More Tractor Repairs....

Well, last Sunday afternoon I started to use my Kubota tractor to fill some of the holes I had dug for the apple trees I never ended up buying, and to smooth my driveway, and when I first started out, on every full turn of the wheel there was a popping sound coming from the left front wheel assembly. If I put it in 2wd it went away and if I was going perfectly straight in 4wd it went away. I smoothed my driveway in 4wd (I was shocked at how quickly the tractor lost traction and stopped with a 7' box blade behind it in 2wd) and it did okay. It popped a couple times but only when turning or backing up. I knew I should have just parked it but it didn't really sound that bad.

I went to fill up some holes and was using 2wd but got stuck down in a hole and switched to 4wd to back up out of the hole. The wheel stayed still and the axle made a horrible popping noise. I took it back out of 4wd and used the bucket on the front end loader to get me out of the hole. I went and parked it and there was gear oil all over the left front wheel rim. It still seemed to be fine in 2wd and when I put it back in 4wd it actually worked, but it made the popping sound.

I called a friend who is a John Deere industrial machinery mechanic (he works on the yellow John Deere tractors, not the green ones) and he came out to look at it with me last Monday.

Here is the axle before anything was done. You can tell by the built up dirt and grease (and the kitty litter on the floor) that it has been leaking for a long time.

Here it is when it first came apart.

I think this bearing failed first but not positive.

Here is the drive gear itself and the stripped teeth.

As you can see it ended up having some pretty good damage. I ordered about $750 worth of parts including shipping and got them in and my friend was able to help me get started on the repair and actually helped with some of the hardest parts on Wednesday but somehow the parts order was missing a bearing so I finished it this past Saturday on my own. I don't think I would have been able to do it all by myself by you never know. I for sure would have taken MUCH longer and not have near the confidience in the finished repair job! There were a few tricks to getting the bearings seated and the oil seal around the front axle was the hardest piece to get seated of all. Everything seems to be set and no leaks or anything but on a repair like this you really don't know how good you did until it stays together for a few more years!

Here it is going back together - everything in this picture is brand new.

Almost ready to go back together.

Finished!

I probably cost myself a couple hundred bucks by running it another 30 minutes after I first heard the popping noise to begin with, although we might have replaced all the bearings anyway there were a couple other parts that were probably damaged by running it with the gear damaged and stripping metal off into the oil.

I'm going to run it a while and drain some oil to see how it looks and go from there.

Overall it took about 5 or 6 hours to get it apart and put it back together but that was with an experienced mechanic helping. It would have taken me a lot longer by myself if I would have been able to do it at all.

I'm going to try to start getting back to at least a weekly posting again now that busy season is winding down.

That's it for now.

Nathan