over heated my new tractor :(

[crk133]

well i have a whopping 9 hours on my new 7610 and i managed to over heat it tonight and i dont me just a little. i was doing some mowing and driving around wasting time when i thought.... gee i wonder if i got up to temp yet (the other day it took forever to get the temp up even a little) and then i look down and the needle it PEGGED to the right side past H. i mean it wouldnt go any farther. i was about 50 feet from my garage so i parked it and turned it off. i then notice the overflow on the radiator was squirting out fluid. i then checked and found my front grill & radiator screen where full of dirt as was my radiator. so i cleaned the grill and screen and will wait till morning till the engine has cooled before i attempt to hose the radiator off. can anyone think of anything else i should do besides look at the temp gauge more and top off the radiator fluid? hope i didnt permantly harm my once shiny new tractor. i am hoping all is fine as there was no smoking or odd noises that occured during the overheating episode....

any thought/suggestions?????

 

[DieselPower]

This time of year you really have to watch the dust. It can plug up a radiator in no time.

I would refill the cooling system and run it up to operating temp. Let it cool down and see if the coolant level is still OK. Check your engine oil to make sure the level is not going up (coolant going past a blown head gasket or cracked block/head will raise the oil level). If all looks well keep on keepin on and count your blessings.

 

[john_bud]

What to do? Well....

1) clean the screen 2x a day when working in dusty conditions .
2) clean the screen 3x a day when mowing all day
3) the air intake at the front of the tractor is probably full of small holes. They are to pre-filter the air coming in. Did those holes get filled with chaf too?

I have a slightly larger tractor (L3410) and it takes a lot to get it hot. It sounds like your's will need to be watched closely until it behaves (gets broken in).

jb

 

[RoyJackson]

I doubt if you did any permanent damage...that doesn't mean it can't happen though.
Once you've tested it as DieselPower described...
Before you mow or brush cut, give your radiator and screens a good look over and clean as needed.
Always keep an eye on your gages frequently! I look at them at least once a minute or two (cursory glance is enough to see the position on the needles).
Mowing never clogs up my screens, but if brush cutting, they clog frequently. My Deere has never overheated or even gotten hot when the screens are clogged (knock on wood!), but that doesn't mean it won't.
I check my screens whenever I stop, even if this means 8 times a day (I normally take a few minute break once an hour or so).

Good luck!

 

[bandit67]

Something else you might consider if you overheat it again is to turn the machine on as soon as you clean the screens, radiator, etc. Let the fluids circulate through the engine as it idles - they do a very good job of cooling the motor back to normal operating temps, and then you can shut it down once the gauge gets back to where it should be.

That way, you are ensured that no fluids get stuck sitting in one spot in an extremely hot engine while it takes time to cool down with the ambient temps. It also helps to ensure that no engine components stay too hot for too long a period of time. The cooling systems on most motors nowadays are very well engineered. A very hot engine will actually cool back to normal operating temps, in many cases, faster by running it under little to no load than it will just sitting around turned off.

 

[vrman]

I just overheated my ZD326 last weekend. Fortunately, it has what sounded like a 150 decibal alarm that went off on it. Heard it over the music I was listening to. When I took off the earphones, it scared the bejeezus outa me.

It was just grass and dust that plugged the radiator up. I shut it down for about 5 minutes while I ran in and got a can of compressed air. Blew what I could out of the radiator, and then restarted it. It cooled down to normal temp really fast then. I drove it back to the garage and used the air compressor to finish clearing the radiator fins. I checked the motor oil afterwards to make sure I didn't "burn" it. Seemed ok, but I may change it anyways just to be safe.

I wonder if my BX has an overheat alarm as well. If not, I wonder how much trouble it would be to add one similiar to the ZD.

 

[_RaT_]

As long as you had coolant in the system, your OK. Once you loose the coolant from boil over (most of the coolant) your in trouble. If it was still boiling over out the cap, your likely in good shape.

 

[RobJ]

Something else you might consider if you overheat it again is to turn the machine on as soon as you clean the screens, radiator, etc. Let the fluids circulate through the engine as it idles - they do a very good job of cooling the motor back to normal operating temps, and then you can shut it down once the gauge gets back to where it should be.

Also nothing wrong with hosing off the radaitor while the engine is running to bring the temps down and clean things up.

 

[SkunkWerX]

I didn't see it mentioned above, but, I would do an engine oil & oil filter change soon.

The engine oil probably took a lot of the "heat" for you, and hopefully protected your engine internals while doing so.

 

[SkyPup]

Hopefully you were using synthetic motor oil.

 

[_RaT_]

Hopefully you were using synthetic motor oil.

It might have overheated the coolant to the boiling point but that is still a pretty low temperature, I don't think the kind of oil should be an issue. I don't want to alarm him when in all likelyhood there is nothing to be alarmed about. Who has not ever had a boil over in a vehicle? You get the big steamy warning before all goes to heck in a hand basket, FAST!

 

[Farmerford]

I agree with RaT. I have boiled many engines over the years and never had any harm as long as enough water remained for the water pump to keep the engine block full. That is usually about 1/2 to 2/3 of the total capacity. If a reasonable amount of water is circulating it is still removing heat from all parts of the engine, although so little remains in the radiator that not much heat is removed there and it quickly reaches the boiling point.

Several years ago a neighbor let my Kubota L2900 radiator screen stop up and boiled a quart or so of water out of the radiator before noticing it. Several hundred hours later it still runs fine, and there was no increase in oil consumption or indication of a warped cylinder head or leaking head gasket which are usually the first signs of overheating.

 

[MOPAULY]

I would at least change the oil, if not the coolant too. You're lucky you didn't blow a head gasket. I've had to 2 head gasket jobs on 2 family vehicles due to them over heating.

 

[Buster57]

well i have a whopping 9 hours on my new 7610 and i managed to over heat it tonight and i dont me just a little. i was doing some mowing and driving around wasting time when i thought.... gee i wonder if i got up to temp yet (the other day it took forever to get the temp up even a little) and then i look down and the needle it PEGGED to the right side past H.


I did the same thing on my L3010 the first week or so I owned it. These guys are pretty tough so there probably isn't a whole lot of damage. I have not read all the resoponses but I suspect you will be just fine.

Just have to be careful and check all air filters all the time.

Have fun!

 

[crazyal]

If you haven't changed the oil yet or did but still have it you can send it out to an oil analisis lab. They will tell you if anitfreeze is in the oil, it's not expensive and it's the best test to see if you did any damage. Is this tractor under warrenty (sounds like it is)? If it happens again after cleaning the radiator I would call the dealer up.

Not sure if you noticed or not but did it start to overflow after shutting the engine off or while it was running? When you shut it off the coolant stops flowing as well as the fan blowing what little air it was. Often times as the water sits it will heat further then boil over. IMO this is better than running your engine so hot that it boils over then shutting it off.

Poor castings and aluminum heads are much more likely to be damaged by over heating. With cast iron quality parts usually nothing more than the head gasket fails. However if you do have antifreeze in your oil you need to get that fixed as you will wear thing like bearings out very quickly.

 

[bx23barry]

If you don't lppk at your gauges they make lights, buzzers and shutdowns.

 

[bx23barry]

If you don't look at your gauges they make lights, buzzers and shutdowns to minimize/prevent operator error.

 

[IslandTractor]

I'll add my name to the list of folks who have overheated their tractor (a Kioti CK20 in my case) while mowing in dusty dry conditions. I saw the steam, shut it down, checked the radiator, cleaned it and the prefilter and then started it up again at low idle. Cooled right down and has been fine for the past 120 hours since that episode.

 

[_RaT_]

I'll add my name to the list of folks who have overheated their tractor (a Kioti CK20 in my case) while mowing in dusty dry conditions. I saw the steam, shut it down, checked the radiator, cleaned it and the prefilter and then started it up again at low idle. Cooled right down and has been fine for the past 120 hours since that episode.

I think thats the typical scenario. Hot steamy coolant is still well below "over heating" your engine. While not something you want to do everytime you sit down and take a ride, I think his situation is nothing to worry about.

 

[flusher]

well i have a whopping 9 hours on my new 7610 and i managed to over heat it tonight and i dont me just a little. i was doing some mowing and driving around wasting time when i thought.... gee i wonder if i got up to temp yet (the other day it took forever to get the temp up even a little) and then i look down and the needle it PEGGED to the right side past H. i mean it wouldnt go any farther. i was about 50 feet from my garage so i parked it and turned it off. i then notice the overflow on the radiator was squirting out fluid. i then checked and found my front grill & radiator screen where full of dirt as was my radiator. so i cleaned the grill and screen and will wait till morning till the engine has cooled before i attempt to hose the radiator off. can anyone think of anything else i should do besides look at the temp gauge more and top off the radiator fluid? hope i didnt permantly harm my once shiny new tractor. i am hoping all is fine as there was no smoking or odd noises that occured during the overheating episode....

any thought/suggestions?????

Did the same thing with my 2005 Kubota B7510HST the first summer I used it to brush hog the weeds. Pegged the temp gauge, some overflow, no permanent damage. Just cleaned the radiator screen and continued mowing.