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Dalhart, Texas | Somebody had a post a while back on a MM piece of equipment and got me to thinking. How did MM become one of the best economical irrigation engines in my opinion? Sure, cats are great engines, but considerably more expensive. Hopefully parts availability never becomes to big of an issue with MM. Somebody with some history would make for some interesting reading. |
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West Central Minnesota | I am admittedly no expert on MM power units, but have had the opportunity to visit with people with vast amounts of hands on experience. MM was one of the very first tractor related companies to use propane and natural gas as a fuel. I believe Cat preceded them. It seems that either of these fuels works quite well with the long stroke engines. What surprises me is that an engine that was designed possibly over 60 years ago can still be considered a viable power unit today.
Although not an irrigation application, I toured an ice cream plant in suthern Minnesota a few years back that used MM 800 cid engines for the manufacturing process. They had a total of nine engines...a max of eight in use at one time. Number nine engine was a back unit that came into play when one of the others was down for maintenance. When a fresh batch of ice cream was produced, all eight were needed to freeze the product. Maybe only two were needed to maintain temps after it reach the final temp. The engines ran on natural gas. They were all plumbed into a common cooling system and each engine had water cooled oil pans so that if one or more engines had to be place into service they could be put under full load in a couple of minutes because they were completely warmed up before they were started. This common cooling system had a heat exchanger that was used to preheat the ice cream recipe when a new batch was started. All engines were plumbed into a common exhaust system that used another heat exchanger used to heat domestic water used throughout the large building. The maintenance supervisor stated that they expected around 50,000 hrs between overhauls. Crankshafts and camshafts were seldom a problem because of the size of journals, so they would bore the blocks .020" each time until they reach the max of .060" and then they pushed in a dry sleeve and started all over again. Naturally, heads and valves were done periodically.
The annual reports prove that the power units were MM's most profitable segment of their business. With the financial problems the company had, maybe they should have pushed that part of their operation a little harder!!
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Grand Island, Nebraska | They were a popular power unit 50 years ago here in this area. Now they are pretty well all gone and parts are mostly nonexistent. They were pretty good on fuel because they ran so slow. We had several on some of our farms years ago. Then we went to pivots and Ford V8s on natural gas. We would run them until they were either worn out or blew up. Have since went electric or 5.9 Cummins. Sure don't miss the MMs. They became too expensive to overhaul and parts became hard to find. |
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| Yeh Minneapolis were popular in the 50s an 60s but are pretty much non existent any more. They had trouble with those motors when they increased the power through higher RPMs. Seems like plugs wouldnt last very long in them. If you are on Natural gas today most likly have a Ford or Chevy motor. IHs were popular when they made them. Chrysler made a 413 which was a very good irrigation motor. I have a couple off Ford 460s which are very durable long lasting motors. Natural gas is cheaper to run right now then diesel. So glad I didnt switch over. |
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NC Indiana | That's funny, guys are having MM (I think its the 435 engine?) detuned and completely rebuilt to replace diesels here. Of course, engines are getting harder to find, but when they are running 2-2.5 gph and LP is $1.43 for summer fill and they'll last 4- 8 times as long vs diesels between majors, why go diesel? My biggest problem is getting the MM guy enough time to build the engines as these dang diesels keep cutting into his time. To bad the block patterns are likely long gone; a guy could have a good little business around here for new engines. |
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Crawfordsville, Arkansas | striker782 - 8/1/2011 23:23
They were a popular power unit 50 years ago here in this area. Now they are pretty well all gone and parts are mostly nonexistent. They were pretty good on fuel because they ran so slow. We had several on some of our farms years ago. Then we went to pivots and Ford V8s on natural gas. We would run them until they were either worn out or blew up. Have since went electric or 5.9 Cummins. Sure don't miss the MMs. They became too expensive to overhaul and parts became hard to find.
http://www.lubbockgasket.com/moline_engine_parts.html
Lotsa parts to be had here. Not too sure on prices though. |
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Dunnell MN | Why a new engine is not WAY more efficient than an old one. 50year old one to boot?????? Technology has us going backwards????
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south Texas , York Rife Freemason | FARMNTILEN - 8/2/2011 09:36
Why a new engine is not WAY more efficient than an old one. 50year old one to boot?????? Technology has us going backwards????
Pollution junk ,has the exhaust restricted on new engines . |
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Newfane NY | I have a Deutz 100-06 from the late 60's pumping water and a Deere 7405 doing the same thing. I did a little trial on the same gun in the same field. The Deutz uses 1.5 gals per hour less diesel than the Deere. The Deutz has 8700 hours on and the Deere 3200 hours. The Deutz is using $5 per hour less fuel. A pull takes 12 hours, so that is $60 per pull less fuel. 7 pulls a week is $420 per week savings or profit if you look at it that way. Bought the Deutz used for $6000 and the Deere new for $45,000. The Deutz makes me money pumping water and the Deere costs me money. I do need the Deere for a planter that the Deutz can not do. Or you can say I bought the Deere when I had Green sickness. I am over that now and I enjoy looking at my old Deutz's and seeing how much money I have in the bank because of some 40 year old technology.
Now if I would take that Deutz to Kramers for a Kramer tune-up I bet it would burn 2 gals per hour less.
So yes, I feel in some things we have gone backwards. |
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| do they just specialize in the air cooled deutz or do they work on the modern liquid ones, just wondering. |
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Newfane NY | They have more work than they can do with the air cooled ones. They are DX tranny gurus and have a line of those tractors waiting to be rebuilt and made better. |
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Minneapolis moline question.
