L2350 overheating

[larro]

My l2350 is overheating. At least I am pretty sure that it is but being as there is no thermometer gauge anywhere I'm not 100% sure. I'm more like 99% sure.
The thing is that after about an hour or less of bush hogging the whistle coming from the radiator starts going off. After I let it cool down I check the water level in the radiator and it's always considerably lower.
After it cools I fill the radiator back up but this time after spending a ton of time on this site I looked for tiny bubbles in the radiator water and happily there weren't any. This leaves me thinking that either the radiator hoses are collapsing, the thermometer is stuck, or the water pump isn't working.
My problem is that I don't know how to check these to see which it may be. I'm living on very limited income so replacing them all or one by one till I get the right one is not something I can really afford ( because it's always the last one ) :^) anyways I'm would really appreciate some advice on which course of action I should take.
Thanks in advance
Larry

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

I didn't hear one thing about you cleaning the radiator fins or the screen, both of which will cause it to overheat.

If it perfectly clean?

 

[larro]

I did clean the screen in front of the radiator completely. I also took an air hose to the fins but I could only blow the air through the screen and as far as I could tell got them clean. However I couldn't really tell if the fins on the radiator were 100% clean because the screen in front of the radiator was blocking my view from seeing if the area between the fins were cleared all the way and I couldn't really see a way to remove the screen. It actually looked easier to pull the radiator out and inspect the fins than it did to remove the screen and inspect the fins that way.... Of I could have missed something and removing the screen could be easier than what I'm making it out to be.
Thanks

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

The front screen should be held in place by a thumb screw in the front.

To test water pump and other things, open cap, fill to top with fluid, run tractor till warm / hot temp then watch fluid movement.
If the level has dropped since starting it, refill to full, if there are bubbles after a few min then it has a bad head gasket, if the fluid is not moving at all then it has either a stuck thermostat or a bad pump impeller.
Most commonly if the pump is bad it will leave water / antifreeze, drips / streaks, down the front of the engine.

 

[larro]

Thanks for that. That screen was a lot easier to remove than it looked ( of course it was dusk when I was looking at it the first time) ..... Anyways I got the screen off and saw that the radiator was still quite filthy so I pressure washed it as best I could without removing the whole front end. I saw lots and lots of mud coming out of it so I'm pretty sure that did the trick so thanks for that diagram. It's dark now so I won't be able to check the other things you mentioned till tomorrow. I'll keep you posted and thanks again for your help
Larry

 

[Diydave]

It also will help, to buy a IR laser thermometer, to check for hot spots. I find it invaluable, in finding cooling problems...

http://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsearch/result?q=ir+thermometer

 

[Daren Todd]

I prefer a pressure washer with heat and adjustable pressure to clean a radiator. The adjustable pressure is nice since you can push water through the fins with out damaging them. The heat is the ticket for loosening caked on oil and grime

Dirt and lawn debris is pretty easy to remove with a garden hose. Caked on oil, it really helps to have the heat.

The worst for a radiator is rock dust from a quarry. Add a little moisture to the mix and let set in the heat and it acts almost like concrete I've had a couple over the years, that I've had to pull and soak for a few days in a kiddy pool to get clean