m6800 will not take freon

Bulldog

Well-known member

Equipment
M 9000 DTC, L 3000 DT
Mar 30, 2010
5,440
73
48
Rocky Face, Georgia
You may be money ahead to have it looked at by a A/C man. Nothing on that system is cheap to replace if damaged.
 

Fordtech86

Well-known member
Lifetime Member

Equipment
L3200
Aug 7, 2018
4,705
5,476
113
Pineville,LA
Like lugbolt says, what’s the pressures, just adding Freon is not the best cure for no a/c. How are you trying to charge it anyways?
 

Jim L.

Active member
Jun 18, 2014
811
86
28
Texas
Air conditioning is one of the few things that needs diagnostic equipment and up to date knowledge.

Just trying to add refrigerant can introduce moisture into the system which can jam the expansion device.

I agree with Bulldog that you will be money ahead with a good A/C tech.
 

lugbolt

Well-known member

Equipment
ZG127S-54
Oct 15, 2015
4,807
1,575
113
Mid, South, USA
I have done some a/c stuff this past tractor'ing season.

Three of the 5 that I dealt with were direct result of either shade-tree mechanic'ing or not know what was actually going on. Or both in one of those cases. All three of them were $2000+ to repair. One was charged with improper refrigerant, causing compressor failure and black death (replace every single component). Another was the fault of a leaking o-ring. Keep charging it every week but with no knowledge of how much refrigerant is in the system. It becomes overcharged, full of air and moisture, compressor fails, same thing. Third one had a pin hole in the condenser. They knew it had a leak but kept charging it every time it'd run "dry"...problem with that is, there is no way to know how much air and more importantly moisture was introduced into the system. Again, compressor failed and entire system replacement was required. Of all of the tractor jobs I did last year, that was just 5. Why not more? Some guys don't want to fork out much money to have their tractor worked on. After all, so-and-such down the road fixed the a/c in the car for $100 why's a tractor cost so much? Because we don't know what was fixed in the car....they are entirely different. Or perhaps the car mechanic is/was non-licensed MVAC repairman with none of the proper tooling needed. All owner knows is that car was broke and car now works. But for how long?

The systems are quite dangerous to work with and if you aren't positive that what you're doing is in fact safe/correct, you can kill yourself. I watched a guy working on a class A motorhome once....where the high & low side fittings were backwards (retrofitted improperly) and he half-heartedly decided that the refrigerant level was "low". Grabbed the small can of parts-store fix-it R134A, stuck it to the low side, turned the system on and the can exploded, badly injuring his hand and also permanently injuring his eyes with refrigerant. Refrigerant is nasty stuff. And there are two points made here: one was obvious, the second is that any work done improperly can endanger not only the worker, but also anyone down the line who might have to diagnose/work on the system. This is exactly why the EPA frowns on non-licensed people doing work on a/c systems.

Safety aside, there's also environmental concerns that are, in the eyes of the EPA, equally important. I hate the EPA but they do things for reasons and they ARE the government, so we have to go by what they want. Here's another great example. According to section 609 of the EPA's guidelines for refrigerant (specific to MVAC-which includes tractors), if I watched you knowingly discharge refrigerant to the atmosphere, I can turn you into the feds and I can be rewarded up to $10,000 for turning you in; and you can be fined up to $27,500 per day, per violation, then your name gets put on a list that everyone can see. That's how stiff the EPA is on this stuff; thus be real careful with what you're doing. If you ain't sure, hire it out to a licensed MVAC person.

One of the things that I personally do on tractors if they are in for servicing is to give the owner a choice between levels of servicing. If he wants to go full monty, in other words completely service the tractor, I'll go as far as pulling the evaporator out (or at least opening the box for access to it), and then cleaning it good with coil cleaner. Tractors get used in environments that are dirty (obviously). Dirt gets in/on the evap and heater cores, restricts airflow across them such that heat transfer doesn't take place as efficiently, thus either the heat or the a/c doesn't work as good as it should. This is common. That is one of the many things that can go wrong with a/c systems that is a simple fix, yet so many improperly assume that it's low on freon. If it's not leaking, it's not low unless someone's been monkeying with it previously-which is a whole other can of worms. Without knowing it's history, there is no telling what's been done...and many times whether it was done right or wrong or just halfway. That's another area that things can get real expensive real quick.
 
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eugene crowe

New member

Equipment
m6800
Mar 17, 2019
5
0
0
mt washington ky usa
I was rolling hay last fall it was 90 degree and the air was working better than it ever had since I bought the tractor new it was dripping water out the tubes like a water hose . I put it in barn next day got on it and the air blows but no cold air . I did try to put 134a in it in the field cause I needed to finish baling
 

Tx Jim

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Lifetime Member

Equipment
M7040 HDC-1,JD 4255,Ford 6700
Apr 30, 2013
1,176
117
63
Coyote Flats,Texas
I was rolling hay last fall it was 90 degree and the air was working better than it ever had since I bought the tractor new it was dripping water out the tubes like a water hose . I put it in barn next day got on it and the air blows but no cold air . I did try to put 134a in it in the field cause I needed to finish baling


Have you checked to be sure radiator/condenser/evaporator/AC filters are very clean?? Your tractor's AC not cooling could be lack of air flow not lack of refrigerant. Attempting to add refrigerant without monitoring pressures is not a very good thing to do.
 

Poohbear

Active member

Equipment
L3301 HST, LA525, LP shredder, BB1566 box blade, QH10, Worksaver pallet fork
Jul 6, 2018
469
132
43
Gilmer,Tx,United States
I was rolling hay last fall it was 90 degree and the air was working better than it ever had since I bought the tractor new it was dripping water out the tubes like a water hose . I put it in barn next day got on it and the air blows but no cold air . I did try to put 134a in it in the field cause I needed to finish baling
Are you sure the compressor clutch is engageing ? You don't know the unit needs refrigerant and if it does you got a leak and in your description probably a big one.
Let sit overnight then put a set of real AC GUAGES on system & compare pressure to ambient temperature using the P/T chart on the gauge. If not pretty close you either are low , wrong refrigerant, or non-condenseables etc in system.
Disclaimer, I am not a mobile AC tech ( you need one ) but I am a Texas HVACR licensed Contractor & EPA Universal Certified. Retired but keep my license current.
 

SidecarFlip

Banned

Equipment
M9000HDCC3, M9000HD, Kubota GS850 Sidekick
Oct 28, 2018
7,197
546
83
USA
Kubota's have marginal AC systems to begin with. consequently, the front mounted condenser needs to be kept clean as in the removable screen needs to be clean as well as the condenser itself and the roof needs to be removed yearly and the evaporator and related components need to be blown out, something I do every spring.

I also added a 12 volt cooling fan directly in front of the engine bay condenser that cycles on and off with the AC compressor to add additional air flow through it. Kubota likes to mount the unit the farthest from the engine fan so it suffers from heat exchange.

You also need to clean the cabin air filter every day or run the system on recirc.

I hay with both my units and both get cleaned out every spring and every day (filters, screens) when running hay. Sometimes I do it in the field.

Your mileage may vary, bit I know what mine is and I act accordingly.

When I owned my 5030 HSTC, I shrouded the front of the engine bay in rubber sheets to direct the airflow through the condenser and the oil cooler. Good air flow and heat exchange makes a world of difference. Would be nice if Kubota fitted their tractors with reverse flow fans like JD and NH have.
 
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