I have a little Kubota RTV-X900 and it dropped down to almost freezing yester-night.... (Lucky me living down “Souff”).... Anyway, it usually starts on the second compression stroke...as does my M4700 .... never needing Glow-Plug help ordinarily.
However, yesteday the RTV wouldn’t start after a ten-second crank.... so I gave it 5 secs of GP... still no start.... so I gave it ten-secs of GP.... Still no start.
The battery was clearly dying at this point but I then gave it a full 20 secs of GP and as the battery died... it STARTED!
Refreshing my memory by reading the OM I see Kubota only suggests 5 secs down to freezing and 15 secs below Zero.... and specifically states to never use GPs for longer than 30 secs. These short “hits’ were so unproductive for my relatively new RTV (2014 with less than 400 hrs and living in Central Tx so cold weather hardly ever an issue... I felt my GPs should be in good shape.). But since it became “cool” this week I was beginning to question “Are the GPs actually WORKING?”...
Anyway, I needed to recharge the battery since I only drove it a short distance after the cold-start... so I connected my battery charger thru the cigar-lighter outlet and turned the charger ON... seeing it registering a 5-Amp charge-rate. 30-mins later it was down nearly to “zero” charge rate...and it came to me to test-out the glow plugs and didn’t look forward to having to raise the bed and access the GPs to test them....
I then simply turned the key to the GP position and observed the charger jump up to 5-AMPs charge-rate during the GP selection....
Sooo..... I’m assured that they are at-least functional after-all.... and the OM simply doesn’t provide sufficient time of application in it’s guidance. Thought I’d pass-along this little “quick and dirty” technique to determine if your Glow Plugs are actually requesting a “draw” of current as a test of the system (if not an actual test of efficiency of each GP.). Hope this helps.
Footnote: BTW, my M4700 never needs any manual application of GP, even down to “freezing” it cranks on the first or second compression-stroke... however, the M4700 automatically energizes GPs during engine-cranking regardless. My JD 4239 compactor engine does Not automatically energize GPs ...and it’s a 1987 model with unknown (likely a lot of hours on it as it’s an old surplus highway-department unit)... and during freezing temps yesterday it cranked right up normally without the use of GP. Makes me feel good therefore that it’s compression is probably pretty good. Just having a good new year!
However, yesteday the RTV wouldn’t start after a ten-second crank.... so I gave it 5 secs of GP... still no start.... so I gave it ten-secs of GP.... Still no start.
The battery was clearly dying at this point but I then gave it a full 20 secs of GP and as the battery died... it STARTED!
Refreshing my memory by reading the OM I see Kubota only suggests 5 secs down to freezing and 15 secs below Zero.... and specifically states to never use GPs for longer than 30 secs. These short “hits’ were so unproductive for my relatively new RTV (2014 with less than 400 hrs and living in Central Tx so cold weather hardly ever an issue... I felt my GPs should be in good shape.). But since it became “cool” this week I was beginning to question “Are the GPs actually WORKING?”...
Anyway, I needed to recharge the battery since I only drove it a short distance after the cold-start... so I connected my battery charger thru the cigar-lighter outlet and turned the charger ON... seeing it registering a 5-Amp charge-rate. 30-mins later it was down nearly to “zero” charge rate...and it came to me to test-out the glow plugs and didn’t look forward to having to raise the bed and access the GPs to test them....
I then simply turned the key to the GP position and observed the charger jump up to 5-AMPs charge-rate during the GP selection....
Sooo..... I’m assured that they are at-least functional after-all.... and the OM simply doesn’t provide sufficient time of application in it’s guidance. Thought I’d pass-along this little “quick and dirty” technique to determine if your Glow Plugs are actually requesting a “draw” of current as a test of the system (if not an actual test of efficiency of each GP.). Hope this helps.
Footnote: BTW, my M4700 never needs any manual application of GP, even down to “freezing” it cranks on the first or second compression-stroke... however, the M4700 automatically energizes GPs during engine-cranking regardless. My JD 4239 compactor engine does Not automatically energize GPs ...and it’s a 1987 model with unknown (likely a lot of hours on it as it’s an old surplus highway-department unit)... and during freezing temps yesterday it cranked right up normally without the use of GP. Makes me feel good therefore that it’s compression is probably pretty good. Just having a good new year!
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