I know the title may seem a little misleading with the temperature outside FALLing.

(boo we get it)

Fine.  Here’s a picture of a tractor.

This is about a simple piece of maintenance that can be easy to overlook.  When I first picked up my tractor, things were going fine until a few weeks in.  Suddenly while mowing one day, the coolant temp started spiking.  I took my time finishing up then parked the tractor.  My manuals were still in the mail, so I started to do what I do best.  Take something apart.

^  Debris on the side engine shield of my Kubota B1750HST.

What I found was that my tractor, like many others has screen filters on every heat exchanger in the engine bay to keep out debris.  Not only that, but the factory did a good job sealing the sides of the engine bay with foam rubber gaskets.  It took me about 20 minutes total to find everything, clean it, and put it back.  Now it takes me less than 5 minutes, so I do this every time I park the tractor.  This is also a good time to check for oil leaks, and to check your engine oil level.

Every 20 hours, I remove the side covers and hose out the radiator and oil cooler with the engine off.  If it’s dusty when I’m working, I’ll wash it out every 10 hours .  I’ve attached pictures of my rig for reference:

FYI, the debris in the pics is from one time mowing the lawn…

Speaking of lawns, here’s something that had been bothering me about mine since I bought the house:

Wow, what a cool land scape feature!

What would you do with them?