(I thought it seamed a little slow also.) Is there a recommended rpm for air cooled engines to keep cool?
I've been a lot more productive, certainly work much harder and am much happier since retiring. Not having to deal with people really helps one's attitude. Never having to do anything you don't want to is wonderful.
My logger buddies called 3 weeks ago and told me to "come get some wood" as they were in the area. I turned them down, I've got enough for the year and the yard was soft then. It is pretty easy pickings when they load for me. This was the last site I cleaned up.
Sure it should be run at WOT which would be 3600 RPM. But most of the time I split in the Winter time and it certainly is going to run hot. WOT also will put more heat into the hydro fluid too. The other day is was much warmer than normal and it was 80 degrees out. The hottest temp I could find in the oil system was 115 and that was the hydro pump itself. After 3 hours of running another day the hydro tank was 110.
I retired 2 years before I put the papers in. It is a pretty good coping mechanism to put up with the last 2 years.
Now you guys have me wondering about partial throttle or WOT operation. I am looking at a Honda GX390 manual right now, but it won't allow me to cut/paste the paragraph. But I will retype if verbatim: Position throttle lever to the desired engine speed. For engine speed recommendations, refer to the instructions of the equipment being powered by this by this engine. So Honda in the owner's manual does not dictate WOT and no mention of overheating if it is not done. As I said running this by myself is inefficient due to much of the time the splitter is not doing anything. One really needs 3 people minimum to get max results out of the splitter. Running the motor slower just runs the pump slower which certainly is going to hurt anything. It is not like a fan cooled hydro in a garden tractor that requires high RPM to cool another component. In this case running faster will make more heat in the hydraulic system.
It won't overheat running at partial throttle...I rarely/almost never run mine at full throttle, its been fine for the last 8-9 years that way...
I bought a pair of -THESE- adhesive strips. That one goes to 140° and he second one goes from 140° to 194°. I put them on my hydraulic cylinder and on my hydraulic filter housing. The filter housing runs warmer, which I knew it would with it being aluminum and all. On my cheapy big box store splitter with a 25GPM pump turning 3,750ish RPM's and a 10 gallon hydraulic capacity, the highest temp I've seen it so far was just starting to light up the 122° square. It was earlier this spring and was probably around 50° ambient. HOWEVER, it runs for ~15 minutes and then off for 20-30 minutes while I stack what's in my trailer. So it's not running for hours on end straight.........~15 minutes on and 20-30 minutes off, over and over throughout the day. The temp seems to max out at around the 122° area, as it creeps up to that temp and seems to stay right there. It helps tremendously that it's not running 100% duty cycle. Pretty sure I would not want to run this splitter all day straight in 80° ambient. Guessing the hydraulic fluid would get pretty darn warm.
I have a GX390 on my power washer. I normally run it around the same 2,600 rpms when using it on my ATV. I run large 5.5 tips and at that rpm I see about 2,000 psi and close to 4GPM IIRC. It's rated at 4.0 GPM @4,000psi.....but it meters out at over that with the stock tips and running the GX390 around 3,700rpms.
I know on some lawn tractors with hydrostatic transmissions, which have a cooling fan powered off engine RPM's, it's not good running low engine RPM's as the tranny may not be kept cool enough. The higher engine rpm's turn the cooling fan faster keeping the tranny cool.
Haven't ran across that one before...full RPM for full blade tip speed, yes...I don't suppose it would surprise you to find out I generally don't (occasionally, but not that often) run my ZTR mower(s) at full throttle either...no issues... No fan cooled pumps on most log splitters though...actually my educated guess would be that a log splitter ran at 1/2-2/3 throttle VS WOT, will run the same temp, to maybe even a bit cooler (both the engine and the hydraulics)
This is the one on our L110. Running it full throttle gives it full cooling. I don't know how many others are fan cooled like this, but if they are, one is not doing it any favors by not spinning that fan as fast as it should be. L110 42" John Deere Lawn Tractor Tuff Torq K46V Transmission Transaxle L205 | eBay I would probably tend to agree with you.
Ah, I see...I've never fooled with anything that had a transaxle like that...although most of the ZTR's I'm familiar with do have a fan on the drive pulley(s) of the hydro's, just like that...
Yes, the 4 way dropping all the way out of the way would be a big plus. Just a bit out of my way to pick him up.
I could start drawing out of my 401 in 6 years. We'll see how that looks when i get there. If i live that long...
Well I am done for the season, finished today. Way later than usual. It was super cold in Feb. and I had to use a small 25 ton splitter for about 2/3rds of the pile. Put the log lift to the test today with a large round. It was so big I could not budge it off the cut end and had to get a cant to get on its side so I could roll it. Note the size of the branch coming out of it. Blew it off with a leaf blower will wash tomorrow. About an hour before I was done ran low on fuel intentionally and topped off with 100LL aviation fuel for Summarizing. Will wash tomorrow, remove the push plate stop to fully retract the cylinder and then cover after collapsing the tongue and log table.
