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Keweenaw PB's

NorthernRedneck

Well-known member
GOLD Site Supporter
That sucks. I never blew a head gasket on a groomer but I know it happens.

I do recall a time our spare br160 on loan to another club blew a rad hose and lost a bunch of antifreeze. The operator patched it on the trail and found a creek to fill it up with water to get home. Did what he had to I guess. The real kick in the nuts is that he didn't tell anybody about it and left the machine sitting outside at -30 all night unplugged. See where this is going?

You guessed it. The water he had to use to get home froze solid and cracked the block. Ouch!
 

olympicorange

Active member
……. well, with 9000 hrs. it's probably due for a headgasket, and a few other things . what model engine do you have... are you guyz using the ''green'' or ''red'' coolant.... there's a couple of things you can check yourselves to determine , when you start it up cold, does it smoke greyish /white, …. I can give you a few things to look for ….. :smile:
 

alryA

Well-known member
OK, I just got out of the bully barn after a visit with the Cummings mechanic. Yes, he works for that company. He said we dropped a valve in the last cylinder for an unknown reason. May have got stuck in the open position or some other reason. He wasn't yet sure what had happened but its got problems. We use the gold coolant..
 

olympicorange

Active member
….. well that's not good, funny how they always break when you need them the most. so, guessing you must have an in-line 6 cyl. usually it's cyl. #5 that fails on an L-6 . because it's the warmest cyl. in the block cooling system. not sure what ''gold'' coolant is. but most likely a valve stem ''keeper'' or ''rotator'' failed , allowing the valve to drop, and the piston kicked a ''field goal'' …. so it was running on 5 cyls., skipping, loss of power, smoking , etc. could also have dropped a valve ''seat', not real common on a Cummins, but common enough on others. good luck A....
 

alryA

Well-known member
Well guys, that blown valve officially ended my grooming career,, at least on sled trails.. It was the rear most valve that failed. I called the clubs president and told him some of the funny things I seen and experienced along the way. He's a real nice guy and all but I'm not sure the info I gave him was valued.. That place is soooooo disorganized. Oh well. Hope to be grooming ski trails next winter. Wish me luck!
 

BearGap

Active member
GOLD Site Supporter
That takes real HP. Reminds me of going over the Cascades in the 70’s sitting in the front engine on the Milw RR busting thru 3’ drifts and feeling the 150 ton loco shudder.
 

Red130

Member
Well guys, that blown valve officially ended my grooming career,, at least on sled trails.. It was the rear most valve that failed. I called the clubs president and told him some of the funny things I seen and experienced along the way. He's a real nice guy and all but I'm not sure the info I gave him was valued.. That place is soooooo disorganized. Oh well. Hope to be grooming ski trails next winter. Wish me luck!

Hi Arly- Seems like "disorganized" and broken machines often go together, eh?
Gland you got some good time in on the PB's this winter. Stay safe.

Dave
 

alryA

Well-known member
Little update on the sled trail grooming operations here. I texted my buddy who worked there with me and he gave me a lengthy, lengthy update on how things went this winter.... My old machine #4 was repaired but broken down again, before spring. This time for good and its now up FS since it was over heated and cooked the engine. It should have between 9 and 10,000 hours on it by now. The operations manager quit over the winter which is good, and my buddy took it over that so I might go back to work for them this fall. :) Thought you guys might like an update.
 
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