods is not "light" though. Some of the stuff I was mowing was well over the height of the tractor.

 

[KeithInSpace]

Oh. That'll do it. Sounds like you're giving the thing a good workout. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't itching for trouble in some of my endevours. Sounds like I'm pretty safe.

 

[Berniep]

Have you seen how that engine is shoehorned in there? It's like pulling an elephant out of a tophat! I'm surprised it isn't MORE expensive.

So they really did make it harder to work on, huh.
No I haven't taken the time to look at the one at the dealer very close.