anyone know about big mowers ?

[oldbikedavey]

Industrial mowers get a truly monumental hammering . and a life of miserable servitude without respite..
Few machines, if any, get a harder life....

 

[Baloo]

Hi. I'm doing something similar on an old diesel van, a full rebuild on my worn engine makes no sense so I'm planning a rough field repair as a learning exercise to see if it runs - that will give me time to find a replacement engine.

As a temporary solution on yours can you clean the head (skim?), have the valve seats recut, fit new valves and see if it runs?
It's a lawnmower not a precision engine so I'd be happy using it even is one cylinder is a bit low on power... your other option is cut your losses and scrap that engine / find a replacement head for it / find whole new engine (or adapt a car engine..)

Good luck and keep us updated

i think its going to be a car engine, i cant find another head at sensible money

 

[Baloo]

That’s dead as a dead thing. New head time! Or look for a little 3cyl yanmar or one of the millions of copies

i agree its dead vey dead, only 3 cylinder diesel i can find on ebay is £1900 ha ha ha as if im going to pay that for a ratty second hand engine, i think i must still be living in the dark ages when it comes to prices

 

[Baloo]

It's a shame it wasn't an aluminium head, you could have built it up with weld and machined it back.

im never that lucky lol

 

[Baloo]

Thats the same engine that is in Iseki tx 2140's and 2160's, I have one in my compact tractor. To aid your search.

thank you it opens up some more possibilities as you say

 

[addjunkie]

i agree its dead vey dead, only 3 cylinder diesel i can find on ebay is £1900 ha ha ha as if im going to pay that for a ratty second hand engine, i think i must still be living in the dark ages when it comes to prices

Ali express do lots of bits for these little diesels…..

 

[Baloo]

If the engine is that worn out, how is the rest of the drivetrain ?

i dont think the drive train is worn that much at all, it seems to be a case of head gasket failure and then being left for several years with the middle bore full of water from the cooling system

 

[Baloo]

IMHO, putting a different engine in would be a massive load of grief and more work than fixing what you have.

White smoke is either incomplete combusion or it can be water ingress into the pot, if its a really thick cloud and not just at immediate start, it points to coolant getting into the chamber and this is really bad, if its a lighter white smoke but continuous I'd tend toward fuel or compression issues. Which fits with the state of those valves in #2. You could have compression tested it before taking it apart to confirm this before disassembly but that ship has sailed.

If its the lighter smoke for a mower and that head, to get a season out, honestly I'd just put seats in the bad pot and run it while I found a better one.
If you have access to a popoff tester, its worth doing the injectors and make sure they all crack off and dont dribble. I think for the injection pump its like the kubota in that the pumping elements bolt off as a unit but the main pump housing is part of the crankcase, so you cant put it in something to rotate it off the engine. For that I'd find a way to spin the motor, and divert the injector lines into test tubes and crank it over for a measured amount of time and make sure the quantities on all 3 cylinders match. I've got a test rig for this on kubota's in situ that is just 4 test tubes from 2 cheap water levels cut up because they're the same. If you find a bad element, you'll probably find a pumping element rebuild kit on ebay for reasonable money, and provided you make sure its super clean and you follow the instructions to a letter when your working its not beyond diy. If you can take the pump off, you can put it in a lathe or something and rig fuel up and do the same in the luxury of the workshop (I did a lucas CAV DPA pump like this before and after rebuilding it), this is how oldschool injection benches work too, they just spin the pump for a measured amount of time and inject a test fluid into individual test tubes with measurements on them.

I cut my grass with a kubota 3 cylinder diesel powered commercial mower that I bought in a really sickly state running on 2 and puking smoke, I've been through the above process on it and after a pump rebuild its on its 4th season now. I'm keeping a lookout for another D1105 at a reasonable price to rebuild as I know the bores are starting to wear and its a little down on power as a result, so I can rebuild it fully & hot swap it in, since I don't have an alterative way to mow.

well i did start out thinking it was more grief to swap in another engine but ive changed my mind now, hardest part will be fitting a pully on the front of a donar engine, dosent look too difficult , engine mounts look easy and i have some Peugeot diesel engines in the shipping containers, will post up some pics in a bit

 

[Baloo]

latest close up , yup that head is shot , see if you can find another or your back to change engine complete

yep change to another engine i think

 

[Baloo]

just get another engine......
prob find a runner for a few hundred quid......
The mower is def worth saving......always repairable.....something to pass onto the kids.....

the only second hand 3 cylinder i can find is £1900 more chance of knitting fog than paying that for an engine when i only payed £100 quid for this pair of mowers , yep 2 of them l dont think i mentioned that did l, there is second mower the same except its a petrol 4 cylinder thats sized solid, was told its a reliant 750 engine but not sure if that is correct, the second mower is more complete with all the panels etc, plan is to strip that one down to a chassis over the winter and restore with a ford or mazda2lt engine but more on that later

 

[Baloo]

Ali express do lots of bits for these little diesels…..

its £700 for a bare head on there plus valves gaskets etc etc so it will be £1000 by the time its done and i have no idea how good the bottom end is really so its a swap to a car engine mucho cheaper, like free lol

 

[jmp49]

That motor was also fitted to mini diggers, generators and all sorts. I noticed your searching for mitsubushi, but its a mitsubishi if that brings any better results up.
Also this any help if you do decide to fix what you have?

https://www.tractorforum.com/attachments/mitsubishi-engine-k3a-k3b-k3c-k3d-k3e-service-manual-pdf.76342/

 

[Baloo]

Industrial mowers get a truly monumental hammering . and a life of miserable servitude without respite..
Few machines, if any, get a harder life....

they do indeed and probably little or no maintenance , industrial mowers are built to take a much higher duty cycle than a car,
heres a fun fact .. if you ran a mower like mine for an 8 hour shift the spindles on the cutting deck will rotate an astonishing 1.8 million times in those 8 hours, how many years would it take for your average car to turn the crank or water pump 1.8 million times,

 

[Baloo]

That motor was also fitted to mini diggers, generators and all sorts. I noticed your searching for mitsubushi, but its a mitsubishi if that brings any better results up.
Also this any help if you do decide to fix what you have?

https://www.tractorforum.com/attachments/mitsubishi-engine-k3a-k3b-k3c-k3d-k3e-service-manual-pdf.76342/

yes thank you that is most useful, if second hand head turns up at a later date that will be very useful for a rebuild

 

[Baloo]

right ive decided to swap to a car engine as it free , ive settled on the Peugeot xud engine as found in pug 205,s 306's and many other cars, i have fitted these engines in 3 suzuki's a generator and even my jetwash more over there is still 3 of them up in my shipping container so its free, i was a bit concerned it might not have enough grunt but ive been and looked a a huge torro mower this afternoon powered by an xud engine from the factory so if its good enough for them its good enough for me
hardest part is fitting this pully to the xud engine

and that dosent look to hard
as luck would have i have an xud in my rockcrawler which is right next to the mower so i have measure it up and it looks like it will fit with ease just that pully to mount on the front of this

4 engine mounts which look like just flat plate

it all seems to fit, at least in my head,

my little man cave has become overcrowded with quads and mowers latterly, l need to get some thing fixed and out so i can bring something else back home lol

 

[chrismac]

Pardon our interruption...

 

[bricol]

they do indeed and probably little or no maintenance , industrial mowers are built to take a much higher duty cycle than a car,
heres a fun fact .. if you ran a mower like mine for an 8 hour shift the spindles on the cutting deck will rotate an astonishing 1.8 million times in those 8 hours, how many years would it take for your average car to turn the crank or water pump 1.8 million times,

Wellllll . . .

My Caterham requires 4500 rpm to do 70 mph in 6th - (very low diff ratio).

Drove it back from the south of France in one long hit some time ago, stopping a few times for fuel. Pretty much 80mph all the way.

But if we assume 70mph and a non-stop run - would take 6 hrs 40 mins for the crank to have done 1.8m revs.

Its done a good number of days like that over the last 23 yrs

 

[Smallfry]

Again, I worked for an agent and did sales service and parts for them.

3 cylinder Mitsi engines were problematic with overheating.

Kubota engines better.

Yanmar best and most reliable.

 

[oldbikedavey]

An XUD engine sounds to be as tough as they get, but seem to remember that they require a large and efficient radiator.
One that isn't clogged with dust, straw, and general debris is probably a bit aspirational on a mower....

 

[jmp49]

From the manual it only needs 17hp to drive it to match the original engine, and a rev limit of 3k.
A unforseen complication I see is that with mowers normally they have a govenor and you set the engine rpm with the speed control rather than a simple throttle and it just does whatever to keep the engine at that rpm. If that motor you want to use has any industrial applications they probably used a govenor setup rather than a throttle too.
Bobcat used a XUD9 in some models of the 751 skidsteer, and it was used as a pilot engine for reefers and all sorts of industrial applications, these might have a govenor fitted for the same reasons which might be worth researching more on.

eg from:

https://pilotengines.com/peugeot-xud9-drop-in-off-highway/

'Peugeot, XUD9, Drop-In, Off Highway. Application: Bobcat 751. OEM Part #: 6672488. Bobcat Part Number 6672488REM, Complete Drop-in with fuel system. '