One of the risks of using heavy equipment in brush and trees is that twigs and small leaves will get between the exhaust stack and the sheet metal of the hood and in time will dry out and cause it to either smoke or can cause a fire.  Here is a super great tip that is cheap and will solve that problem easily and is field proven.

For those who work in the brush with heavy  'iron'.  I use 1/8 by 3/4 flat iron to make a ring  slightly larger than the exhaust pipe hole in the hood, tack weld this to the hood.  This helps keep little twigs leaves etc. from working there
way off the hood and down onto the manifold where they dry out and
eventually start burning. [believe me, a fire on this equipment is no fun, especially when it gets in the belly pan under the motor]! We developed
quit a repertoire of preventative tricks on the CAT D6's we used to cut
seismic lines in the bush, anything to keep the fine brush off the
motors.

Submitted by:<redlund@telusplanet.net>

Editors Note:

Fire is risk that can be easily avoided with heavy equipment.  A lot of heavy equipment old and new has been destroyed or required costly repairs because of fire.  One of the best and least expensive ways to reduce the risk of fire in the engine area is to control leaks as best as possible, keep the area  clean and periodically clean the belly pan out of all the accumulated fuels, dirt and grease. On one tractor I alone I cleaned well over 500+lbs of accumulated grease, fuel oil,  twigs and dirt,