Mule freezes up
Comment by paul — November 26, 2007 @ 6:47 am
My mule 610 is the most frustrating thing I have ever owned. Since it was brand new it has had so much “blow by” that the crankcase “vent” freezes where it reenters the induction system, thus clogging the crankcase and building up crankcase pressure so that the engine will not run. It will sometimes even blow the dipstick out if you can get it to run long enough to do so. If you just take the vent off and let it vent to atmosphere it will eventually ice up anyway. Neither Kawasaki or the dealer will help me at all. They claim there is nothing wrong with it. This is ridiculous. The dealer has had it in the shop twice knowing about this. The last time they ran it 10 hours or some ridiculous thing only to give it back to me telling me it was fine and I’m the problem.. Of course,. they gave it back to me with oil that looked like chocolate milk, with .5% water in it. I have given them jars of oil, measured the blow by, graphed all this stuff out, sent the info to Kawasaki, and spent countless hours and dollars to work with the dealer and basically between them and Kawasaki, they are bigger and richer than me.
Mule 610. Full tank of gas. Ran for 20 minutes and died. Could not restart. Temperature near zero. Charged battery. Waited two days. Will turn over but not start (not even close. Backfires when you try to start. Could this be same problem you are talking about.
Thanks!!
Comment
by Tom Carter —
December 15, 2009 @
10:38 am
I had the same problem as paul with crankcase pressure build up on my 610 Mule in below freezing weather. The crankcase should in fact be at slightly negative pressure (a slight vacuum). The fuel pump runs on the pressure pulses in the crankcase and when there is pressure build up it doesn’t pump properly, if at all. There is a reed valve under the head which can freeze up if there is any moisture in the crankcase or the oil. I solved the problem by changing the oil, putting a hair dryer in the oil filler opening, attaching a shop vac fitted with an appropriate size piece of tubing to the breather which is at the rear of the engine at the top, and running both for about three hours. Now with the engine running when you pull the oil filler out most of the way the crancase vacuum will try to suck it back in. Took me a long time to figure out the problem and a cheap solution, so I hope this is of help to someone.
Comment
by bill —
December 15, 2009 @
10:44 am