Hello everyone, I was helping out a friend today digging a pad for a shed and doing some rough landshaping and was operating a borrowed Kubota KX151. The digging wasn't the easiest but definitely not pushing the machine too hard either... A little background on the thing - it went through the flood last June and water was up to the top of the engine enclosure. The owner got it running again and apparently flushed all the fluids and such. None of the electrical works except for the starter and the charging system, but there are no gauges, no warning lights, nothing. After about 2 hours or so, I heard a muffled BOOM and felt something coming from the engine compartment, then there was a huge white cloud coming from the engine area. I shut the machine down and bailed out thinking the battery had blown up from the BOOM I heard. After the cloud dissipated some my friend and I opened the engine room door and discovered the top radiator hose had literally exploded right down the middle all the way down from top to bottom. The only thing holding the ends together were the hose clamps. I've never seen a radiator hose fail in this way! We figured it was just old, bought a new one, installed it, filled it with antifreeze mix and went back to work thinking that the problem was dealt with. Another 2 hours or so later all of a sudden a new cloud of steam, this time coming out the overflow tank vent line. Shut 'er down again and let it vent it's steam off, took a good 15 minutes before it stopped! Now we're not so sure where the problem may be. The radiator appears to be clean, the owner had given the machine a good bath after the flood. I'm not sure how clean it is inside but from what we could see down the filler cap it didn't look bad. My friend is going to take the thermostat out tomorrow and make sure it works, we're just wondering what other causes there could be. He seems to think the water pump is working as you can see fluid moving around in the rad with the engine running, so that should also rule out the thermostat but he's going to check it anyway. Are there any common problems with these machines that cause overheating? Any hints and help would be appreciated! Thanks! And here's some pictures of the work we were doing and the popped hose...
Don't bother with the thermostat until you check air flow through the radiator, and use a temp gun on the top and bottom. That second picture looks like the radiator could be a little gunky, and that should be the clean side. Shine a light through it and see just how clean it is from the OTHER side. If there's an oil cooler in front, one or both will HAVE to come out to clean either of them. If you can see through and see that they're both clean, then use the temp gun to see where the heat is and isn't going. Belt tension? Is that snow in the pic? On second thought, the thermostat is as good place to start as any. Check the temp after an hour, and every 20 minutes as you go to see what it's doing. It should cool down to 180ish pretty quickly idling. Then you can double check the coolant level too.
Totally agree with Delmer...the rad looks totally gunked up. That sucker has to be spotless...through and through...a real pain, but no airflow, no cooling. Get a thermal gun to check temps...cheap enough nowadays. Thermostat looks like it needs changing giving what its been through...
Well I officially qualify for the idiot award! I had a good look at the rad just now and it is plugged solid with silt and crap from the flood. I don't know why I didn't see that before... My friend is taking the rad out as we speak and will give it a good bath inside and out. That should solve the problem! Thanks for the help guys, sorry I didn't look closer at it before and wasted everyone's time........