noooooooooooooooo!!!!

[ArkCivEngr]

About 10 minutes into my evening seat time of pushing excavated dirt into stump holes, I heard an awful cracking/grinding noise. I shut the engine off as fast as I could, but it was too late. Apparently a root from the elm stump had gotten stuck in between the bars of the front tire, and when I went in reverse, it came back out of the bars, straight up and through the radiator. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif It looked like a river of Mountain Dew. It also looks like the exhaust pipe might be bent a little.

Questions:

1. Can I get my tractor loaded? It seems like I could get the trailer closeby so I could get it on before it overheats, but with no coolant (and no way to keep any in), will this damage/destroy the coolant pump?

2. What is this going to cost, assuming that it will be a radiator and fan replacement?

 

[_RaT_]

I would load the tractor as quickly as possible. Within a few seconds of starting it. You should be able to get it on in 10 to 20 seconds. In that amount of time, you have barely heated the piston sleeves to the point where coolant could even be a factor. The pump requires some water to lubricate it but that will not be a problem. My .02 says load it but be quick about it.

 

[GaryE]

Ouch!!!

I would not want to run it for more than 20 – 30 seconds like it is. But one thing you can do is bypass the radiator by connecting the upper and lower radiator hoses together…. Fill the block with water from the connection of the upper hose and the block. If there is a thermostat. You may need to remove it. You can now run it for at least a couple of minutes. The water will help dissipate the heat from the heads and sleeves throughout the rest of the engine. WATCH YOUR TEMP GAUGE. If it gets to “normal” it is time to shut it down.


If you have the trailer in place and the tractor ready to go, you should be ok.


Good luck,

Gary

 

[have_blue]

I feel your pain! /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

I push trees and brush all the time, and have been lucky. I'll watch closer from now on.

 

[Muleskinner]

Yes one must have eyes in the back of their head and be hypervigilent when it comes to operating around bushes, especially burnt ones. And demolition lumber. Seems the wood always turns the side with the nail shaft upwards. /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif I will not grade or clear burnt acerage with my rubber tired machines.

The fire makes nice fire hardened points on the sticks pointing upward towards your tires. I had one go through the thick part of the lug on my right rear tire. I had to plug it! I've seen sticks take out the side walls on full size skip loader tires to the tune of around $500.00 per tire. Not me thank you. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

One thing I always do when I buy a new tractor or tire, is too put a small bottle of slime in the front tires. One bottle per tire. I've had my bacon saved by slime more than once! /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

 

[woodchuckie]

When I damaged mine I was about half a mile from home. I watched the temp. gauge and was able to drive home stopping just once to let it cool off. I had a damaged end cap which is plastic and was able to repair it with an epoxy. I did check the prices and found new ones cost between two and three hundred dollars.

 

[wushaw]

I would remove the fan belt before running it then load it ASAP.
Obviously this is not going to be warranty soooo why not just fix it yourself if you have a set of hand tools. A radiator and fan replacement should be a walk in the park.

 

[Junkman]

Without any coolant in the system the temperature gauge will not work. I would remove the fan belt to save the water pump, get the trailer to the tractor, and drive it onto the trailer. You will not do any harm to it in a 30/60 second drive. Also, there is some residual coolant in the block that will act as a safety cushion. You can also get some modelers clay and stuff it into the hole and add water if you are paranoid about doing damage. The clay will hold back some of the water. The most important thing to always remember is not to add cold water to a hot engine because the danger of blowing a gasket or cracking the block or head. Always let it cool down naturally for a few hours and then do the repairs. If it were mine, I would take out the radiator and take it to a radiator repair shop to see if it can be repaired. If not, they can replace the radiator core for less than a new radiator. You might want to dig out the dirt where the anti freeze went out and dispose of this dirt asap before it leaches into the ground. I would be more concerned with the ground contamination than the damage to the radiator. I always am concerned with anything that might affect my domestic water supply. Also, if you have animals that frequent the area, they might just try licking the ground for the sweet taste of antifreeze. This can be fatal to them. Some of the newer anti freeze solutions have a bittering agent added to them...

 

[DmansPadge]

I hate to hear that happened to ya. I was recently pushing over some small trees/brush with by B series and all the sudden... it ran up wide open! I quickly pulled the kill cable and got off to see what happened. A branch had stuck the injector pump in the wide open position! A few minutes later I had it removed and went about my business.

If you allow the tractor to fully cool off... you aren't going to hurt anything by loading it up. I wouldn't mess with taking belts off or anything else as long as all you do is make a quick loadup on the trailer. That isn't enought time to cause any damage.

On the radiator... I would imagine (just a ballpark figure) it'll be in the $200-$300 range. (Parts only)

 

[aloha]

Can you bring the repair parts to the tractor so you don't need to load it? If you are not comfortable doing the work yourself, do you have a handy neighbor?

If you need to put it on the trailer, even though you probably can run it briefly without causing damage, you might want first to try pulling it on with a come along (or two).