ooooh ! forgot to tell you all a funny story.
so i took everybody's advice about not needing a dynamo and found a nice craftsman charger on sale at kmart. and there's something about batteries and jumping and charging that scares me. always think the **** thing is going to explode and blind me for life, so i am somewhat tentative working around batteries - if you were to see me you would laugh and think that it might be nitro-glyceride i was working with. so i get the tractor home and i am preparing for my maiden snowblowing voyage. i read the charger instructions three times and begin hooking everything up, all the while preparing for the big explosion and fire-ball. so it's hooked up and i punch up a slow charge and it starts whirring away - and well, everything is fine.
hmmmm.
then just as i turn my back, there's this loud popping and sizzling, and smoke and i nearly poop my pants ! i lunge and un-plug the charger, but it doesn't help. i finally figure it out and knock the positive charger clamp off of the battery. so there i am - standing there - in total shock, the smell of shame and humiliation wafting through the air - thinking - you are without a doubt the stupidest man on the face of the earth. thinking - i have fried every wire on the tractor. imagining having to see the look on the face of all guys at the dealer when they see what i have done.
on my tractor, there is a long decompression rod/linkage that goes through the metal dash, and connects to the top of the cylinder head. and of course, it goes right by/within a couple of centimeters of the positive battery post. the charger clamp had drooped down a little and made contact with the decompression linkage. it welded the linkage to the dash, and made big mess on top of the battery near the post. i take a flashlight and look behind the dash and all the wires look fine, so i turn on the key - - and the oil pressure light comes on. i bump the starter and it engages. wooooo - hoooooo !!! i am dumb, but that day, i didn't win the blue ribbon for dumbest !
after looking around to make sure nobody saw my show, i cut a piece of 3/4 pex tubing and used it as a sleeve on the decompression linkage, managed to un-weld the linkage from the dash, and there you go !! another tractor 101 learning experience; sure that it won't be the last.
as for starting: i do have one of those radiator heaters and it works fine - the radiator gets hot to the touch. but i think that there is a secondary issue that is affecting cold starts. i am also not completely confident that the dealer diagnosed the problem correctly. at first they told me it was the rectifier, and then after waiting for two weeks for rectifier to come in i called and then they told me it was the dynamo. after spending 200. to diagnose the dynamo issue, i couldn't afford to pay 460. for the dynamo. i am a little leery about the way the wires are hooked up to the rectifier - there is one post that has no wires, and one that has two doubled up - doesn't make sense. but the manual also talks about two possible contributing factors - dirty injector nozzles, and improper valve clearance. after the winter, i am going to try and examine both of these issues.
i burn the glow-plugs for ninety seconds, pull the decompression rod, crank, and then normal compression. then i burn the glow-plugs for another thirty seconds, and crank decompressed, then normal. i repeat that about six times. however, i found that cranking decompressed a lot longer caused the engine to sputter better and almost start, so i plan to crank decompressed a lot longer next time. i also added some diesel conditioner hoping it would help.
and yes, it's a 51 inch b2551 genuine kubota snowblower, and boy was i lucky to find it. we have this little trader rag up here called uncle henrys. i had been trying to find a small blower since i bought the tractor in october - and i mean i looked hard. there was a 60inch meteor for sale about two hours north of me that went into uncle henrys (on-line) at 8am on friday. i called on it at noon, and the guy was like - sorry, some guy drove three hours from new hampshire, gave me cash and it's gone. i was ready to give up, when i found this one at townline equipment near white river junction. even this 51 inch is really too big for the tractor. but the underlying issue is that the pto reverser/spline adapter sticks out about four inches more than normal, so the pto shaft had to be cut down way short. the mechanics were like - if you raise the blower with the pto engaged, you will bind the shaft and either break it or tear up the pto reverser. luckily, the control arms on the blower had two mounting holes and after we discovered that, we were able to move the blower itself back about two inches, which made a big difference. gave us just enough room to cut down the pto shaft. still, i worry about it.
thanks for all the positive feedback, you guys put a smile on my face.
dr. ralph stanley for president !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
