Plugged intercooler, anyone have this happen before?

[Shadow_storm56]

I have this in off topic as it's not a kubota tractor but this is still interesting.... My one tractor was having issues such as screaming hot transmission and an error light saying charge air temp high... I went through many things of thinking it was the 3rd water pump that cools thoes things, an issue with the trans, bad sensor... many things until I went to do a radiator flush and after I had everything drained I took off the one hoses going in the bottom of the intercooler and green came out.... strange as everything should be clear. So I had an AHA moment and hooked garden hose pressure to it..... no flow through it so I went in backwards and a bunch of stuff came out. I had to switch back and forth a bunch to finally get it fully clear.

So what did this? Risoline head gasket fix.... I had a constant stream of bubbles into the res tank for years that kept making the heating system work worse but didn't do anything else bad luckily. I did a chemical test for exhaust gases and although it too a while it read that there were exhaust gases in the stream. I put this stuff in and minutes later the bubbles were gone. Thought things were all good then....

Was a few months of the tractor not doing anything really difficult so we didn't notice any issues until heavy loads started.... turns out all the risoline did was seal off my intercooler/heat exchanger. Now the intercooler is back and so are the bubbles....turns out the intercooler is leaking a smidge of boost into the water system.

So all is fixed now except an AC switch that keeps fusing it's contacts and the fact I may need an intercooler although at this point water dosen't drain into the intake stream when the tractors off so that's a plus. Probably the most annoying thing to troubleshoot though.... deere tech thought bad sensors at first although when the trans was so hot the heat was coming up through the floor we decided it definitely was somthing else.

So long story short..... apparently intercoolers can plug up.

 

[GeoHorn]

“ …and green came out…”

Kinda expected that sort of thing from a Green machine…… and That’s why this is an ORANGE tractor place.

 

[NCL4701]

Haven’t had that exact thing happen but have had the experience of putting some sort of stop leak type product in a cooling system to “fix” a pinhole or three in an old radiator that was expensive and not easily sourced with the result being it stopped up the pinholes but had the collateral downside of stopping up other relatively small fluid paths that should remain open. Specifically stopped up a few of the radiator tubes resulting in degradation of cooling performance. Having the radiator boiled out cleared the tubes but also cleared the pinholes, resulting in a vicious cycle of leaks and stopped up tubes. A new radiator eventually broke the cycle.

So yeah, after introducing a stop leak type product into the cooling system I’d be on alert for any unintended blockages in the cooling system. Sometimes it works flawlessly so I wouldn’t necessarily avoid stop leak. Just BOLO for any performance degradation potentially related to unintended clogs.

 

[lugbolt]

yup i've used the stop leak stuff. many times. usually in the race car on race day. What I learn't was that if I left it in there something would get plugged, be it a radiator, thermostat, head gasket, whatever. I look at it as a temporary fix to get you through the day but then after the day's over, fix the stupid problem!