Central_PA_Chris
Member
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2007
- Messages
- 43
Howdy, I'm the less than happy Power Trac owner from threads....
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/power-trac/114149-pointer-425-tbn-classifieds.html
and
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/power-trac/107255-bad-power-trac-experience.html
and
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/power-trac/129843-425-need-help.html
Man, I forgot 1/2 the issues I'd posted about in those threads and I remember twice as many as I posted about.
There was a call for project updates recently since my project has been to get my power trac actually running I figured I'd drop a line.
Other than the engine exploding it looks like my problem was the tram pump was burnt right from the factory. Had a local shop run and trouble shoot the PT while communicating with Terry and they pulled the pump, sent it down to Tazwell and put it back together. Holy cow, it runs like it should! It can actually crawl up onto my trailer (which it would not do in the PT parking lot when I picked it up) it doesn't whine as much and when going up a ice covered slope and loosing traction two wheels on one side spin! Just like they should!
Thanks to the member here who let me do a side by side with his PT425 down by Petersburg PA, that was the final straw where I knew something was wrong and not just the way it was designed to be.
Power Trac called only to try and bill me for the fix, never to say "Crap we are sorry that your tractor not only came with a bad engine, but we sold it to you with a cooked pump." They said I must have damaged it by not changing the oil filter. Keep in mind that at the point I told the shop to figure out the problem it had around 31 hours on it (slightly over 1/2 of the recommended service interval) the engine exploded at 2 hours, the shop put a few hours on it that fix process, all my hours have been trouble shooting problems from boiling fuel, to massive overheating and burning of throttle cable, to tire stems ripped off, to repeated failures of the front castors on the mower deck (one of the 3/8" or 1/2" thick rear castor brackets fell off while the shop had it, factory weld had almost NO contact, so when it comes to mower wheels and brackets they can't design 'em or weld em.) There was another shop run and hours of trouble shooting there after the heating and oil on the filter issue. I didn't catch it at the time, but I think in saying that I had to not have changed the filter that he may have been insinuating that I cheated on the hour meter and it had to have more hours on it, I think if I would have picked up on that on the phone I might actually have lost my cool and getting me to do that is a feat. Even now, just coming out of the shop, it's only at 41 hours. 10 or so of those are the guy at the shop mowing his fields with it to test it out since I dropped it off with them with only 31 hours on it in early October and a bunch of those 31 hours are shop time as it was in for the overheating issue from May till I think late September.
After picking it up from the shop I put it in the garage for the evening, of course it was cold and would not start the next day, and the throttle cable was frozen/stuck in place (on low throttle). Throttle lever has always felt sticky and had limited range of motion. In working the throttle lever to try to get it free, the bracket in the control panel bent and the cable snapped. In addition to the always felt funny, my PT's original overheating incident melted the outer covering on the throttle cable. Carl here (Woodland farms) warned me that that would kill the lube inside the cable and cause issues eventually, but since it was still working and it's mainly been in the shop I never got around to replacing it..... After aiming a torpedo heater at the PT for 10 minutes it started right up, I jury rigged it at full throttle to do my test drive in the snow and on the ice and was so happy to have it working that even an evening spent pulling the throttle cable and fixing that system (at least for the moment as I used the same cable since it's what I had on hand) hasn't dampened my enthusiasm. I did note that a pretty decent groove had been dug into the bracket that's bolted to the control panel. Groove was dug by the throttle wire, which explains why the throttle always felt way different from the choke cable.
Anyways, it seems to be working as it should now. 41 hours of tractor time (at least 1/2 of that by the shop that had it for the engine issue and pulling the pump and overheating and oil on filter troubleshooting) and 20 months after purchase. The shop was quite decent with me and only charged $300 to pull and replace the pump, that includes UPSing it down to Tazwell and a full hydro oil change. I think about $130 of the $300 was parts & shipping.
Just gotta come up with yet another fix for the front caster tires, weld the cracks in the mower deck, figure out why only one light works, pressure wash all the oil out of the engine compartment, rig a secondary electric fan to keep engine temps down, maybe rig a dual exhaust, figure out which method I'm going to use to start it when it's cold and then it's time to actually use it!
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/power-trac/114149-pointer-425-tbn-classifieds.html
and
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/power-trac/107255-bad-power-trac-experience.html
and
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/power-trac/129843-425-need-help.html
Man, I forgot 1/2 the issues I'd posted about in those threads and I remember twice as many as I posted about.
There was a call for project updates recently since my project has been to get my power trac actually running I figured I'd drop a line.
Other than the engine exploding it looks like my problem was the tram pump was burnt right from the factory. Had a local shop run and trouble shoot the PT while communicating with Terry and they pulled the pump, sent it down to Tazwell and put it back together. Holy cow, it runs like it should! It can actually crawl up onto my trailer (which it would not do in the PT parking lot when I picked it up) it doesn't whine as much and when going up a ice covered slope and loosing traction two wheels on one side spin! Just like they should!
Thanks to the member here who let me do a side by side with his PT425 down by Petersburg PA, that was the final straw where I knew something was wrong and not just the way it was designed to be.
Power Trac called only to try and bill me for the fix, never to say "Crap we are sorry that your tractor not only came with a bad engine, but we sold it to you with a cooked pump." They said I must have damaged it by not changing the oil filter. Keep in mind that at the point I told the shop to figure out the problem it had around 31 hours on it (slightly over 1/2 of the recommended service interval) the engine exploded at 2 hours, the shop put a few hours on it that fix process, all my hours have been trouble shooting problems from boiling fuel, to massive overheating and burning of throttle cable, to tire stems ripped off, to repeated failures of the front castors on the mower deck (one of the 3/8" or 1/2" thick rear castor brackets fell off while the shop had it, factory weld had almost NO contact, so when it comes to mower wheels and brackets they can't design 'em or weld em.) There was another shop run and hours of trouble shooting there after the heating and oil on the filter issue. I didn't catch it at the time, but I think in saying that I had to not have changed the filter that he may have been insinuating that I cheated on the hour meter and it had to have more hours on it, I think if I would have picked up on that on the phone I might actually have lost my cool and getting me to do that is a feat. Even now, just coming out of the shop, it's only at 41 hours. 10 or so of those are the guy at the shop mowing his fields with it to test it out since I dropped it off with them with only 31 hours on it in early October and a bunch of those 31 hours are shop time as it was in for the overheating issue from May till I think late September.
After picking it up from the shop I put it in the garage for the evening, of course it was cold and would not start the next day, and the throttle cable was frozen/stuck in place (on low throttle). Throttle lever has always felt sticky and had limited range of motion. In working the throttle lever to try to get it free, the bracket in the control panel bent and the cable snapped. In addition to the always felt funny, my PT's original overheating incident melted the outer covering on the throttle cable. Carl here (Woodland farms) warned me that that would kill the lube inside the cable and cause issues eventually, but since it was still working and it's mainly been in the shop I never got around to replacing it..... After aiming a torpedo heater at the PT for 10 minutes it started right up, I jury rigged it at full throttle to do my test drive in the snow and on the ice and was so happy to have it working that even an evening spent pulling the throttle cable and fixing that system (at least for the moment as I used the same cable since it's what I had on hand) hasn't dampened my enthusiasm. I did note that a pretty decent groove had been dug into the bracket that's bolted to the control panel. Groove was dug by the throttle wire, which explains why the throttle always felt way different from the choke cable.
Anyways, it seems to be working as it should now. 41 hours of tractor time (at least 1/2 of that by the shop that had it for the engine issue and pulling the pump and overheating and oil on filter troubleshooting) and 20 months after purchase. The shop was quite decent with me and only charged $300 to pull and replace the pump, that includes UPSing it down to Tazwell and a full hydro oil change. I think about $130 of the $300 was parts & shipping.
Just gotta come up with yet another fix for the front caster tires, weld the cracks in the mower deck, figure out why only one light works, pressure wash all the oil out of the engine compartment, rig a secondary electric fan to keep engine temps down, maybe rig a dual exhaust, figure out which method I'm going to use to start it when it's cold and then it's time to actually use it!
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