Allergic to my tractor?

[RayCo]

Are you using off-road diesel? Maybe it's the dye, although that would be really great luck if it were, since the solution would be just to use on-road (for another $0.30/gallon or something...)

Also, I don't really know anything about alternative fuels, but from what my dealer told me, you can safely run non-diesel fuels in your BX. What those fuels are, I don't know. But perhaps someone here has some experience or your dealer could give you some suggestions of what else you can run (and hopefully readily purchase).

 

[Tom_H]

I once made the mistake of cutting our field of weeds without a mask. Yellow Russian Star Thistle is really toxic and I breathed a lot of it. Wound up with severe bronchitis that brought on chronic asthma. Took months to get over it. I have to wear a respirator mask anytime I cut now. Wearing that thing along with ear muffs and goggles in 112-114 degrees is a real PITA.

When I was a young all knowing teenager, I thought allergies were a figment of the immagination of hypochondriacs. Truth is, anybody can become allergic to almost anything. If you get something in your body and your immune system decides it sees that substance as a threat, it will make specific antibodies to attack it. The immune system can very easily get out of whack and those antibodies can attack you, throw you into anaphylactic shock, and kill you fast. And those antigens can range from anything found on your land, to, yes, particulate matter in diesel exhaust.

I don't have any advice other than that already given, but right now have bad ongoing asthma following a bronchial infection I had a month ago, so mainly just wanted to say I feel for 'ya. Hope things get better.

 

[jbrumberg]

Tom H:

I could not agree more. I now have chronic, lifelong, quality of life impacting conditions due to a lot of poor choices I made in the past . A staff person who used to work for me had this expression: "If you do not take care of your body, your body will take care of you, and it is usually not pleasant ". I can attest to that saying. Everyone out there in TBNland please take care of yourselves. Jay

 

[Skyco]

Lots of really good suggestions but I'm still puzzled. As I mentioned early in this thread I do not generally detect exhaust smells on my BX24. If the OP is readily smelling exhaust then something is wrong IMO.
As I said I'm really sensitive to airborne allergens and smells, heck I can usually tell if someone ahead of me on the freeway is smoking in their car
So why is he smelling exhaust?
I agree it would bug the fool out of me if I was smelling it but I'm not...except for startup when it smokes more and if the wind happens to be just wrong...
Other BX24 owners pipe up- are you smelling exhaust routinely

PS- I'm a fan of the Neti Pot also...

 

[Volfandt]

On my BX23 every now and then I catch a wiff of exhaust when mowing against the wind, other than that I don't notice it.

If it got to bothering me I'd start with making up an exhaust extension pointing down to help route the exhaust down and under the tractor. Forward motion + the floor pan would keep it down and routed underneath especially when going forward.
When working stationary, about the only direction that'll route the exhaust away much better than the stock setup would be a tall stack setup, but it wouldn't be the best when moving, especially forward.

I don't know if going with a gasoline engine powered tractor would be that more benefitial.
When I refurb'ed an old 8hp Wheel Horse a couple yrs ago I went with an exhaust stack to give it more of a tractor look and after half a summer of use I went back to routing the exhaust down and forward. The gasoline exhaust got to be very nausiateing and highly detracted from my otherwise enjoyable seat time. Now with teh exhaust routed down and to the front only the occasional wind shift blows any exhaust back towards me and it's nowhere near as bad as the stack was.

Good luck

 

[Danno1]

.

Vicar,

It seems to me that extending the exhaust stack up high would be your best bet. This stuff will somewhat hold it's shape. So you can aim it backwards when you're travelling forward, aim it forward when you're using the BH, and bend it over to get into the garage.

Here is a source for flexible metallic tubing:

.

 

[vicar]

Thanks all for your replies.

It's not that i smell exhaust all of the time when on my tractor. It's more like I'm aware of it after i have quit for the day and go inside. I foolishly overexposed myself to paint stripper 20+ years ago and have become more and more sensitive to all kinds of stuff as i have gotten older.

Thanks for the link to the flex pipe. Extending the pipe up would probably not work well for me as i keep having problems with unseen low hanging branches and slanted trees which seem to grow out of nowhere. But aiming the exhaust more downward under the tractor is an interesting alternative. At the least it might help me sort out if it is the diesel fumes or something else.

Having heard that this is not a problem most others experience has been reassuring. A forwarded link to diesel related illnesses didn't even mention sinus irritation but rather lung problems as the common symptom. Somehow that was reassuring too.

My currrent thinking in light of this discussion is that at worst the diesel is just aggravating something that had another cause--mold, dust, stuff in the air, etc. So i think that what i will do is to be very careful of any further irritation until this can get cleared up. Minimize tractor use, and wear a mask whenever I possibly can. Hopefully if I can get back to a healthy state, the diesel won't cause me issues. I guess it will just take me longer to get back to healthy than I had hoped. Thanks to whoever suggested the neti pot too. I've been wondering about that. I guess I'll have to try it. Whatever it takes to keep me on that machine.

Many thanks.

John

 

[Tom_H]

Just because one is not able to smell exhaust does not mean that he is not inhaling the exhaust. After the engine warms up following the first few revs, the oxidation is much more complete, however, particulates and noxious gasses are still exhausted. The human nose, being one of the poorest olfactors among all animals, does not detect many things in the air. You can breathe in many allergins and not smell them. Not being able to detect them with the olfactory receptors does not mean that they will not trigger an auto-immune allergic response.

Now, that being said, if an odor is detectable after the block is warm, that would indicate that considerably incomplete oxidation is ocurring and that the engine needs to be checked in the shop.

 

[btolle]

Dumb suggestion: Try coating the inside of your nose with Vaseline before you start. I have used Vaseline inside my nose to help with dry nasal passages and it seems to help.

At least it would coat your nasal passages and maybe keep some of the "stuff" from coming in direct contact.

I would think blowing your nose every 15 to 30 minutes might help to clear out the offensive stuff.

I use saline nasal spray and it helps wash out any irritants. Spray a LOT of saline spray, wait a few seconds, blow.