# 2009 Kioti DK 50 CHSE overheating



## Bill Woods (Jun 21, 2020)

I have a 2009 DK50 CHSE that is overheating. Last year it did that and I cleaned it but would still have to let it cool down. I would use a blower to help out. I cleaned the screens. It lasted longer last year or heated up more slowly. Now when I use the PTO to bush hog it overheats in less than 10 minutes bush hogging. Can’t get much done. I’m cleaning the screens, cooling it to the running hash marks on the temp gauge, blowing it out with the blower and checking the fluids. Radiator and overflow tanks are Full. Belts are on. When I was taking it back to park it overheated going uphill for about 1/4 mile but surprisingly when I went down a huge hill it almost cooled back down to operating temp in medium speed and 1000 rpm as opposed to the 2500 operating rpm for the PTO. Then I tried it back out on level land and it started heating back up. I’m pretty new at this so any help is appreciated. I’m thinking my next step is actually draining the coolant And flushing the system. Just not sure where to go from here. I was told it could be a thermostat or an oil cooling pump. I don’t know where to look for that. Kioti doesn’t have great pics in its tiny operating manual or much to go by. Thank you for any advice!!!!

Bill


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## Colton (Jun 21, 2020)

I was brush hogging our back pasture yesterday and my 65hp john deer overheated.. the grill has a small dent in it which allowed pollen and other small brush to get in and clog a small 6in x 12in radiator. (I assume the oil cooler) Which was tucked behind a plate secured with wing nuts, hard to see unless you were looking for it.
Try lightly power washing your radiators, may help.


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## marc_hanna (Apr 10, 2017)

When doing a flush, you also need to clean the cooling system. I use a mixture of softwater and food grade citric acid. This will remove any scale that has built up in the system over the years. Dissolve half a cup of citric acid powder in a gallon of warm water and add it to the system with fresh water after you have drained the coolant. Let the engine warm up and idle for 1/2 an hour, then shut it down and let it cool down before draining. Then flush again with straight fresh water, again letting it get to temp, cool down, drain and fill with coolant. 

You may also have and air pocket, plugged passages, plugged rad(screen), etc. You may also need to comb your rad.


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## DK35vince (Jan 22, 2006)

Hose or blow out the radiator fins real good. (shine a light through to see if you can see through all the fins)
Brush mowing (depending on what's being cut) can plug up radiator fins fairly quickly.
Proper belt tension ??


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## marc_hanna (Apr 10, 2017)

DK35vince said:


> Hose or blow out the radiator fins real good. (shine a light through to see if you can see through all the fins)
> Brush mowing (depending on what's being cut) can plug up radiator fins fairly quickly.
> Proper belt tension ??


I clean off the rad after every cut.


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## Bill Woods (Jun 21, 2020)

How do you know if it’s the thermostat? The manual says the cooling flow goes either way depending on the temperature on each side of 160degrees.


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## Bill Woods (Jun 21, 2020)

The coolant was full on both radiator and reservoir.


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## Bill Woods (Jun 21, 2020)

The last thing is that there was a fan belt screech when I cranked it up but it went away and there doesn’t seem to be a broken belt I can see.


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## pogobill (Jan 31, 2012)

I wonder if your water pump is on the way out? The screeching belt thing?


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## marc_hanna (Apr 10, 2017)

Thermostats should fail open. A bad water pump makes sense too.


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## DK35vince (Jan 22, 2006)

pogobill said:


> I wonder if your water pump is on the way out? The screeching belt thing?


Or a loose belt
I'm still betting the radiator fins a partially plugged, clean those radiator fins out REALLY WELL.(the issue 90% of the time)
If the belts squeals on startup, tighten it..


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## Bill Woods (Jun 21, 2020)

DK35vince said:


> Hose or blow out the radiator fins real good. (shine a light through to see if you can see through all the fins)
> Brush mowing (depending on what's being cut) can plug up radiator fins fairly quickly.
> Proper belt tension ??


I haven’t checked the belt tension yet. I’m will do that.


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## Bill Woods (Jun 21, 2020)

One more thing. I talked to the previous owner yesterday and he said he had never flushed the system But had just added coolant to it over time. That’s a troubling thought to me. Also when I flush it do I flush the engine too? And can the engine side be blocked so that I’m only flushing the radiator and not both. The reason I was asking is that the first time it overheated there was nothing left in the overflow/expansion reservoir. I filled it and the level never moved after it subsequently overheated.

Thank you all for your responses and help!!! 

Bill


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## marc_hanna (Apr 10, 2017)

When you flush the system, you drain it first from the plug on the bottom of the rad. This will get most the coolant out. When you refill it with coolant flush solution and start the engine, when it gets up to temperature the thermostat will open and circulate the solution throughout the engine.


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## marc_hanna (Apr 10, 2017)

So, yes you want to flush the entire cooling system. I should have stated that right from the start.


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## Bill Woods (Jun 21, 2020)

marc_hanna said:


> So, yes you want to flush the entire rolling system. I should have stated that right from the start.


Thank you. I’ll probably be out there sometime later in the week and certainly appreciate all the advice from EVERYONE!!


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## MrDuck (Mar 6, 2020)

Check the bottom hose make sure it’s not sucking together when you have it throttled up. If it is it could be a clogged radiator or thermostat not opening.


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## Busted Tractor (May 22, 2018)

Be SURE the radiator fins are CLEAN. Use a good light on one side and look thru the other. If air cannot get thru you have very little cooling. Brushing off the junk covering the fins will do little good if the radiator is plugged in the fins. Just a little story--One time a customer called and said his combine was overheating. I was supposed a water pump, new belts a thermostat a new cap and more. When I got there I removed the screen over the radiator and could not see thru the core!!! Spent about 3 hours washing it out with a pressure washer and could see thru about 99% of the core. Went home he reported it ran cool then. But had to repeat about a year later. Yep ran cool after it was washed out again, just didn't learn.


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## sleepylizard (Dec 28, 2016)

I have found it an advantage to fit a piece of plastic (or fibre glass) fly wire inside the grill of all my vehicles, including the tractor. This is easy to clean and save a lot of fine particles getting into the radiator fins. You can also buy propriety brand flush which works pretty well. When doing mine, I remove the bottom hose off the radiator to let the dirty water out, refit it & flush again. *Just be careful not to burn the fingers!!!*


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## JES2 (Feb 8, 2018)

sleepylizard said:


> I have found it an advantage to fit a piece of plastic (or fibre glass) fly wire inside the grill of all my vehicles, including the tractor. This is easy to clean and save a lot of fine particles getting into the radiator fins. You can also buy propriety brand flush which works pretty well. When doing mine, I remove the bottom hose off the radiator to let the dirty water out, refit it & flush again. *Just be careful not to burn the fingers!!!*


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## JES2 (Feb 8, 2018)

You may want to Add a new radiator cap and use 50/50 anti-freeze and see if it improves the work you've done .


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## willy81 (Jan 30, 2020)

would it be wise to leave the radiator cap off while filling to let the air out??


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## JES2 (Feb 8, 2018)

William Smith said:


> would it be wise to leave the radiator cap off while filling to let the air out??


If this tractor has an overflow bottle on it you need to fill the radiator to the very top and put the cap on. thin find the full mark on the bottle and fill it to that mark. If you want to fill the radiator a little at a time until full that will help with air pockets


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## Bill Woods (Jun 21, 2020)

Busted Tractor said:


> Be SURE the radiator fins are CLEAN. Use a good light on one side and look thru the other. If air cannot get thru you have very little cooling. Brushing off the junk covering the fins will do little good if the radiator is plugged in the fins. Just a little story--One time a customer called and said his combine was overheating. I was supposed a water pump, new belts a thermostat a new cap and more. When I got there I removed the screen over the radiator and could not see thru the core!!! Spent about 3 hours washing it out with a pressure washer and could see thru about 99% of the core. Went home he reported it ran cool then. But had to repeat about a year later. Yep ran cool after it was washed out again, just didn't learn.


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## Bill Woods (Jun 21, 2020)

I bought a radiator Genie wand pair and yesterday, removed the air filter and top plate over the radiator. I did not remove the radiator but I di blow it out and rinse the fins well. Took about 2 hours solid. This radiator has three cores. A small one in front, a larger one in the middle that is sandwiched to an even larger one on the engine side. You cannot see through the fins due to this arrangement but I did find the there was an extreme amount of debris between the two inner cores!! I had to carefully pick that out with some heavy gauge copper ground wire. I was careful not to damage fins but I was able to bend it to get in between the two cores. It all looked pretty clean now. The water pump is turning. I idled it up and took a quick lap to the gate and back. No overheating but I didn’t have an implement hooked up to the PTO. Waiting on a new cap and thermostat to get here and then I will flush it out. I have been suggested to flush with citric acid, Drano, cascade, otc radiator flush or nothing and use distilled water. Looking forward to seeing this through and seeing if it clears up this issue. Thank you all again.


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## marc_hanna (Apr 10, 2017)

If you use drano, make sure to use the the consumer strength and not the commercial strength, as this has the ability to dissolve aluminum. 

As I mentioned, citric acid is a good cleaner to use, and for example, it is Mercedes Benz’s official method for coolant flushes, so it’s a trusted method. 

Good luck and happy tractoring.


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## Bill Woods (Jun 21, 2020)

marc_hanna said:


> When doing a flush, you also need to clean the cooling system. I use a mixture of softwater and food grade citric acid. This will remove any scale that has built up in the system over the years. Dissolve half a cup of citric acid powder in a gallon of warm water and add it to the system with fresh water after you have drained the coolant. Let the engine warm up and idle for 1/2 an hour, then shut it down and let it cool down before draining. Then flush again with straight fresh water, again letting it get to temp, cool down, drain and fill with coolant.
> 
> You may also have and air pocket, plugged passages, plugged rad(screen), etc. You may also need to comb your rad.





marc_hanna said:


> If you use drano, make sure to use the the consumer strength and not the commercial strength, as this has the ability to dissolve aluminum.
> 
> As I mentioned, citric acid is a good cleaner to use, and for example, it is Mercedes Benz’s official method for coolant flushes, so it’s a trusted method.
> 
> Good luck and happy tractoring.


where do u get the citric acid?


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## Bill Woods (Jun 21, 2020)

marc_hanna said:


> If you use drano, make sure to use the the consumer strength and not the commercial strength, as this has the ability to dissolve aluminum.
> 
> As I mentioned, citric acid is a good cleaner to use, and for example, it is Mercedes Benz’s official method for coolant flushes, so it’s a trusted method.
> 
> Good luck and happy tractoring.


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## Bill Woods (Jun 21, 2020)

Marc where do you get the citric acid and the radiator fill is about 2.5 gallons. What’s you recommended amount to put in there? That sounds less caustic than drano. Not sure about the cascade deal.


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## marc_hanna (Apr 10, 2017)

I bought my citric acid on amazon, and it has lasted me for years. I bought 5lbs for just a few dollars. If you buy it from a dealer, it will cost a fortune.

I dissolve about 1/2 a cup to a cup in a gallon of warm water and then add it to the coolant reservoir, then fill the rest up with water. That should be a good concentration for your tractor also.

Remember, you have to get your engine up to operating temperature so that the thermostat opens and circulates through the rad and engine. You can let it run for quite a while, just make sure you watch the engine temperature because you don't have any boil-over protection without antifreeze in there (anti-freeze is also anti-boil).

Let cool, drain, then fill and repeat with just clean water. Let cool drain, and fill with proper coolant.

If you see a lot of crud coming out when you drain, you can repeat the citric acid solution again.

When you refill, if you have to mix your own antifreeze solution, you can use either distilled or softened water, just not tap water, because the calcium and magnesium with precipitate out and create a scale layer inside your engine, causing both corrosion and poor heat transfer.

Basically, any food grade or technical grade citric acid powder/crystals will work.


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## Bill Woods (Jun 21, 2020)

This?


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## marc_hanna (Apr 10, 2017)

That would do, but you can find 5lb and 1lb bags on amazon that might be a better price/weight.


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