Cameron670 33 #1 Posted June 24, 2015 Hello All,I did a test run tonight. Mows absolutely beautiful.......here is what I foundThe temp light in the dash read habitually high. It was in the yellow Upper side) when I started mowing, crept up from there. Then the gauge quit working, I went to wiggle the wires behind it, and discovered it was REALLY hot. With an infra red temp gun, the cylinder fin temperature was 250 avg. The muffler temp was 575. This is similar to a fan cooled sled engine, so I'm not too alarmed, kept mowing. This smart steer stuff is going to get bypassed somehow. I got all running lights working, and everything in the dash (aside from the oil temp) is working correctly. I'm at just over 300.00 dollars & 4-5 hours of my time invested thus far. Bought it for 200, then purchased new blades, filters, steering wheel boot & valve cover gaskets. My wife is liking that I got this size machine for a small investment. After some more investigation, I think I'm going to buy a gauge & sender from summit for the oil temp. If anyone else has temp reading from their machine, I would appreciate hearing them. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Forest Road 594 #2 Posted June 24, 2015 Mine has 1100 hours paint looks just as bad. Did you have to pull steering wheel to change the boot? Looks like you got one heck of a deal! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
wh500special 2,156 #3 Posted June 24, 2015 The gauges on both my 522's used to run on the high side of normal, but never in the yellow zone. On one of them I pulled the engine to replace the ignition modules and I cleaned from behind the shroud...it runs much cooler on the gauge now. It sounds like your gauge is screwed up based on it being really hot in the wiring, but you might want to clean the internals of the engine up a bit.That's quite a fancy drill press you have there in the background!Steve Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shallowwatersailor 3,213 #4 Posted June 24, 2015 (edited) Welcome to Red Square!You got a smoking deal on a great tractor. Just like Steve said, you might consider pulling the engine to get behind the shroud to clean. There are metal baffles under there that catch the grass clippings. My 518xi rarely goes over the middle of the gauge but my 520xi went almost to the red until I cleaned it. Kohler actually recommends doing it every 200 hours in the engine manual. Edited June 24, 2015 by shallowwatersailor Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JackC 617 #5 Posted June 24, 2015 Fantastic deal. Also, good tips on cleaning the engine to keep the temps down. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Cameron670 33 #6 Posted June 25, 2015 Yeah, probably should pull the motor. Does anyone with clean shrouds own an infrared temp gun ? So I can get a reference point ?KJC Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JERSEYHAWG / Glenn 4,497 #7 Posted June 25, 2015 I wonder how hard it is to pull the engine? Thought about it but never investigated it yet.Glenn Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
