Considering MS on old farm equipment. Worth it?
Posted: Wed May 13, 2015 9:19 pm
Hi everyone!
I'm a small farmer and run a variety of old equipment. I have as many diesels as I can but unfortunately wound up with some gassers in the bunch.
The carbs on these are a neverending task getting everything running for the upcoming season. This week I am working on my old MF36 swather, a good solid belt drive machine from the 70s. Everything on the machine works great and is very maintainable - except the carb, whose float has sunk AGAIN. It's tempting to convert machines like this to fuel injection.
This guy would be a great first candidate as it has a little 4 cylinder sitting up top with lots of access all over and around the block to work on it. Also it only works a couple weeks of the year, giving lots of time to wrench on it!
I was wondering if there are real gains to be had that will help me in the field and make the conversion worth it. It obviously has no components that will be of any use - it is a classic engine of the 70s. I would need to scrape up everything at the junkyard.
Will I save significant fuel or get a useful HP boost that will let me get more work done with less fuel/time on the machine? This is no race car, it's a 50HP machine that has a top speed of 10MPH. And it is governed, so more top end is no use to me - what I really need is more torque to run the knives and table so I can cut faster without bogging down. Or - the same performance with better fuel economy and less exhaust (open cab)
Also wondering if there are true governor features in Megasquirt or only rev-limiting. The current belt-driven mechanical governor modulates the throttle. If I could do away with it and set the governed speed with a potentiometer then the conversion would be well worth not having to maintain that pesky thing as well...
I'm a small farmer and run a variety of old equipment. I have as many diesels as I can but unfortunately wound up with some gassers in the bunch.
The carbs on these are a neverending task getting everything running for the upcoming season. This week I am working on my old MF36 swather, a good solid belt drive machine from the 70s. Everything on the machine works great and is very maintainable - except the carb, whose float has sunk AGAIN. It's tempting to convert machines like this to fuel injection.
This guy would be a great first candidate as it has a little 4 cylinder sitting up top with lots of access all over and around the block to work on it. Also it only works a couple weeks of the year, giving lots of time to wrench on it!
I was wondering if there are real gains to be had that will help me in the field and make the conversion worth it. It obviously has no components that will be of any use - it is a classic engine of the 70s. I would need to scrape up everything at the junkyard.
Will I save significant fuel or get a useful HP boost that will let me get more work done with less fuel/time on the machine? This is no race car, it's a 50HP machine that has a top speed of 10MPH. And it is governed, so more top end is no use to me - what I really need is more torque to run the knives and table so I can cut faster without bogging down. Or - the same performance with better fuel economy and less exhaust (open cab)
Also wondering if there are true governor features in Megasquirt or only rev-limiting. The current belt-driven mechanical governor modulates the throttle. If I could do away with it and set the governed speed with a potentiometer then the conversion would be well worth not having to maintain that pesky thing as well...