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 | Hal DeWitt
Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 22 New Brunswick, Canada 
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2002-10-16 43889
I purchased my first tractor alst fall. Kubota B7500DT, 302FEL, 60"MMM, 5' rear blade, Norse 290 logging winch, R4s. I now have 185 hours on the tractor and like it very much. I use it to mow an acre of lawn (over kill probably) and cut firewood and logs on my 100 acre woodlot. I use the FEL for piling the logs and for plowing snow. Location is New Brunswick, Canada about 1 mile from the Maine border. I have found this postings heer very useful. A recent posting suggested a lad who was having a noise in his engine might have deposits from running too low a temperature. My temperature gauge never reads above the C marking the cold range. That's about one eigth or so up the gauge. Summers get rather warm here at 90 degrees or so and winters at minus 30 but the temperature always runs about the same on the tractor. Is this okay or should I look at replacing the thermostat?
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 | Art White
Join Date: Jan 2000 Posts: 6898 Waterville New York 
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2002-10-17 43910
Hal, you can buy several tools that will keep you from the work and you can use them later. One and I believe the cheapest way to go is a radiator temp gauge or a meat thermometer. The best of the two is a radiator as it has a bigger dial to read and it is built for just to the 250 degree range. The other way is The new infared hand held guns which are just under 100 dollars but many have a mini lazer so you aim and point. A neat tool for checking the temp in the old pot belly or any thing even checking to see if theat is a sleeping bear or a dead bear for where you live. Now, your tractor does have a thermostat and a diesel should not run cold as it will not normally burn all the fuel when cold and this will affect your lubricating oil in the base. The Partially burnt fuel will glaze the cylinder walls and hinder break-in and cause power loss as well as oil consumption. Your gauge reading low does not mean you are running cold as it might just be the way yours works. You may be getting up to temp, just your gauge is not showing it where you think is should be. Test first, than go from there. With the skidding winch and good loads you should be running it hard enough to ge tit warm.
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| TomG
Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 5406 Upper Ottawa Valley
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2002-10-17 43912
My mid-80's Ford 1710 (600 hrs) was doing about the same thing and also was noticeably puffing gray exhaust when throttle was added. I did replace the thermostat and I also found the gasket was installed on the wrong side of the thermostat. The temp now comes up to around 1/3 range winter and summer and the puffing is much less.
You wouldn't expect a thermostat to fail on a fairly new tractor, and I think my gasket problem (which actually may have been the whole problem) would be pretty rare. But who knows? New things go bad regularly in modern times.
I think I'd find out what temp reading is normal for the tractor and replace the thermostat if it should be reading higher. Diesels that don't come up to operating temp put soot and acid etc. into the oil a lot faster than hotter ones. Serious temp problems can result in things more serious than shorter oil change intervals as well.
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 | DRankin
Join Date: Jan 2000 Posts: 5116 Northern Nevada
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2002-10-17 43919
Art, what should the temp be in the radiator? ....
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| Art White
Join Date: Jan 2000 Posts: 6898 Waterville New York
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2002-10-17 43929
Mark, most all diesels are looking at 180 to 195degree thermostats so they should be getting close to that at the radiator when the thermostat is open. Actually if you take the radiator cap off when cold and see circulation in the radiator than chances are the thermostat is bad. Every gauge runs different and from one piece of equipment to another I often find differences. If it is running different than when you got it (not to say it was right then) I would say find out why as soon as you can. ....
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 | jeff r
Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 428 burton. michigan
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2002-10-18 43979
Hal,
For all the time lost trying to figure out if you have a a good or bad thermostat, I would just buy a new thermostat and replace it. They can't cost that much. If you want you could take the new thermostat and put it into a pan of water and start to boil it with a digital meat thermomator ( availble at Wal-Mart for 20 bucks) just to see what temp the new thermostat will open at. If your tractor still runs the temp gaugewhere it did before....JUST DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT ANYMORE and save your old thermostat as a spare. ....
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