2400h , hope no damage

[Dan Lamb]

Good evening TBN`ers
I hope I didn`t mess my Tractor up , I have a 2018 Branson 2400h , The roads are slushy with some dirt showing and the road was on a slight down grade I had hst in Hi with IT in 4wd and IT started makin a pretty bad sound IT was not like a grinding sound hard to explain , when I took IT out of 4x4 IT quit but I am hopping Nothing GOT damaged . My question is are you not supposed to use 4x4 in high. IT has 116 hours on IT I will call Rob at Daves Tractor in Red Bluff Ca, If anyone has an idea where the noise could be coming from thank you in advance because I have owned my 2400 for 1 year and there is alot of experenced tractor owners on TBN that know far more than me , Thank You . Dan

 

[arnoldziffel]

Good Morning,

Is the sound high volume or kind of low background sound?

I would think you would usually not need 4 wheel drive in high range.
I think High is for "traveling" not working.

 

[Dan Lamb]

AZ
I used high because I had to walk IT about a mile and the road was slick an I didnt want to slide off side of road in ditch and LOW was way too slow , hope ITS OK because when I took IT out of 4x4 IT did quit , Sounded like a higher pitch Thanks for your input ,Dan

 

[Chaos USMC]

Hey Dan,

Was it a clicking or a grinding that could be correlated with the cyclic rotation of the front or back wheels? Was it originating from the front, or back?

Have you tried to duplicate the "problem" since?

Keep us posted.

 

[oldnslo]

Should be no problem with running in 4 wheel drive in either high or low range. Only time I have noticed any noise was when running on a surface with good traction. I had the front drive shaft input bearings fail on mine at low hours. Dealer replaced the whole front axle assembly under warranty. Might be something to check.

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

I've roaded mine down the road with the front diff engaged, in high range on the HST with no issues. Do you think there's a chance that maybe the heel of your foot might have kicked the engage lever part way out as you bounced down the road?

Have you tried it again once you got it home, to see if you could reproduce it?

 

[450]

I have roaded mine down the road in Hi 4X4 with no problem.

 

[radios1]

I've roaded mine down the road with the front diff engaged, in high range on the HST with no issues. Do you think there's a chance that maybe the heel of your foot might have kicked the engage lever part way out as you bounced down the road?

Have you tried it again once you got it home, to see if you could reproduce it?

that's not recommended on a dry road, as the front and rear will never run at exactly the same speed, usually, the front axle is the loser.. some slippage is needed..

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

that's not recommended on a dry road, as the front and rear will never run at exactly the same speed, usually, the front axle is the loser.. some slippage is needed..

Not recommended by WHO exactly?

My manual says nothing about not running it on pavement with the front end engaged. Only thing even remotely close is it says not to road it with the rear diff lock engaged, as it may make it unstable in a turn.

Sounds like horse feathers to me.

And it may be another month at this rate before our roads are DRY. Another blizzard coming tonight.

 

[radios1]

Not recommended by WHO exactly?

My manual says nothing about not running it on pavement with the front end engaged. Only thing even remotely close is it says not to road it with the rear diff lock engaged, as it may make it unstable in a turn.

Sounds like horse feathers to me.

And it may be another month at this rate before our roads are DRY. Another blizzard coming tonight.

one of many pages. Driveline bind, binding hubs, axle wind up, axle bind, drive line wind up - all terms for one thing: stress due to part time 4 wheel drive read this carefully, and follow the links. I knew about this in the '70's. also notice that you cannot take a full time 4wd out of 4wd.. so if you can do that with your tractor, you have part time 4wd..

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

You're comparing apples to parakeets.

 

[radios1]

You're comparing apples to parakeets.

did you know that Apples and Parakeets are two different things?. I do.. you can look the two up on Google!..

 

[Chaos USMC]

X2 for what radio1 said. Every piece of equipment I own, or that I have ever owned, that has four-wheel drive capability, they have reacted adversely (wind-up/binding) when 4-wheel drive is operated on dry, nonslip surfaces. Don't have to read it in a manual as it is intuitively obvious to the operator when those conditions are encountered. Undue stresses are imparted on drive-lines. Driving straight ahead is one thing but turn the vehicle/tractor/utv/atv and the stresses will be magnified.

Anyway, with the flick of a switch or the pull of a handle, why not take the few seconds it takes to disengage on dry, nonslip surfaces and save the wear and tear of the drive-line?

 

[JNA]

4X4 and hi gear not good. Too much friction.

 

[ptsg]

You would be surprised if you ever come to Portugal and saw the tractors with the front tires completely worn out due to the operators lack of knowledge/care/laziness on turn the 4WD off on asfault/concrete. They road the tractors everywhere with the 4WD on...

Heck, on the local "craigslist" I regularly see tractors being sold with really low hours (<500) with the front tires with no tread left.

Obviously it's not advisable to road the tractors with 4WD, but it's not the end of the world either.

 

[LouNY]

Good evening TBN`ers
I hope I didn`t mess my Tractor up , I have a 2018 Branson 2400h , The roads are slushy with some dirt showing and the road was on a slight down grade I had hst in Hi with IT in 4wd and IT started makin a pretty bad sound IT was not like a grinding sound hard to explain , when I took IT out of 4x4 IT quit but I am hopping Nothing GOT damaged . My question is are you not supposed to use 4x4 in high. IT has 116 hours on IT I will call Rob at Daves Tractor in Red Bluff Ca, If anyone has an idea where the noise could be coming from thank you in advance because I have owned my 2400 for 1 year and there is alot of experenced tractor owners on TBN that know far more than me , Thank You . Dan

The original poster was on apparently a dirt road with snow and slush running in 4 wd.
That is not a situation to be in 2wd if you have 4wd.
I do not recall any elaboration from the original poster as to if the noise was reproducible or not.
It sounds to me like it may have been not fully engaged at the time.

This carrying on about using 4wd on hard surfaces simple amazes me, if it is a high traction surface that does not need 4wd disengage it.
If you forget to for a mile or two you are not going to dramatically destroy your tractor.
Is it the best for it? Most likely not, is it the end of the world? I kind of doubt it.
I have used 4wd many times while traveling in high gear.

 

[CobyRupert]

Don't run 4wd on surfaces where the tires can't slip. This is true whether your manual has this instruction translated or not.
The circumferences of the back and front tires (and gearing multiplier) won't be 100% in sync. I heard that, depending on which type of tires one has, around 5% slip is normal.
The tires need to, and will, slip in relation to each other. On dry pavement, this is equivalent to constantly loading the drive train with the torque required to....uhm....slip tires on dry pavement. (-"Thank you Captain Obvious")

This is why I'd rather drive a front wheel drive or AWD car instead of my 4wd truck on days when the road is "spotty" (i.e. bare, then wet/snow/drifted) because you can't drive in 4wd, and driving in 2wd (rear) is worse than using a FWD car.

Is the noise that OP heard from being on too dry of a surface, or was it a bearing, or MFWD gear? We don't really know how wet or dry the road was.

Edit/correction: OP says roads were "slushy with some dirt showing." Running in 4wd should of been no problem.

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

did you know that Apples and Parakeets are two different things?. I do.. you can look the two up on Google!..

Some of you guys are just amazing. Honestly, with your reading comprehension skills, I can't believe you make it through the day without a guide.

That "WHOOSHING" sound you heard? Yeah, that was the POINT going over your head.


Some information you *neglected* to take in, during your attempt to lecture the rest of us...

1. The OP said his road conditions were "slushy with some dirt showing and the road was on a slight down grade"...

Nowhere did he say "dry pavement".

2. I told the OP I do the same thing, (meaning driving down a slushy road in HST hi range and front end engaged with no issues).

YOU (radio) were the first one to say DRY ROAD in your reply. NO ONE ELSE SAID "DRY ROAD" until you did.

Then others piled onto a "dry road vs. 4x4" debate. No were was the OP talking about a DRY ROAD??


And just to REALLY blow your minds,

Up here our winter usually lasts many months. I have literally gone 3 and 4 months straight without ever taking my pickup truck OUT of 4x4. Sometimes longer than that. We have periods of time where the roads are ice and snow covered, completely clean and bare pavement, and (like right now) a mixture of both types of surface. So you may be driving along, find a snow or ice covered patch, and then a patch of clean, dry pavement. Or, the main roads are clean and dry, but any parking lot or secondary road you turn on is ice or snow covered. I also routinely drive my truck at highway speeds with the 4x4 engaged. I have been doing this for years, and many, many thousands of miles. Everyone I know up here with a 4x4 truck does the same thing.

But then, we were talking about TRACTORS, right?

So you're going to tell me this OP (or myself) is going to explode everything out of our driveline, with his TOP SPEED of 11 mph (and mine of 15 mph) by driving our tractors down a road a short distance? There would be "blown up" tractors all over North Dakota if this was actually true. I don't know a single farmer that bothers to disengage the front end on their tractor while roading it from the shed to the farmhouse, or from the shed to the field.

Perspective gentlemen... perspective. *

*and some reading comprehension skills please...

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

OP,

If we can turn down the cartoon channel a bit,

Have you tried to run your tractor in 4x4 again, to see if you can reproduce the issue?

Hopefully it's just an engagement issue, and it's ok.

Any updates?

 

[ericm979]

Many Bransons have a ball drive mechanism in the shaft drive to the front wheels. The balls sometimes pop out. I don't know if it's a mechanical fuse of sorts or if it's to deal with small amounts of misalignment between transmission and front axle, or both.