Arbtrak 190, RPM going down every now and then

[Soeren]

After performing some part replacements, which went well du to Jase's comment (sill thanks for that!), I am facing a new problem which also came up, rarely, before I had the serveral weeks stopped due to parts replacement.

Symptom is as follwing: The RPM builds up to full (which is 1620/1630) and after some minutes just goes down. Sometimes slightly to 1500 sometimes to 800 and sometimes it went down more and more until the moter went off. It is a little erratic, but happened this morning about 15 times at least.

 

Things I tried out:

 

• Can happen in tracking mode, but because I do it rarely in the moment, I see it mostly in chpping mode
• Rotating speed of rollers does not seem to have any impact
• Durating since starting (i.e. motor/ oil temperature) has no impact
• I usally work with the slow/fast button on the RDS, but tried with the manual throttle in a final step (just before my lunch break). This seamed to help, but I will confirm this.
• Such spin down can come down just one after the other or with minutes or half hour in between.
• In the first place I had the impression it was more the minutes directly after tracking, but this might be a very subjective perception
• I also noticed that the fixed roller seems to stop now and then very shortly and might stop when feeding in larger portions of branches or trunks. But not that big, that it would block normally, maybe just 8cm diameter. The sliding roller (which I just exchanged to a brand new) always rotates well.
• In general I noticed that when turning the roller speed knob to "slow" the rollers really, really craw very slowly, but don't know if this is normal (or what is "normal")
• When the motor halts, the display will always show "0.L", see attached foto and the RDS starts to beep.

 

Of course I checked all the regular stuff, oil, fuel, hydraulic oil, cooling, fuses etc., all good. Also everything was very clean, well greased and the flywheel can rotate very nicely.

 

Maybe I can first get a hint of the message (didn't find it in the manual) in order to circle the problem. I suppose it has something to do with the hydraulics, my best guess is maybe a loos connection with a detector or something, but just guessing.

 

Thanks,

Soeren

 

[openspaceman]

2 hours ago, Soeren said:

When the motor halts, the display will always show "0.L", see attached foto and the RDS starts to beep.

that must mean OIL and could be low pressure as the oil gets hot or just high temprature.

 

The other symptom sounds a bit like blocked fuel filter.

[Soeren]

Hi spaceman, thanks for the hint, a blocked filter would cause problems right from the start, right (see below)? Bu will check fuel filter tomorrow morning first thing ?

 

When you say "oil", does this refer to motor or hydraulic oil? Hydraulic oil has a full level and medium temperature all the time following the gauge on the tank. The motor oil seemed to be leveled full this morning, but I cannot say anything about the temperature of course.

 

Had to work some other stuff some hours around noon so let the arbtrak cool down for some 3 hours. I started again with my email in mind and tried to correlate the issue somehow more narrowing the actions:

• There seems to be no relation towards "has tracked just before or not", manual gas yes/no or any other described action.
• The machine chipped like hell but I noticed that after some 90~100 minute the issue started to rise again. RPM began to oscillate up and down first by 150~200 RPM, minutes later even more and finally it went out ("0.L" or "oil" if that's the thing). It was barely not possible to continue work after some more 15 minutes, because RPM went down finally always after some seconds when reaching max so I stopped for the day.
  Remembering this morning it also started after some 110~120 minutes (it was 5 degree cooler this morning), so something temperature related would make sense.

Regards.

Soeren

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, Soeren said:

Hi spaceman, thanks for the hint, a blocked filter would cause problems right from the start, right (see below)? Bu will check fuel filter tomorrow morning first thing ?

Not necessarily, on a tractor I've know the sock filter in the tank to gradually block with a watery gel, gradually the suck from the pump would collapse the sock and the engine would die, leave it 10 minutes and it would run again.

1 hour ago, Soeren said:

 

When you say "oil", does this refer to motor or hydraulic oil?

It's the warning for either low engine oil pressure or low engine oil level, we'll have to wait and see if @Jase hutch picks up on this.

[Stubby]

59 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

Not necessarily, on a tractor I've know the sock filter in the tank to gradually block with a watery gel, gradually the suck from the pump would collapse the sock and the engine would die, leave it 10 minutes and it would run again.

It's the warning for either low engine oil pressure or low engine oil level, we'll have to wait and see if @Jase hutch picks up on this.

Sounds like fuel starvation to me . Does the " oil " warning come on automatically when the ignition is turned ? ( coz its not yet running there is no pressure )  so when the revs drop and it stops it will show that warning .  I would be looking at fuel filters first . Also there must be some kind of tank vent . Check its not blocked and pulling a vacuum .

Edited November 30, 2020 by Stubby

[Jase hutch]

Yes the Oil warning is engine oil.

I agree with the problem sounding like fuel but if the engine died and stopped with a fuel problem then 'Alt' would be shown on the display. However i would suggest changing the main fuel filter and in-line filter if there's one fitted and also blow through the fuel line back to the tank.

It would be worth carefully checking the fuse box for a bad connection and the multi earth connection that's under an engine mounting bolt.

Out of interest,  when was the engine oil and filter last changed ?

Regarding the fixed feed roller , i would crawl underneath the chipper and check that the hydraulic motor and it's mounting plate haven't come loose allowing the drive gears to come out of mesh .

The flow control for the feed rollers should be able to completely stop the rollers when fully closed.

Jase.

[Jase hutch]

Another check that the system is working correctly is to remove the yellow wire from the starter motor,  go through the countdown and press and hold the start button,  you should then hear the fuel solenoid click in and some seconds later the solenoid should drop out and the oil warning should come up on the display because the system thinks the engine should be running and its looking for oil pressure. 

Jase.

[Soeren]

2 hours ago, Stubby said:

Sounds like fuel starvation to me . Does the " oil " warning come on automatically when the ignition is turned ? ( coz its not yet running there is no pressure )  so when the revs drop and it stops it will show that warning .  I would be looking at fuel filters first . Also there must be some kind of tank vent . Check its not blocked and pulling a vacuum .

Hi Stubby,

 

"oil" just comes up after some time when the motor dies, but not directly after starting. Tank vent could be one thing, I'll loosen the cap tomorrow while running so I can check for a possible ventilation problem. ?

 

1 hour ago, Jase hutch said:

Yes the Oil warning is engine oil.

I agree with the problem sounding like fuel but if the engine died and stopped with a fuel problem then 'Alt' would be shown on the display. However i would suggest changing the main fuel filter and in-line filter if there's one fitted and also blow through the fuel line back to the tank.

It would be worth carefully checking the fuse box for a bad connection and the multi earth connection that's under an engine mounting bolt.

Out of interest,  when was the engine oil and filter last changed ?

Regarding the fixed feed roller , i would crawl underneath the chipper and check that the hydraulic motor and it's mounting plate haven't come loose allowing the drive gears to come out of mesh .

The flow control for the feed rollers should be able to completely stop the rollers when fully closed.

Jase.

Hi Jase, thanks for joining ? I bought the machine with ~720 hours. We agreed to have all fluids and filters changed, that was about 80 running hours ago, or end of January this year. Hydraulic and motor oil was fully leveled and I must beleive, they have exchanged it with fresh filters.

However, checking for the spare parts binder I just noticed that the fuel guaze filter is not installed at all. Is this a nice-to-have item or would you highly recommend it? I will in any case check inline and main filter for dirt and also check that the solenoid does work as proposed. Fuses are okay, but applying some contact spray might make sure they are perfectly.

Will also check the fixed roller from underneath as recommended.

 

So thanks a lot, quite a number of hints and checks for tomorrow - will be back what helped!

 

Best,

Soeren

 

PS: The 190 op manual states there is a "track manual" and "engine manual", I don't have them nor did I find them on the Greenmech website. Can you send them me via PM or email? Thx.

[Jase hutch]

Hi Soeren ,

If you're happy to pm me your address or email it to: 

[email protected] 

Then we can post the manuals to you.

Regards. 

Jase.