Auxilary HST Cooler next to BX Radiator......??

ehenry · Apr 6, 2014

With the ease of which the plastic HST cooling fans get broken and the H3LL you have to hug to replace them, I'm wondering if an automatic transmission cooler placed in front of the radiator so the fan would pull air through it would work. Is it even possible to plumb one up? Would it cool the fluid like it should? Would it allow enough fluid to flow?

That would cure the pitiful micky mouse plastic fan problem. I really would like to hear from some of you guys that have the hydraulic knowlege of the BX to see if this is even a viable option.

MHarryE · Apr 6, 2014

An item to consider when stacking coolers is the effect each one has on the next one in line. Each cooler the air passes through adds heat to the air taking away from the capability of the next core in line. The next challenge is getting foreign material through multiple cores. From the design standpoint I've had to balance heat rejection from multiple cores - engine radiator, air to air inter cooler, fuel cooler, hydraulic oil cooler and air conditioner condenser while making it easy enough to separate so each core could be blown out individually. Could be that Kubota has extra radiator cooling capacity making this possible but it is rare. Believe it or not there is little profit margin so the goal is to meet the requirement by just enough but exceeding this equals lost profit. One would expect that this tractor is one on which Kubota is fighting margin problems because they put a cooling fan blowing air on the transmission instead of adding a cooler. Even my RTV900XT has an oil cooler; however, they don't stack radiator and cooler. One gets cooling air via the engine cooling fan and the other via an electric fan on a side mounted cooler.

ryan08 · Apr 7, 2014

Looking at the tiny size of the BX radiator I would guess that it barely has enough capacity to keep the engine cool. I have a 22hp Kubota diesel in my ZT mower that is sized out of a Mack truck for the same size engine. Go figure. It does have hydro cooler in front of it .