Block Heater

[Scotty Dive]

I have tried and have never had luck removing that block plug with the recessed square hole. I have tried heat and a long breaker bar without success. Worried that I would damage the block all for a lousy $50 optional part. Once you figure out your machine it's not that hard to get her started. Today I started mine at 11 degrees. This is what I do when it's very cold. Thermostat for 20 seconds. Spin the tractor over with compression release until oil light goes off. Ignition off and Then thermostat for another 20 seconds and spin the tractor with compression release to get quick revolutuons and then full compression. When it starts to kick and fire, I release the starter and use the thermostart start again for another 10 seconds or so and she is purring.

 

[Roscoe294]

That picture looks just like the ones I've used on Yanmars before. Roscoe, if you look at the side of the motor block one of the "freeze plugs" should be on a raised boss and be plugged by a threaded plug with a hex key hole to turn it. That one unscrews - sometimes with great difficulty - and is replaced by the block heater. Be careful; if the block threads get messed up it can be a problem.

Better keep the threaded plug. Like many Japanese manufacturers, Yanmar tends to use British Standard Pipe threads for for anything threading into their cast iron blocks instead of the more familiar North American NPT thread used in US manufacturing. Unfortunately, the NPT thread will work just well enough to ruin the threads in the block, but still leak. That goes for the oil and temp senders too.

There's another solution as well. Your engine is a standard 220 series 4 cylinder Yanmar used by lots of JD equipment in the roughly 30 to 90 hp range. In fact, it's used by high end equipment all over the world. If it were mine, I'd probably just head down to the JD dealer and be sure of getting the right thing. Fifty bucks is a typical price.
rScotty

Thanks
Makes sense

 

[Roscoe294]

I have tried and have never had luck removing that block plug with the recessed square hole. I have tried heat and a long breaker bar without success. Worried that I would damage the block all for a lousy $50 optional part. Once you figure out your machine it's not that hard to get her started. Today I started mine at 11 degrees. This is what I do when it's very cold. Thermostat for 20 seconds. Spin the tractor over with compression release until oil light goes off. Ignition off and Then thermostat for another 20 seconds and spin the tractor with compression release to get quick revolutuons and then full compression. When it starts to kick and fire, I release the starter and use the thermostart start again for another 10 seconds or so and she is purring.

Being a I have 1995 machine, your start up procedure doesn't even come close to helping me out. Thanks anyway

 

[goeduck]

Works on the principle - hot water will rise, cold water will fall.

Yep. And that principle of heat rising will never change.

 

[chevy791979]

Try AR87167. That's directly off my computer I work for a Deere construction dealer. That's the Deere part number

 

[Ford850]

It sounds like the hardest part is breaking that plug free.
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/john-deere-owning-operating/327256-2520-block-heater-install.html

 

[milligan36]

Most Yanmar tractors have a one and one quarter threaded hole in the block.

 

[rScotty]

Most Yanmar tractors have a one and one quarter threaded hole in the block.

Uh....That's only part of the story. Please be careful what you put back into the threads in the block. Here's why: Most US equipment is specified to imperial sizes, and our American made motors and block heaters use a tapered thread pipe to NPT specifications. But Yanmars don't use that same thread spec.

Yanmars use a very similar - BUT DIFFERENT - thread form that is common in oriental metric manufacture. Yanmar uses tapered pipe thread specified to BSPT standards that are almost exactly the same as our common NPT in diameter, but the two threads differ in thread shape and angle. If you try to interchange these pipe threads they will leak and that causes no end of problem. Take a look at this link:
NPT National Pipe Thread and BSPT British Standard Pipe Thread connections

Consider going to your JD dealer, explain the problem, tell him your Yanmar's engine block ID numbers, and ask for a block heater for a similar block-series Yanmar engine used in the JD compact tractors.
Thanks, rScotty

 

[chevy791979]

I maybe able to help on the Deere side of things.

 

[Roscoe294]

Good info thanks guys
I'm undecided and might be selling this skid steer.................