Air Filtration for the PT

[Schultz]

If you were to add one, I'd start with an engine oil temperature sensor. By using the tractor for other things, you could get an idea of where it operates and while mowing if you saw the temp go up you would know something was wrong.

I saw on a top of the line Dixie Cutter they put an additional engine oil cooler stacked with their hydraulic cooler, along with an Amsoil bypass oil filter. Not sure if they had a temp gauge.

I know this is straying into the oil & lubricants territory, but try one of the Purilator Pure One oil automotive filters by matching thread and seal ring size. They're larger capacity & filter down to 1µm instead of 10-20µm. On my Onan, I found the oil would be coal black in 25hrs of summer use, now the oil goes 100 hrs before its brown. To me, that's immediate satisfaction that your protecting your investment.

 

[smartguyz]

Snowridge - Excellent research! Where did you find this info - let's work on this together!

-Rob

 

[SnowRidge]

The VDO info came from a little Googling. The oil temp switch came from a Kohler PDF that is on their web site. It's the one entitled "Lubrication."

I don't know what the URL for the PDF is anymore, but you can get to it from www.kohler.com. I just downloaded the whole thing. It is too big to post here, though.

SnowRidge

 

[Charlie_Iliff]

<font color="red"> gauges for air cooled engines. They are popular with karters </font>

Back when my son was karting, we had a triple window LCD gauge for cylinder head temp, EGT and RPM. It came complete with sensors. This was before WWW, but undoubtedly they're still available for reasonable money and a quick search of kart stuff should hit them. (Same stuff - 1/2 what they cost for a car, 1/3 of boat gauge and 1/10 of airplane component. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif) On a PT, you can forget the steering wheel mount we used. The gauges would never be vertical, and pretty quick you'd wind the wires around the hub. Maybe a ROPS mount.

 

[smartguyz]

Hi Charlie -

Exactly what I've been thinking. Check out this link: egauges.com link It looks like they have this kind of thing for roll bars/ROPS. Perhaps this can be retrofitted to the PT425. I'm not sure where you would mount an exhaust gas sender. The new PT425 has what looks to me to be a custom exhaust muffler. All thick welded assembly. Seems like PT built their own. It is NOT what is shown on the website.

Anyway - Where would you put RPM sending unit? Is there one that connects to the ignition system? Anyone done this before?

-Rob /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Charlie_Iliff]

You probably don't need an egt, That was for fine tuning the mixture by the driver.

Look at Kart Gauge I think there are a lot of variations on that theme. Cylinder head temp and tach. I didn't look for oil temp, but Kohler sells their alarm switch,

Tach pickup on ours was a transducer tie-wrapped to the spark plug lead. You'd need the one for the four-stroke Briggs, not our 2-stroke Yamaha, unless the Kohler fires on the exhaust stroke. Some engines do,

Bubenberg bought a PT exhaust in November for his 425. He reported back then that it seemed a lot better than the stock one.

 

[smartguyz]

Looking at egauges.com, it seems that the most flexible and accurate method of measurement would be to insert an oil temp sender into the extra oil drain hole. If you check the PDF for lubrication-related accessories for the Kohler, Download Kohler Lube Accessories you will note that Kohler offers a oil temp switch designed to go into the oil drain hole. I agree with Snowridge that this would be easiest, but I have always preferred gauges, and yes, I do keep an eye on them. This way I can tell what 'normal' temp is, and if it starts going up, I can stop and do early intervention before things get too far along.

Does anyone know (without having to pull the drain plug) what the diameter of the drain plug is, and what size bushing it would therefore require? I note that egauges sells lots of sending units, and lot of different gauges, many of which would be cool to use. I think that the LCD gauges are OK, and I haven't seen the kart gauges, but I have always liked analog gauges - I can tell at a glance whether things are OK, without having to consult the number, or switching to different modes.

-Rob /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[SnowRidge]

<font color="green">( I think that the LCD gauges are OK, and I haven't seen the kart gauges, but I have always liked analog gauges - I can tell at a glance whether things are OK, without having to consult the number, or switching to different modes. )</font>

Agreed - digital gauges are lousy for trend measurements.

BTW, I didn't mention it earlier, but Kohler sells LCD tachs and tach/hour meter combo gauges. They are in the "Meters Special Tools" PDF.

SnowRidge

 

[SnowRidge]

Following up on my last post . . .

The Kohler tachs look like they are available directly from the manufacturer. They have a Web Page.

There are some drawbacks. The cheaper models only update once every 2.5 seconds, while the newer "commercial" models update every second, which is still a bit slow for my taste.

They all appear to have potted nonreplaceble lithium batteries. It looks like they expect you to buy a new tach every five years.

From their literature, it looks like the Kohlers fire the plug every revolution, which seems to limit the available tach sources to inductive pickup units designed for two strokes. That may make it difficult to locate something with an analog display that will work with the Kohler.

SnowRidge