converting tracked ATV to hydro drive

[lapeer20m]

As I showed above 10hp diesels don't cost 1k! And starting in cold weather on a diesel with a glow plug usually shoudn't be much of a problem at all.

7

You are correct. I should have said that a diesel is several hundred dollars. It would be sweet to have one but the current budget simply does not allow for that sort of expenditure at this point.

 

[firebrick43]

kubota makes diesel zero turns... the only thing that would change with the lower rpm is flow rate of the pump, also not all pumps are rated at 3600 rpm...
why would he need to keep a vertical shaft engine? its just a hydro pump, other than maybe a space issue, theres no reason he cant use a horizontal

If you read my post I specifically mentioned diesel zero turns. The diesel fuel and torque advantage is for the constant loads on the deck. If your not hitting an 80% load on a Diesel engine then it fuel cost advantage quickly erodes. Large institutions can employee the large mowers keeping their 72"+ decks turning a full 6 hours a day. Most of these large mowers don't use belt drive pumps but a direct drive double pump.

You can mount the pumps horizontal but you have to ensure your case drain is up and then you have mess with the controls on the pump. If you change pulley size to run a slower engine speed, that's ok but the pumps can not turn faster than 3600 rpm. So if you need additional power you can't speed up the engine to provide it or you will damage the pump.

Lapeer20m. While researching tracks I came across the lmc snowcat that have similar tracks. The more modern ones have similar drive system to what your doing and they listed the advantages (maneuverability and ease of control) but the big disadvantage is the warm up time. They recommend 25 mins of warm up time and I would say after rebuilding a few axial piston pumps and thinking about it I would agree. The tolerances are very tight and when in neutral position the pistons are not moving(just the barrel) preventing gauling due to thick oil. These are not your tough gear pumps everyone is used to.

 

[Como]

Makes you wonder what they do so differently for diesels fitted in cars.

 

[lapeer20m]

If you read my post I specifically mentioned diesel zero turns. The diesel fuel and torque advantage is for the constant loads on the deck. If your not hitting an 80% load on a Diesel engine then it fuel cost advantage quickly erodes. Large institutions can employee the large mowers keeping their 72"+ decks turning a full 6 hours a day. Most of these large mowers don't use belt drive pumps but a direct drive double pump.

You can mount the pumps horizontal but you have to ensure your case drain is up and then you have mess with the controls on the pump. If you change pulley size to run a slower engine speed, that's ok but the pumps can not turn faster than 3600 rpm. So if you need additional power you can't speed up the engine to provide it or you will damage the pump.

Lapeer20m. While researching tracks I came across the lmc snowcat that have similar tracks. The more modern ones have similar drive system to what your doing and they listed the advantages (maneuverability and ease of control) but the big disadvantage is the warm up time. They recommend 25 mins of warm up time and I would say after rebuilding a few axial piston pumps and thinking about it I would agree. The tolerances are very tight and when in neutral position the pistons are not moving(just the barrel) preventing gauling due to thick oil. These are not your tough gear pumps everyone is used to.

I appreciate your input!

The info about warming the oil is very good to know. Perhaps I'll install a heating element in the oil resivior and plug it in an hour before use. Is there a cold weather hydro oil that is more suitable to winter use?

 

[lapeer20m]

Hydrostatic or Brake-Steer? Hydrostatic cats operate on individual hydraulic motors driving each track. They are the only cats capable of counter steering (one track driving forward while the other track driving backwards). This allows you to turn on a dime and while not necessarily easy on your tracks, it does make the cat more maneuverable than any conventional brake-steer cat. Hydrostatic cats are the 'cadillacs' of cats. They are very smooth and easy to maneuver. The two main drawbacks are warm-up time and cost of maintenance & repairs. To prevent damaging the hydraulics, the cat must warm up for about 20-30 minutes in cold weather before it should even move. If you skip this step you could be looking at a $2,000-$10,000 repair. For the snowcat commuter, a 'brake-steer' cat is much more convenient – just like your car – start it, warm it up a bit and go!

 

[firebrick43]

I appreciate your input!

The info about warming the oil is very good to know. Perhaps I'll install a heating element in the oil resivior and plug it in an hour before use. Is there a cold weather hydro oil that is more suitable to winter use?

The site you quoted is exactly what I read.

As far as oil, I have never seen a winter oil recommended. I know most are very specific about oil. Exmark, which I own one, used to recommend mobile one 15w-50 full synthetic. When mobile one switched to a base stock synthetic several years ago they started selling their own oil which I am going to guess is amsoil or some other PAO synthetic.

 

[7sleeper]

I find it strange that they need so long to warm up. Over in the tractor forums, where most modern tractors run on hydro, no one ever recomends any 1/2 hr warming time in winter work. A lot of the fellows there have small tractors and run snowblowers of them which I believe is quite taxing on the system. I'm no hydro expert so I'm just asking for an explenation.

Thanks!

7

 

[firebrick43]

I find it strange that they need so long to warm up. Over in the tractor forums, where most modern tractors run on hydro, no one ever recomends any 1/2 hr warming time in winter work. A lot of the fellows there have small tractors and run snowblowers of them which I believe is quite taxing on the system. I'm no hydro expert so I'm just asking for an explenation.

Thanks!

7

Snowblowers load comes off the engine not the hydrostat.

But it does look like the manufactures recommend warm up and heaters for the tranny.

John deere, scroll down to starting aids.
http://manuals.deere.com/cceomview/OMLVU12593_F1/Output/OMLVU12593_F15.html

Cub Cadet
http://www.manualslib.com/manual/34007/Cub-Cadet-Ex2900.html?page=37

Kubota, pg26. -20 degrees Celsius is -4 degrees Fahrenheit
http://kubota.com.au/media/10206/OPS-Tractor-M-GX-Series-100-110-126-135-3Y206-9971-1-.pdf

 

[Sawyer Rob]

The diesel fuel and torque advantage is for the constant loads on the deck. If your not hitting an 80% load on a Diesel engine then it fuel cost advantage quickly erodes.

I have gas and diesel engines around here big and small, and I can't think of ANY time the diesels aren't better on fuel!, loaded or not! This is REAL world experience, over many years of owning them.

 

[firebrick43]

I have gas and diesel engines around here big and small, and I can't think of ANY time the diesels aren't better on fuel!, loaded or not! This is REAL world experience, over many years of owning them.

I never said any where that diesels we not more fuel efficient at any load, I said their advantage ERODES(gets smaller) at light loads.

When you look at gallon per (what ever time or distance measurement of your choice) then yes a diesel is nearly always more fuel efficient. When you measure grams(or ounces) of fuel burned per hp hour the measurements get much closer at lower loads. Diesel still wins by a high margin at higher loads. Diesel fuel(7.2 lbs per gallon) is heavier than gasoline(6.2 lbs per gallon). Therefore diesel has more btu's per gallon. 129500 for diesel and 114100 for gasoline.

If you look at all the old literature for caterpillar when they brought out the first mass produced mobile diesel it mentioned nothing of its fuel efficiency (which it did have) but about its fuel cost for a day. Diesel fuel for many decades was a byproduct that was priced dirt cheap. As was LPG when it came out(remember all of the propane tractors in the late 50's). People are trying to do the same today with LNG. Because most business could give a crap about MPG, they care about Mile per Dollar.

I will use this page as info as local prices vary widely. http://fuelgaugereport.aaa.com/?redirectto=http://fuelgaugereport.opisnet.com/index.asp

Gas at 3.48 and diesel at 4.09 for average price. You get 32787 btu's per dollar for gas and 31662 btu's per dollar for diesel. Add in the higher operating and maintenance cost(initial purchase cost, oil change cost, fuel system maintenance cost) for diesels and unless your fully burdening the machine you will not have a positive "financial" advantage. Notice the financial part and fully burdened part!

Try a long term analysis of a gas vs diesel pickup and unless you are pulling a good size trailer all the time the diesel is costing you more money. This is especially true with the new diesels catalytic converters and particulate filters adding thousands to the purchase price and more maintenance down the road (but didn't work either when I did it back in the late 90's for Dodge 2500 truck and 90 cent diesel) and gasoline engine finally getting direct injection and low speed boost turbocharging(opposed to previous turbo cars set up strictly for higher rpm boost/performance)

Now please don't take this as I am trashing diesels, I am not. I understand that they are nice in many ways. I have a Cat powered Chevy 6500, the high torque is nice for towing my 38' horse trailer. I have had john deere and case diesel tractors and a cat dozer and driven all brands of diesel trucks and a lot of skid steers, all terrain fork lifts, combines, graders, ect. My day job is a machinist(used to assemble them years ago) for the largest diesel manufacture in the world, making parts for 750-7000 hp diesels (also natural gas engines) include one for the 777-797 haul trucks 992/994 loader,trains,ships, EPG, and NG compression. We sell very few stationary Diesel engines anymore in North America, they want the NG version and all the end users are wanting LNG versions for the mobile equipment industry wide due to lower fuel cost(even though it gets lower MPG, or should I say GPMile for this size equipment).

Now since this day in age lawyers are abound I have to post this.
The above is my opinion and not the statements of my employer.

 

[firebrick43]

O, and that generous torque rise(what people refer to as lugging power) in a diesel is not noticeable once you put a hydrostatic drive train in. When I got a chance to operate the new cat D6N,which is very very nice, the hardest part for me in operating it was the lack of the engines torque output rising and being able to feel it though the machine. It's hard to see the blade and how much you cutting(especially in a trench) and in a normal machine with a gear or power shift transmission one can FEEL the power increase and lift the blade to compensate. With that D6N all the sudden you found the tracks spinning with no feel that it was about to happen nor much of a change from the exhaust. Most hydrostatic drives have a slightly oversized engine and the pump/hydraulic motor is very linear in power output and runs out of capacity long before the driving motor does. Same happens in the skid steers I have operated (normally can hear the exhaust but not feel it)

 

[lapeer20m]

We're a little off topic, but I agree that a diesel pickup truck likely costs more over its lifetime than a gasser for the average owner. Factor in cold start unreliability, noise, def, etc and a gas pickup makes a lot of sense.

Vw still manufactured magical diesel cars. In the real world, A gas passat gets 30-35 mpg while a diesel gets nearly 50 mpg. There is no added maintenance cost associated with the diesel. 10k mile oil changes with about 5 quarts of oil.

 

[lapeer20m]

I finally had a chance to do some more work on the project. I spent money today and bought new hydraulic hoses. My old ones were too short.

I was quoted $260 at the first place. Ouch!

I ended up having two new hoses made and using couplers to put two pairs of the original hoses together And spent just over $100.

I connected the hoses and oriented the power plant correctly and took her for a drive. I increased the speed by about 50% and its apparent that the engine is too small for the application. I think the hydraulics will allow it to travel 200-300% faster than its current speed but the engine does not have sufficient power to do so.

Sunday I will try to haul my first load of wood and see how she performs.

 

[zogger]

I finally had a chance to do some more work on the project. I spent money today and bought new hydraulic hoses. My old ones were too short.

I was quoted $260 at the first place. Ouch!

I ended up having two new hoses made and using couplers to put two pairs of the original hoses together And spent just over $100.

I connected the hoses and oriented the power plant correctly and took her for a drive. I increased the speed by about 50% and its apparent that the engine is too small for the application. I think the hydraulics will allow it to travel 200-300% faster than its current speed but the engine does not have sufficient power to do so.

Sunday I will try to haul my first load of wood and see how she performs.

Wayyyyyy cool!

so, I know you are thinking about another engine now, which one?

 

[Sawyer Rob]

O, and that generous torque rise(what people refer to as lugging power) in a diesel is not noticeable once you put a hydrostatic drive train in. When I got a chance to operate the new cat D6N,which is very very nice, the hardest part for me in operating it was the lack of the engines torque output rising and being able to feel it though the machine. It's hard to see the blade and how much you cutting(especially in a trench) and in a normal machine with a gear or power shift transmission one can FEEL the power increase and lift the blade to compensate. With that D6N all the sudden you found the tracks spinning with no feel that it was about to happen nor much of a change from the exhaust. Most hydrostatic drives have a slightly oversized engine and the pump/hydraulic motor is very linear in power output and runs out of capacity long before the driving motor does. Same happens in the skid steers I have operated (normally can hear the exhaust but not feel it)

On a smaller scale... I have a diesel zero turn mower, I've run the same mower with the same HP gas motor, here on my place. EVERYTHING is the same, except one is diesel (it does weigh a tiny bit more) On hills, you can "feel" the torque rise, or I should say, less RPM loss... In deep grass, same thing.

I have a steep place I mow, you can really feel the extra power the diesel has on the hill, I have to assume it's the torque that I'm feeling...

I have a diesel hy-stat dozer, I can "feel" when the blade loads, or I hit a rock or something.... so I just don't agree, perhaps it's because my dozer doesn't have the "extra" power of a 6??

SR

 

[Sawyer Rob]

We're a little off topic, but I agree that a diesel pickup truck likely costs more over its lifetime than a gasser for the average owner. Factor in cold start unreliability, noise, def, etc and a gas pickup makes a lot of sense.

I bought my first NEW diesel PU in 1982, I've owned them since then... I also have gas too... I don't agree that all diesels are unreliable to start in the winter, also you don't hear much noise inside the cab of these newer diesels... There's a HUGE difference between newer diesels and older diesels. You really have to get more detailed than to generalize that ALL diesels are good or bad.

As for power and fuel consumption, if you are pulling loads, NO contest, the diesel wins. IF you run a light duty PU and use it a lot for a car, or light loads, I don't think the diesel is worth the extra money it cost to get it. AND "that's" the REAL problem, "the extra money it cost to get it"!

SR

 

[lapeer20m]

Wayyyyyy cool!

so, I know you are thinking about another engine now, which one?

If I had lots of extra cash right now i would likely purchase the single cylinder diesel discussed in this thread.

I already spent all the money allotted for this project on other stuff! Robbing Peter to pay Paul, and I have more money already allotted for the firewood processor we r starting soon.
So I'm planning to use the first cheap reliable 10 hp or larger engine I run across.

 

[lapeer20m]

Update:

I used the machine for about an hour today including hauling a load of firewood.

It's a success! Although not yet perfect. The engine is definitely undersized. If I ask the pumps to deliver too much speed or power to the tracks the engine will stall. That's frustrating! It equates to crawling along, especially climbing a hill while loaded. But it will turn in place even on the concrete driveway, so it appears to have plenty of torque.

Also, under certain circumstances I am able to get the drive chains to skip a tooth on the sprocket. I think that additional idler sprockets will cure this problem.

I'm very encouraged by the progress but still have more work to do.

I'm going to tear the siezed Kawasaki engine apart this week if time permits just to diagnose the problem. Parts for Kawasaki engines tend to be expensive so it's likely not worth a major overhaul.

 

[lapeer20m]

I used her extensively the past few days to skid logs and haul firewood.

I added a 2,000 pound winch with roller fairleed to the rear. I use this to skid logs to the machine. This winch setup works out real nice.

There is an unbelievable amount of firewood on the ground. It's also amazing how deep the snow was and how many trees I was unknowingly running over on a regular basis. Most of the snow in the swamp has melted but the ground is still mostly frozen. Soon it will be too wet and muddy to drive on, even with a tracked machine.

I need to find a bigger engine!

I want to put up 10 full cord of firewood this summer.

 

[Jim Timber]

I'm not sure I'll see bare earth by May at the rate we're going.