Grand L30 HST Hoses

jimainiac · Mar 3, 2008

Has anyone out there had the pleasure of replacing the hoses that run from the oil cooler in front of the radiator on an L30 series tractor with HST? The manual says to replace the hoses every two years and our 3830 is going on four years old. The original hoses don't look bad now, but at some point I'm going to have to change them. They're really tucked in there and I'm not sure how to get to them. Anybody have some advice? It looks like you have to at least take off the headlights, grill, and battery.

radman1 · Mar 4, 2008

Wow, you may be the only operator to ever change those on a routine basis. How many hours on the tractor? Is it stored inside or outside? If low hours and stored inside, I would just wait.

ccsial · Mar 4, 2008

I go by the old addage, "if it ain't broke (or cracked), don't fix it"

The hoses on my 1910 are pushing 25 years and still original at over 1200 hours. It is kept in a garage though. The UV from sunlight is not good for them. If the hoses look cracked or checked I'd consider changing them.

jimainiac · Mar 4, 2008

Thanks for your thoughts, guys. I agree with you, and I'm not looking for trouble, but when the manual says change at two years I figured I should at least take a look at them. It's four years old and I just did the 600 hour service. It sure seems like they should last a lot longer, but we intend to keep this rig for a long time. At some point I'll probably have to change them , so it's nice to have an idea of how to do it. The sad thing is, I got the service manual when we got the tractor, for help on things like this, but I don't find it that helpful.

MODiesel · Mar 4, 2008

I haven't bothered with the oil cooler hoses on my L5030HSTC, but I have had the front end "cosmetics" apart when I had to clean out a mouse nest in there. It all comes apart fairly easily, so don't let that scare you. In fact, each spring, I now strip it down to clean all the radiator fins and make sure the battery is still in good shape.

- Jay

jimainiac · Mar 5, 2008

MODiesel, do you think that when you get it that much apart, including the battery, that the hose ends would be accessable without removing anything else?

MODiesel · Mar 7, 2008

Jim:

I haven't done it since last spring, so my memory is a bit fuzzy. But once you get the aircleaner, front light/grill assembly and battery out of there, it's pretty much wide open. In the next month I'll probably pull mine apart to clean all the heat exchangers, and I can take some pics then. Or, if you tackle yours before then, snap some pics for the folks here!

- Jay