I have a BX23s and I would like to hook up a temperature gage to my hydraulic system. In the past at different times I have had 2 hose leaks and a broken fan blade. I didn't notice neither because I was out in the woods and everything was working fine but when I went to use the tractor the next day I saw fluid on the ground. Both hose leaks were very big and if I had done more work I could have really got some damage. So I thought that if I had a temp. gage hooked up I would see the temp. gage go up and know to look for a problem. My question is, where and how do I hook one up?
Hydraulic temperature gage
- Thread starter countrypapa
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Interesting concept, but I'm having a hard time understanding how a temperature gauge, regardless of how/where it's mounted, is going to tell you when you run out of oil. Possibly when the gauge has no reading at all due to lack of contact with any fluid?
Like Fedup, I don't think a gauge is going to help detecting leaks. If you see a cloud coming out of you tractor, you may have a leak.
If you don't have a guard on your hydrostat fan get one. I understand those fans are easy to break and hard to replace.
If you don't have a guard on your hydrostat fan get one. I understand those fans are easy to break and hard to replace.
In my very limited knowledge of hydraulics when you start to use the hydraulics the temperature of the fluid rises. After filling all of the cylinders the excess fluid is pumped back to the resovour (spelling?) to cool. If you have less fluid in the system it does not have enough time in the resovour to cool because the cylinders are asking for more fluid. I saw an article on you tube where someone with a kiota installed one on his but he was able to drill a hole into the resovour and put a probe in the hole, seal it up and read the temp. I don't want to drill a hole in my engine so I was wondering if there wasn.t some place I could tap into the hydraulic system, something like a water temp gage on a car. If I see the temp go up a lot after using the tractor for awhile I would look for a problem.
You can read my post to Fedup to answer your one question and in regards to your other question I do havefull coverage plates under the tractor. When I broke the first blade I didn,t have any protection so when I replaced the fan I bought plates. When I broke the second blade a stick found a way to sneak in and get the blade, kind of like a mouse getting into your house, they'll find a way. I'm getting pretty good at changing fan blades. Now that I think of it, the purpose of that fan is to keep the hydraulic fluid cool so if I have less fluid the harder it is to keep cool. By the way, if I see a cloud coming out of the tractor it's already too late.
While your basic premise about changes in oil temperature may be correct, in practice that temperature change will be affected by ambient temperature, workload on the hydraulic system, as well as length of time in operation. Noticing a change caused by a gallon or two difference in total volume would require a bit of a learning curve on your part.
Overall fluid volume has very little effect on operating temperature.
More fluid takes longer to heat up, but short of very extreme examples, it has no overall effect on operating temperature.
Tied into the fuel stop relay. So it will turn itself off if the fluid gets too low.Maybe install an oil level sender in the oil pan.
Dan
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Lets address this situation in reverse order:
If you drill a hole in the engine you wouldn't be getting to the hydraulic fluid, there is no hydraulic fluid in the engine. So that would be a huge waste of time and effort.
You would need to drill a hole into the reservoir which is in the read end (or what Kubota calls the transmission).
If you drill into the HST (what we normally call the transmission) you would have a huge and expensive issue, as you would just be causing a lot of damage.
Even drilling into the rear end, would require precise placement to avoid internal parts and there is not much spare room to be had in these units.
You would also have to pic a spot where you could thread the drilled hole as that's the only way your goin to get anything to seal properly.
All of this is really a huge waste of time and effort.
Kubota has already designed your tractor for this exact scenario.
The way your tractor works is if you lost enough fluid to become an issue, nothing would operate, not the loader, not the three point, not the Back hoe, not the steering, and no tractor powered movement.
TADA.... You have lost too much fluid, find out why.
Yep the engine would still keep on running, but that's not a problem.
You would have to run it this way for quite a long time to do any damage.
Now onto the first part...
Because someone on YouTube with a Kioti said this is a great idea to do, does not make it anywhere even close to valid or useful to use on your KUBOTA!
Step away and save yourself from bad / dumb / useless Internet video infomercials!
Spend more time worrying about far greater things!
Last/first, by 'cloud' I meant the aerosol cloud of hydraulic fluid that can issue from a high pressure leak, not a smoke cloud from fire.
Using temperature to infer level is fraught with peril, sort of like waiting on the oil pressure light to check the oil or the temperature gauge/light to check coolant. Like Hokie said, if you're concerned with level, measure level. But you seem determined, so here goes.
Notice: I don't own a BX and have never worked on one. Being a sub-compact, more stuff is internal to the case than even the compacts, so this won't be easy. You have two commingled systems, the hydrostat loop and the implement loop. They both drain into the sump, but the hydro only drains the internal leakage, so if it overheats its hot fluid is diluted by all the other circulating fluid. I'm unaware of any port to the circulating path of the hydro except the test ports. You could possibly make a sensor that would fit the appropriate port, KubotaBooks has a WSM which might guide you. The sensor has to be in flowing fluid to be accurate. But, I think these ports are located on the bottom of the case, which would make them vulnerable to damage and liable to create the leak you're trying to avoid.
The fluid in the implement loop is pumped continuously from the pump, through the loader valve, through the backhoe valve and past the 3pt valve back to the tank. Caveat: when a valve diverts flow to a cylinder, the return flow flows directly back to the tank and the downstream loop flow is temporarily stopped. You want to avoid measuring the temperature in this 'tank' line since the flow is often stopped. A low pressure line would also be nice. The best location would be the flow from the 3pt valve/cylinder, low pressure and it's the end of line. But AFAIK it's inaccessible. That leaves the lines between the FEL and BH or between the BH and 3pt, running at up to ~2000 psi. You could put a tee at a tube fitting and adapt a sensor into the branch or one leg.