|
Al, My 60 will get to 190 or so when it's 90 outside in the summer. And I also have to move a lot of snow before I see 140-150 now. Here's a couple of ways to think about it. 1. Check the coolant capacity of say a 327 or 350 Chevy engine. I think you'll find they're a max of 18 quarts, or 4.5 gallons. The JD 60 is 321 cu. in. and has 8.25 gallons of coolant. Also bear in mind a lot more air can circulate around the 60 block and head than ever gets into a Chevy's engine compartment to provide cooling. 2. Check the manual about the "heat switch" on the intake manifold. It says to change the setting to preheat when it's below 32, but switch back when it's above 32, or you'll get lousy fuel economy. If a lot of fuel is unburned or not well combusted, you'd see bunches of black smoke out the exhaust, and if it's totally falling out of suspension, you're going to see gas in the crankcase. If you don't have either of these problems - something must be working fairly right in there. One real good indicator of combustion efficiency is an exhaust gas temp sensor mounted close to the head on the manifold. Tweak things until it runs at 1350 to 1400 degrees. Someday I might get ambitious and stick an EGT on my 60. Until then I'm happy reading the smoke and knowing I can run the mixture from too rich (black) to too lean (white). So I tend accept the cool running as a design feature - like slow revving and 2 clyinders that was planned-in to give the tractor a longer life. It might say a little bit about our world now that when we see a feature like that, we don't really trust it. My reactions over the cool running thing were the same as yours. I recently saw this article about "tuning" your water temp using an electric water pump. Thought it was intersting - also there's a lot more info on the whole subject there that might interest you as well. Steve
| 
