Cooling Filter for Deutz (1430-1845-1850)

[MikeOConnor]

I sure take my time coming back to this forum. But several months (and 20k miles on airplanes) and back I am.

Charlie! What a cool gizmo! But oh, what a pain to have to take that thing off every time you open the engine up. And I guarantee I'd back that thing into a tree, sure as shootin'.

I like Sedgewood's 5-gallon-bucket extension idea too. Do you take it all the way out to the rear screen/housing? Charlie, are you using something like that in conjunction with that humongous filter?

AltaVista... Didja ever get your filtration gizmo built? I read about it in this thread;

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/power-trac/82576-anyone-else-having-lots-problems.html

... but didn't see the conclusion.

Several months of (not too frequent) reflection finds me in the same camp -- cooling capacity isn't the problem, keeping the crud out of the radiator is. These look like great ideas to try next summer. Right now the ambient temp here in Wisconsin is spending a lot of time below freezing so I won't be needing to worry about this stuff for a while.

 

[Charlie_Iliff]

I like Sedgewood's 5-gallon-bucket extension idea too. Do you take it all the way out to the rear screen/housing? Charlie, are you using something like that in conjunction with that humongous filter?

I haven't yet done anything but the 2-session test. The cooler was clean after a total of 7 or 8 hours of mowing. The screen wire was still on the sides.

On my winter list is to try to cobble up some kind of baffle so all the incoming air comes from the back. Then I can dispense with the side screens, which come off a lot.

Of course, my winter list is often about the same length when spring mowing starts.

 

[Sedgewood]

I like Sedgewood's 5-gallon-bucket extension idea too. Do you take it all the way out to the rear screen/housing?

Yes but I've moved on to a filter arrangement on the rear screen that works better without the bucket.

http://www.coxontool.com/index.php/PowerTrac/Cooling

Several months of (not too frequent) reflection finds me in the same camp -- cooling capacity isn't the problem, keeping the crud out of the radiator is.

Exactly!

Sedgewood

 

[MikeOConnor]

'seems like Charlie's winter-time project might do the trick -- i'm wondering if it's as simple as using 5-gallon buckets to get to the rear screen. if one bucket isn't long enough to reach, just stacking a few of them together might do the trick.

Sedgewood -- when i read the post on your blog, I assumed you were still using the buckets as well. How come you gave them up? 'Seems like they'd help pull the air through the rear filter, and keep crud from coming in the sides.

 

[Sedgewood]

Sedgewood -- when i read the post on your blog, I assumed you were still using the buckets as well. How come you gave them up? 'Seems like they'd help pull the air through the rear filter, and keep crud from coming in the sides.

My first filter was a window screen on the back of the house (like Charlie's). This helped but the cooler still inhaled chaff and the screen would clog with a disk of chaff. I added the bucket thinking some of the chaff building up in the cooler was coming in around from the sides. Maybe so. But the bucket concentrated the air flow and my filter screen would clog with a disk of chaff even quicker. The it occurred to me that maybe if I moved the window screen back farther from the fan intake the air flow at the surface of the screen would be diffuse enough and its velocity low enough that the chaff wouldn't build up. Hence the 3-4 inches of filter material. It worked! It isn't the thickness that does the trick but rather the surface being farther from the air intake. I chose the filter material because it was an easy way to get a screen back farther and have it be soft to survive the inevitable tree contacts too. That works too

The window screens are still on the sides of the house and the bottom perimeter of the house is sealed to the tub with some split plumbing pipe insulation pushed onto the bottom lip of the house.

Sedgewood

 

[AltavistaLawn]

I sure take my time coming back to this forum. But several months (and 20k miles on airplanes) and back I am.

Charlie! What a cool gizmo! But oh, what a pain to have to take that thing off every time you open the engine up. And I guarantee I'd back that thing into a tree, sure as shootin'.

I like Sedgewood's 5-gallon-bucket extension idea too. Do you take it all the way out to the rear screen/housing? Charlie, are you using something like that in conjunction with that humongous filter?

AltaVista... Didja ever get your filtration gizmo built? I read about it in this thread;

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/power-trac/82576-anyone-else-having-lots-problems.html

... but didn't see the conclusion.

Several months of (not too frequent) reflection finds me in the same camp -- cooling capacity isn't the problem, keeping the crud out of the radiator is. These look like great ideas to try next summer. Right now the ambient temp here in Wisconsin is spending a lot of time below freezing so I won't be needing to worry about this stuff for a while.

Mike,

I'm still going to fabricate something to generate clean air to the intake.

I'm thinking about a "box" assembly mounted on top of the hood made out of aluminum and housing two fans, with the oem hydraulic cooler and its fan, separating it from the engine compartment. Then it would duct air down to the rear where the engine fan intakes it. If it makes enough cfms, the air will make positive air flow in the engine compartment, so it won't suck contaminated air inside...same principle as automotive spray booths in body shops.

I don't know why PT doesn't address this issue. All the contaminated air and high operating temperatures are probably the main contributing factors to all theses breakdowns. Look at large agricultural equipment like combines...if they were built as poor as the PTs we would all starve!

 

[Bob999]

I don't know why PT doesn't address this issue. All the contaminated air and high operating temperatures are probably the main contributing factors to all theses breakdowns.

I was aware of the issue with the oil cooler when I was considering the purchase of a PT in 2003 and raised the issue with Terry. His response was "that's a maintenance issue".

I agree that PT needs to address this issue--they are selling a machine to work in dirty environments but not equiping the machine to do so. I have found it frustrating. I think that part of the issue may be the mining background of PT and the fact that the issue is much less serious with fine coal dust than it is with chaff and larger debris that is generated in mowing operation.

 

[AltavistaLawn]

I was aware of the issue with the oil cooler when I was considering the purchase of a PT in 2003 and raised the issue with Terry. His response was "that's a maintenance issue".

I agree that PT needs to address this issue--they are selling a machine to work in dirty environments but not equiping the machine to do so. I have found it frustrating. I think that part of the issue may be the mining background of PT and the fact that the issue is much less serious with fine coal dust than it is with chaff and larger debris that is generated in mowing operation.

Very true. And they don't have dealerships to support us, so most of us can't
go back to them for these problems, so they don't have much incentive to build a reliable machine.

 

[MossRoad]

Seal off the engine compartment with the same type of foam filter material that they put in the doors of computer cabinets. It is a coarse, fiber material that lets air through but traps large debris and dust. To clean it, open the engine compartment and blow it out with a leaf blower from the inside or wash it off with a hose.

Try this stuff made for home air systems

Or this stuff that is flame resistant and used in the automotive industry. They have cut to fit stuff.

 

[MikeOConnor]

One of the things that amazes me is the huge opportunity this discussion board represents to PT. And how diligently they ignore it.

I've spent the last 15 years building the Internet in one way or another and I know that companies pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to get sites like this started -- so they can participate in the collective wisdom of their customers and make their products better.

I sure wish there was some way to get PT to figure out what they're missing.