Dixie Chopper Diesels Yanmar and Cat - Bitching some

LarryThornton

Forum Newbie
Joined
Jul 16, 2021
Threads
2
Messages
4
First, I live in southern Florida where we mow year round. I have two diesel Dixie Choppers. One is and old XXWD-5000 with the 50 hp. turbo-diesel Yanmar with thousands of hours on it and a late model Excalibur Diesel with the Cat engine with less than 600 hrs. On it (that is not a Caterpillar engine but actually a Perkins Shibaura Engines, Ltd. engine made in Japan.) The difference in these two mowers is incredible. I bought the XXWD-5000 used in 2009 and for the next 10 years it cut 18 acres weekly without issues other than normal deck and moving parts replacements. To this day this engine has never been gone into and cranks and runs perfectly. The Excalibur Diesel on the other hand is just the opposite. I got it from a brother-in-law who gave up on it due to fuel system problems. When I received it I completely drained, cleaned replaced the filters, intake tank screens etc. and it was running fine for about three weeks. All of a sudden while mowing, the engine over accelerated which I immediately shut down. I restarted and shut it down again realizing it was possibly an injection pump, governor issue or something beyond my capabilities. Since the local Cat dealer (Ring Power) had no interest in working on it I found a local reputable diesel mechanic to work on it. We are now into the engine with a broken timing gear and found a broken lifter so we are headed into a rebuild on an engine with less than 600 total hours on it. So far we’re >$1,700.00 in pricing out the rebuild kits. My question is has anyone else had issues with their Cat powered Dixie Chopper? I’d like to hear. My brother has one like it with about the same hours but hasn’t had these type of issues. Not yet anyway.
 

LarryThornton

Forum Newbie
Joined
Jul 16, 2021
Threads
2
Messages
4
I’m looking for another Yanmar powered Chopper as well.
 

hlw49

Lawn Addict
Joined
Jul 11, 2021
Threads
35
Messages
1,374
Never seen the Cat powered seen a few of the Yanmar powered ones. They seen to pretty much bullet proof.
 
Top