Question on warming up your tractor

[TigerfaninAR]

My B7300 has a little over 900 hours but have only had it since Spring. I've put about 50 hours on it this Summer. I usually let it warm up 4-5 minutes, a low idle or going slow to wherever I'm going to use it. If I'm using the box blade, usually light work, when I idle up to start working, everything purrs like it should.

When using the brush cutter and more recently the finish mower, I have some light gray smoke for 3-5 minutes when I start mowing. Usually working around 2700 rpm. After the 5 minutes or so the light smoke is gone and it can work all day without missing a beat and never shows any smoke again.

Am I not allowing it to warm up properly or is this normal? Anything I need to be concerned about? Thanks

 

[dodge man]

I don't let my BX warm up anymore than that. My BX will just smoke for a couple of seconds after I engage the mower, but no longer than a few seconds. Maybe someone else will chime in.

 

[TripleR]

There is a very LONG thread on how to warm the diesels up with some going by the manual at "half throttle" and others at idle. I don't remember the consensus. Good luck.

 

[KennyV]

A diesel engine is reluctant to 'warm up' it breaths a lot of air ... so to heat up it really needs to be doing some work.
If you give your tractor time to get all the fluids flowing before you load it up, everything will be fine and you will have no warm-up problems. KennyV

 

[leonz]

You could buy a block heater and plug it in for 45 minutes before you use it as one option. and the coolant will be up to temperature quickly and thus will help warm everything else quickly.

A small propane salamander will warm it up quickly.


Your tractor will lose heat quickly when it is shut down too.

I use 100,000 BTU kerosene salamander for everything, trucks, tractors, snow blowers, wood trucks, etc. that I run only because of the weather here and my firewood processor has a very large hydraulic tank and its awful when cold even in the summer months.

The other thing I have noticed over the years is the muffler and exhaust systems have no water in them the year round when I keep the engines plugged in and this saves on replacing mufflers and pipes and catalytic converters. I replaced the original converter in my old truck two years ago as the truck was 13 years old at the time.

leonz

 

[KennyV]

In Arkansas you should never have winters so cold that you would need a block heater...
Here in Kansas it's not ever cold enough...
For summer time finish mowing you will not need to use a block heater, unless you can get all your friends to do it AND you have stock in your local utility co...

. Continue as you have been a few minutes of mowing and everything is warm enough to burn clean...

It got up to 102 here today... I suppose I could have used a block heater to bump the engine temp up before I mowed... But instead of using a block heater I turned on my Air Conditioner and let the condenser in front of the radiator ramp up the heat... I think I was at good to go temp within 30 seconds... KennyV

 

[dodge man]

You aren't replacing exhaust systems because most are stainless steel on vehicles these days.

 

[TigerfaninAR]

So the light smoke for a few minutes is ok?

I mowed for about an hour today. Went in and ate supper, relaxed a bit, and started back about an hour and a half later and no smoke this time.

Just want to make sure this isn't a warning sign that something bad is afoot.

 

[KennyV]

I had a Cat motor grader that smoked lightly till it got to operating temp, then was perfect. It did this for over 10 years... The injectors were not spraying a perfect pattern and there fore was not getting a complete burn untill it was up in temp.
A little smoke at startup is definitely not anything to worry about. KennyV

 

[kuboman]

So the light smoke for a few minutes is ok?

I mowed for about an hour today. Went in and ate supper, relaxed a bit, and started back about an hour and a half later and no smoke this time.

Just want to make sure this isn't a warning sign that something bad is afoot.

Not unusual for a diesel to smoke a little during warm up. I usually let mine warm till there is quite a bit of heat in the engine block or until the temp qauge comes off the peg and put under light load till it is fully warmed up. Of course some of my diesels cost $20k to replace.:thumbsup: