L6060 & baler regen

[MHarryE]

My M7 was down for 18 days due to a leaking o-ring in the suspension - o-ring not serviced separately, odd size, needed to replace entire hose and expedited shipment took 18 days - did I ever say Kubota service sucks? So I swapped the baler to my L6060. Now the L6060 has plenty of power for a 14 x 18 square baker. I use the M7 because of comfort. About 20 bales and the tractor does a regen. I thought that was pretty odd because the PM was far from regen when I switched the gauge to PTO speed. So I bale a couple more hours and once again I am in regen. That is really odd as normally I’m about 25 - 30 hours between regens. So I keep on baking but knowing the engine speed for 540 rpm PTO, I switch the gauge to PM. It pops up a percent every 3 or 4 plunger strokes. I call the dealer to see if baling is not permitted with L6060. He assures me it is perfect for the job. It must be lack of maintenance. Change air cleaner and blow out radiator. I check my records, I changed air cleaner not long before. Radiator had very little chaff. So I finish up worried that my DPF is kaput. Now swap the tractor to raking and towing gravity boxes because harvest is here. Same tractor today reached 70% on the DPF at 23 hours since it was taken off the baler. Kubota finally sent a suspension hose so the M7 is back baling. It’s DPF gauge hardly climbs with a light task like baling. The only thing I can figure is when watching a non-emissions controlled JD 4620 bale, it put out a plume of smoke like an old steam locomotive with every plunger stroke. If that is happening inside my L6060, that is a lot of soot for the DPF to trap. Does anyone else have any experience with a varying load like this? At rated speed, my baler is 93 strokes per minute so that is a lot of smoke puffs.

 

[K5lwq]

This is interesting. At least the system seems to be doing what it was designed to do.

 

[SDT]

Interesting, indeed.

No experience baling with my L6060.

Mine is a "bush hog" tractor and regens have been seemless and infrequent.

SDT

 

[MHarryE]

Another interesting thing I noticed today - hauling a load home with my M7, I saw the exhaust leaving a shadow on the road in front of me (heading east, sun low in the west). Checked the exhaust and it was clear as could be but still was leaving a shadow. I have been baling with the M7 for 3 days now and DPF % has increased less than 10%, quite different from L6060 but then again 170 hp running 30 hp required baler, in e-PTO at 1600 rpm.

 

[K5lwq]

Some of the Kubotas will display exhaust temperatures as well. Have you ever compared that information between the two? What you are describing is not what most people think. They say light work, low RPM equals more regens and DPF related issues.

Your M7 is not working hard at all turning that bailer. Maybe because of the bigger engine it sees higher exhaust temperature naturally. Or maybe bigger exhaust and DPF is making the difference?

 

[SDT]

Another interesting thing I noticed today - hauling a load home with my M7, I saw the exhaust leaving a shadow on the road in front of me (heading east, sun low in the west). Checked the exhaust and it was clear as could be but still was leaving a shadow. I have been baling with the M7 for 3 days now and DPF % has increased less than 10%, quite different from L6060 but then again 170 hp running 30 hp required baler, in e-PTO at 1600 rpm.

Heat shimmer will leave a faint shadow in some conditions.

SDT

 

[MHarryE]

Right, the M7 is loafing with the baler, which also means plunger strokes barely perceptible while the L6060 has a noticeable surge. Older diesels respond to the power surge with over fueling and resulting black smoke like I described seeing in the JD 4620 video. My M7 differs from the L6060 in that heavy work will never reduce PM %. The L6060, on the other hand, can drop 20% by hauling a 20,000# grain cart 4 miles from a field to the grain bin. Next week I’ll be switching to baling in some small fields so I might switch back to the L6060 to see if this was temporary.

 

[ptsg]

I do like that Kubota puts out the PM % available for the operator to see and adapt the work so the DPF doesn't plug. I would like to have that on Onroad vehicles as well. DPF and short runs that we have to do in this small country just makes the DPFs not happy at all.

This thread is nice for everyone to see and be aware, that these newer tractors with emissions need to be ran at least slightly hard and not babying it by cutting the lawn. Most of DPF problems are caused by not run hard enough, and actually most of the times could be easily fixed by driving a couple miles at the highest speed and full throttle.

 

[K5lwq]

Let us know if you try it again. Maybe do a forced regen before you start?

A lot of the older tractors have been turned up to get more power. My dad wanted to turn mine up the day I brought it home. Every tractor we had on the farm looked like a locomotive out in the field. Made dad smile even though a lot of fuel was wasted. The JD 4620 could be turned up and it doesn't take much for it to show smoke.

Ptsg, his situation is proving to be opposite of what we know about DPF. His lower hp tractor pulling the bailer is clogging the filter much faster than his higher hp tractor running at lower RPMs and not working hard at all. The thought now is it is because it is burning more fuel to do the same work. We are trying to understand why he is seeing more frequent regens on the tractor that is working harder.

 

[ptsg]

Ptsg, his situation is proving to be opposite of what we know about DPF. His lower hp tractor pulling the bailer is clogging the filter much faster than his higher ho tractor running at lower RPMs and not working hard at all. The thought now is it is because it is burning more fuel to do the same work. We are trying to understand why he is seeing more frequent regens on the tractor that is working harder.

Ops my bad. It was early in the morning, still warming up and I might have misunderstood.

I've read a lot on DPF and all that comes with it. I've always read, that DPF likes a steady RPM and load to regen properly. I'm wondering if the loading/unloading of the engine when the baler strokes causes it to plug more due to that extra load/fuel/exhaust gasses when stroking.

 

[K5lwq]

Ops my bad. It was early in the morning, still warming up and I might have misunderstood.

I've read a lot on DPF and all that comes with it. I've always read, that DPF likes a steady RPM and load to regen properly. I'm wondering if the loading/unloading of the engine when the baler strokes causes it to plug more due to that extra load/fuel/exhaust gasses when stroking.

This is what we are thinking as well. But still the baler should not be loading a 60hp tractor that hard either. I would not think the governor is opening on every stroke but maybe that is the case. :confused3:

 

[ptsg]

That along with lesser quality fuel would also cause that.

We can get 3 types of diesel here, premium, regular and simple. The simple one is the cheapest with little to none additives. Once I had to fill with this simple diesel and right away noticed an increase of regens and less performance.

This could happen on the L6060 too but wouldn't be very noticeable on the M7 because it has a lot more HP.

Again, just kinda brainstorming here.

 

[K5lwq]

That is a good point. Could be a fuel quality issue.

I would like to pull his baler with my Branson one time but it would severely cut into his production time. I would have to go very slow and stop 3 times for every bale just to blow out the radiator. :laughing:

 

[MHarryE]

My M7 has a power meter. Baling is roughly 10% to 20%, loafing. I’ve never had a regen while baling - not a lot of hours at that job. It regens every 13 hours when disking. The M7-171 with KVT will run at 100% continually varying the transmission so the engine is working at its peak. Yes, I can run less power, get mor life from the tractor, but I’m 74 and I expect the tractor to last longer than me in any case at the rate I can rack up hours between several tractors. If I run it at 80%, I can get 18 hours between regens. This is quite different than the L6060 that stretches out regens by being run hard. The M7 does not have a governor in the old mechanical sense. It has an electronic speed control with speed sensors monitoring the engine speed and the engine ECU signaling the injectors to inject the proper fuel shot, actually multiple shots, at the right time. But both of these tractors have common rail fuel injection systems I believe supplied by Denso. I’m surprised it will allow overfueling the L6060 at each plunger strokes but it appears that’s what is happening.

Incidentally the change to farming came 10 years ago. My previous job was validating Tier 3 engines with new common rail systems, then starting Tier 4. Therefore this DPF plugging in only 2 to 3 hours is surprising to me as I’ve never run into anything like it but I never had to contend with baler surge. Kubota surely has but maybe not on CUTs.

 

[Like Tractors]

My M7 has a power meter. Baling is roughly 10% to 20%, loafing. I’ve never had a regen while baling - not a lot of hours at that job. It regens every 13 hours when disking. The M7-171 with KVT will run at 100% continually varying the transmission so the engine is working at its peak. Yes, I can run less power, get mor life from the tractor, but I’m 74 and I expect the tractor to last longer than me in any case at the rate I can rack up hours between several tractors. If I run it at 80%, I can get 18 hours between regens. This is quite different than the L6060 that stretches out regens by being run hard. The M7 does not have a governor in the old mechanical sense. It has an electronic speed control with speed sensors monitoring the engine speed and the engine ECU signaling the injectors to inject the proper fuel shot, actually multiple shots, at the right time. But both of these tractors have common rail fuel injection systems I believe supplied by Denso. I’m surprised it will allow overfueling the L6060 at each plunger strokes but it appears that’s what is happening.

Incidentally the change to farming came 10 years ago. My previous job was validating Tier 3 engines with new common rail systems, then starting Tier 4. Therefore this DPF plugging in only 2 to 3 hours is surprising to me as I’ve never run into anything like it but I never had to contend with baler surge. Kubota surely has but maybe not on CUTs.

Your background explains why you take a very analytical approach to the L6060 DPF issue. I do diagnostic testing and repair on diesel pickups using a SuperFlo chassis dynamometer for loaded mode testing, I have been testing common rail diesels for almost 20 years, the 2001 GM trucks were the first on the market and I was testing them in late 2000 for under load issues. I have discovered fuel system problems on some Kubota products, any chance you have been involved in an fuel system issues?