Can I swap out Yanmar diesel with another type/brand engine?

When i was shopping for a small tractor, i was dealing on a JD and a Kubota both new. The Kubota in the same size with the same attachments came in about $7K cheaper

Bullitt said: I can check with parts dept monday. I work at a Yanmar dealer in Central PA Click to expand... Could you pm me where you work so I can add yins to my list of places to f8nd parts

Yanmar is asking for the engine identification tag on top of the valve cover. They said the block casting ID is not enough

Thermo-King refrigeration units use Yanmar diesels. It is not unusual to get 20-25 thousand hours between engine rebuilds. Rebuild kits are 600 bucks. I put a TK486V into my TB-035 excavator and I'm very pleased with it.

a 3-53 deeetroit might slide right in there.......

Entropy1 said: Thermo-King refrigeration units use Yanmar diesels. It is not unusual to get 20-25 thousand hours between engine rebuilds. Rebuild kits are 600 bucks. I put a TK486V into my TB-035 excavator and I'm very pleased with it. Click to expand... I'm guessing that originally had a 3 cylinder yanmar in it. How was the conversion process?

Engine must be shifted left so that pump end is about 1/2" from the frame. Stock alternator was replaced with 140 amp unit (wife wanted a bunch of lights - it's her machine). Made alternator bracket to move the alternator up from stock thermoking location. Made custom battery bracket - to keep it out of the way. Made custom air filter. Used a 1995 honda civic radiator (part no. 8011290), with custom mount. Shifted the return hydraulic filter from horizontal to vertical (adjacent to the tank), and cut a hand access hole in the side grate to change the filter (1/4-20 screws). The stock spool valve for the blade control failed, so I plumbed in an aux valve for the blade spool (with power beyond for the slew cirucit). No place for the exhaust to run other than up and out. Put a small 4-bolt flange in the exhaust, so that the cab may still tilt up for maintenance (taking the exhaust with it). The motor mounts are hard to see. They're basically (qty 4) pads (about 3" x 3"), with 1/4 thick rubber sheet providing cushion. Front mounts bolt to the front-end of oil pan. Rear mounts bolt to bottom of bell-housing. Custom radiator mount bolts in after the engine is bolted down. I moved the hydraulic oil cooler to behind the engine (not shown). Don't forget to purchase the high-flow thermoking water pump (stock pump had low-flow issues). Wife wanted a bigger roof to keep dry (washington state rain). The roof is 1/8" steel sheet, with 2"x2"x 1/4" wall square tube, with some 3" channel supports/mounts. Lots of lights - can see all around in complete dark.

More pictures

Another useful modification - the factory hydraulic tank level sight glass was about 2" tall. If the fluid was low - was it a few inches down, or was the tank almost empty? Welded on an external mount and installed a 10" sight-level gauge from Surplus Center. Also has a thermometer built into the sight glass. Pretty neat.

Doesn't look very fun to change the oil filter. Where is the fuel filter? The longer sight glass on the hyd. tank is nice. My skid steer has a clear hose about 4" long to check the hyd. oil. Full is half way up when cold. If you don't see the level you've got a leak somewhere. It's how I discovered a wheel motor was leaking into the chain case. New motor wasn't cheap.

Originally you had to unbolt the right-side counterweight to access/change the hydraulic return filter - a really dumb design. Putting a hand-access in the side air grill is much easier. I installed an aftermarket electric fuel pump. I didn't want to rely on the mechanical thermoking fuel pump, although in hindsight the thermoking fuel pump probably would've worked just fine. There's a spin-on fuel filter about 10" below the fuel pump, just aft of the main hydraulic pump. By sliding out the bottom engine cover plate, the engine oil drain, and fuel filter are easily accessible. The engine oil filter is accessible by just opening up the rear hood. The TK486V engine holds about 2 gallons of engine oil. I kept the factory electric air preheat element. Turn the key left to preheat for about 10 seconds, and she will fire right up in cold weather. The thermoking reffer units are fully automated engine controls. You don't need any of that crap. Just the fuel cutoff solenoid & starter are all that's needed electrically - and the cold-start heating element (if you want to keep that - use an electric winch-type 300 amp solenoid to switch the current). The 4 cylinder engine is larger than needed for the machine. The engine simply works less hard - presumably consuming the same (or just a tad more) fuel.

Preheat sounds similar to Perkins Thermo-start except Thermo-start burns diesel in the intake.

The hydraulics run noticeably sluggish in freezing weather. Presumably that's because I run AW-46 weight year round. The machine would probably benefit running a thinner AW-32 in cold weather. With the cost of oil, it's not worth it to me. I only tried to use it one time to clear some snow from the driveway, and it's simply not a cold weather machine. For cold weather use, I'd install a 750-Watt heater within the engine oil pan, and a 1500-Watt heater within the hydraulic oil tank, and electrically preheat the machine for a few hours prior to use. It's not worth the effort - I'd rather wait for a warmer day.

Entropy1 said: Thermo-King refrigeration units use Yanmar diesels. It is not unusual to get 20-25 thousand hours between engine rebuilds. Rebuild kits are 600 bucks. I put a TK486V into my TB-035 excavator and I'm very pleased with it. Click to expand... I know this has been awhile but I am looking to put one of those yanmars out a reefer unit in my kobelco sk 035 coupe excavator what all did you have to do to make that engine work for you.

Josh Woods said: I know this has been awhile but I am looking to put one of those yanmars out a reefer unit in my kobelco sk 035 coupe excavator what all did you have to do to make that engine work for you. Click to expand... I know it has been a while but the funny thing is, I just bolted up the Thermoking engine in the frame last weekend. I hope to complete the install and replace hydraulic fluid this coming weekend and hopefully see if the engine has enough power or if I have wasted my time. The TK was a little short on HP but it is hard to tell how much short because of the difference in available documentation on the two different engines that I have been able to find. Judging from two different documents that I was able to find I was only between 5 to 10 HP short but another set of docs that I found was saying it was about 20 HP short. If the 5 to 10 HP is correct I turned up the injection pump which I hope will overcome that amount of HP. If the latter is true then I will be going back to the drawing board. And crying to go along with it. As for the changes the biggest thing was changing the oil pan, the TKs have a crazy big oil pan so that certainly had to be changed on mine because it would not fit in my frame. The other things are the normal like belhousing, flywheel, etc. it was really a pretty simple change out. I hope this helps. Let me know if you have other questions.

Alright next question where did you get the oil pan and al the other parts you needed like bell housing flywheel and stuff like that

Josh Woods said: Alright next question where did you get the oil pan and al the other parts you needed like bell housing flywheel and stuff like that Click to expand... I was able to use all of that from my original engine that had the bad block. I have two extra bell housings and a lot of other miscellaneous parts that I would sale very reasonably if we could figure out if they would fit for your application. I also have a Yanmar 4 cyl diesel engine that I rebuilt setting in my shop that I would part with. It came from a small excavator but I don’t know if it is big enough for your application or not.

Bobcat Crazy said: I was able to use all of that from my original engine that had the bad block. I have two extra bell housings and a lot of other miscellaneous parts that I would sale very reasonably if we could figure out if they would fit for your application. I also have a Yanmar 4 cyl diesel engine that I rebuilt setting in my shop that I would part with. It came from a small excavator but I don’t know if it is big enough for your application or not. Click to expand... I decided not too use it for my application because the cubic inch was smaller than the engine I was replacing.

Bobcat Crazy said: I was able to use all of that from my original engine that had the bad block. I have two extra bell housings and a lot of other miscellaneous parts that I would sale very reasonably if we could figure out if they would fit for your application. I also have a Yanmar 4 cyl diesel engine that I rebuilt setting in my shop that I would part with. It came from a small excavator but I don’t know if it is big enough for your application or not. Click to expand... Where are you located at would be curious to see if it all would work for what I got

Josh Woods said: Where are you located at would be curious to see if it all would work for what I got Click to expand... I am just east of Raleigh North Carolina.