Diesel Engine Temperature

[VTHokieAg]

I have a '60 B-275 Diesel that my grandfather used regularly and I revived it from sitting 8 years (he died). I've done all maintenance on tractor (oil, filters, etc) and have been running it and using it for about 6 months with no problems whatsoever. The temp gauge has not worked for a long, long time so I decided to put a new one on it recently. Since I've put it on I can never get the temperature over 150 degrees. I have bush hogged the last 2 weekends running wide open throttle for 1-2 hours in thick brush and it climbs to 150 and stops. I was just wondering if this was normal or not. The engine runs amazing so I'm not saying anything is wrong but just wondering if this was typical. Obviously, it has probably done this for 20+ years and we never knew because of non-working gauge and the only reason I'm asking is because I put a new gauge on her.

 

[fixerupper]

My first guess is the thermostat is either stuck open or it's been removed.

 

[Allan in NE]

Totally normal. You don't have nearly enough load on it to really make 'er hot.

Allan

 

[Russ from MN]

We had one, normally ran cool but one year the normal baling tractor (JD R) was down for repairs and we put the B275 on the small baler with the kicker and a wagon behind, that warmed it up. I will never forget that, every time it would kick a bale the back of the tractor would almost come off the ground!

 

[JimB2]

Hi, We had a B414D for many years and it had a radiator curtain that had a pull chain connected to the lower dash and you controlled the engine temp by pulling or releasing the rad curtain pull chain. I believe the B275D had the same rad curtain arrangement.

JimB