Bad day for that guy

I got a call from a fella in a nearby town Friday night wondering if I could look at his tractor. I don't know the guy, he got my number from another guy, that's how I get a lot of calls for repair in my area. I told him I'd be there at 1'O clock Saturday. I got over there and he explained to me that he takes the kids, grandkids, other family members on a hayride to his property that adjoins this man made lake where the property owners association sets off fireworks for the 4th of July. As he was on his way back pulling the wagon loaded with family members, the windows fogged quickly when he entered the woods, and he thought he was still on the trail, but he accidentally drove off the trail and over the river bank. His tractor went into about 6' of water, where he had to swim out of the cab. Luckily he got out ok and no one on the wagon got hurt. They all had to walk back home the rest of the way in the dark. The dealer told him it is a Cummins engine and he needed to pull the glow plugs to get the water out of the cylinders. He told me it is a Branson? tractor, which I am not familiar with at all, but I guess I've never seen a Cummins with glow plugs that I can remember. So I got over there, and see it's no Cummins, it's a Kutjke(?), and when I told him that, the dealer said "well it's a Cummins knock off". I guess you could say that, since it's a diesel engine... It has no glow plugs either, only a grid heater on the intake and only injectors in the head. Have to pull the valve covers to remove the injectors and have to remove a bunch of other junk first before the valve cover comes off. The fuel tank and both filters were full of water. Got them drained, he had already changed the hyd oil and had pulled the engine oil drain and let it set for a few days. I told him we'll just turn the engine over by hand first and just see if it's worth pulling the injectors. Made numerous turns by hand and all was ok, but had a hard spot in one spot each revolution. When asked if it went down running, he said "yes, but it shut right off when the air cleaner went under". Bad news, I told him 99 times out of a 100 that will bend the rods. After I turned it by hand, I had him just make short taps on the starter after we put oil back in it, it did ok with that for several more revolutions. After that, we turned it over and started it, and it has a heck of a hammer to it. I told him that she's toast, and will need either major engine work or a reman engine. Being it is a Korean engine with probably very little support, I told him if he wanted a reman engine installed, I would do that, but I didn't want to mess with trying to rebuild that engine and hunt for specs or parts, or a machine shop that will want to work on the hard parts. Unfortunately, it is out of warranty, still has plastic on the seat, and only has 194 hours on it! It's a shame, seems like a cheap built tractor, but has a nice little loader, mfwd, cab with AC/heat. Too bad, it's gonna be expensive either way.

Ross

Does he have insurance on the tractor?

Mark

It might not be as bad as you think.

As new as it is, isn't the dealer required to supply parts for so many years?

Branson, Century, plus some other names all are the same Korean built tractors. They are a Cummins designed motor built under some type of marketing agreement. I have seen the motors used in some other Korean construction equipment.

I will agree with you on deciding to repair it or not. Parts are available but dealership support is about nil in many areas. Also the manufacturing company has gone through several marketing name changes and sales agreements under different names. It makes it a confusing mess to actually know who, when or where to get parts from.

My own way of dealing with these type of tractors is to NOT work on them. Mahindra, Branson, Century, TYM, Koiti, and many others of the same type of tractors. I am not saying they are bad or good. I am saying the parts and service support is spotty at the best.

I worked on one Mahindra. Owner abuse caused one of the MFWD hubs to be destroyed. Ran with no gear oil until the wheel fell off. I took it apart and got together a parts list. Local dealer is about 15 miles away and a good fellow. The one housing was not in inventory in the US. Took them over six months to finally get one. Was not a warranty of any type so it was a customer buying parts. Tied up shop and shed space until the parts came. Owner lost the use of the tractor for that time too. He had to buy another tractor to feed at this remote farm. Just a bad deal all around.

No that is a big myth that has been around for a long time. They don't have to supply parts at all if they don't want to. When I went to the Onan factory school in 1981. We spent one day going over what companies had to do and didn't have to do. How to protect yourself from lawsuits and other subjects.

I agree,time to call the insurance company.

From what I gather, No, unfortunately.

From what I gather, there is only 2 dealers within a few hours from here, and one does sales only, no repair. The other is the one he bought it from, as a demo unit, and he's pretty salty with them over some of the stuff they were supposed to fix but didn't before he took delivery of it. I'm letting him deal with that mess.

It is a shame but cmon, are you kidding me? The windows fogged up so fast that he didn't have time to step in the clutch? Drives over a river bank? I wish I knew what the real story was.

That's what he told me, had the AC on because it was so hot that night, and when he went in the woods the cool air made the windows fog up allegedly, and his trail runs along the river bank.

Yeah, exactly why I told him if he could source a complete engine, and it showed up, I'd change it for him, but that would be the only way I'd work on it. At least he does have a little JD that is Yanmar powered with a loader there as well. I did also tell him to expect wiring problems from now on out. When I unplugged the fuel solenoid to keep it from starting when we were cranking it over, the connector was full of water, looking inside the alternator, it's all rusty as well.

I got a 6405 here that went under water in a washed out creek crossing, it blew the head gasket and bent #1 rod..

I agree with you, it is a bad deal. Luckily no one got hurt. I wasn't there, but if I was that close to a river bank and I couldn't see I would have stopped immediately. Back in about 1979, some some young partyers in town decided to have a hayride. They had a John Deere B and two FULL hayracks of young people and beer. Things where going pretty good until they went down a steep straight gravel road. The B popped out of gear, then the fun started. I wasn't there but,my buddy was. Those two wagons started whipping pretty good, people, beer, coolers, and kegs started flying around, some people jumped right away, most got thrown off. My buddy and a couple of other guys rode it out. He said it got going so fast he was afraid to jump. They were old hayracks and had enough of a gap between the floor boards so they could get their fingers in and hold on. Good thing it was a straight road and the tractor and wagons made it to the bottom ok. No one got hurt too bad, some road rash. The weeds in the ditches where tall, so if you went off that side you had somewhat of a cushion. There was alot of walking wounded coming into town. Nobody had a hayride for awhile after that.
when they did, it was bigger tractors and smaller hills, but probably more beer.

Tim, you gonna rebuild it, or get a reman? Ought to be fairly easy either way with a 4.5 PT eh? Sometimes hard to figure your time and machine shop costs to have everything checked and reassembled versus a reman.

Ross

Your right, the motors are made by kukje in Korea. The motor is a cummins design and tested. The joint venture was started around 2003 if remember correctly. They were a good little motor or at least the ones that were built and tested here in the states.

I am thinking there were alcohol issues at 1:00 in the morning, just lucky he did not kill anyone.

A warranty will not cover owner negligence.

I cannot believe that fogging up that fast. There cannot be that much difference in temp between woods and out of it. Think he was just not paying attention to what he was doing.

Don't John Deere Bs have brakes?

I'm sure when it came from the factory they worked very good. With this tractor by 1979 the brakes where not the best. Between the brakes, speed, load, and loose gravel things went wrong.

My thoughts too. There has to be more to the story.