bx2200 transaxle broke

[hdbikercouple]

well with 635 hrs. the inside pins broke, then got in the main gear and did some other gears then put a hole in the bottom of the housing. I stripped the tractor down to get to the transaxle and took it to the dealer. appr.$1900.00 plus change to fix. the shop foreman said about $3500.00 if they would of done the whole tear down and install. i bought kubota thinking they are a well built unit. it is a tractor and i do use it as such, but that is not my idea of well built or design. any body else know of the transaxle breaking. by the way the shop foreman said if the diff. lock sticks that could of been the cause. just a fyi.

 

[LBrown59]

well with 635 hrs. the inside pins broke, then got in the main gear and did some other gears then put a hole in the bottom of the housing. I stripped the tractor down to get to the transaxle and took it to the dealer. appr.$1900.00 plus change to fix. the shop foreman said about $3500.00 if they would of done the whole tear down and install. i bought kubota thinking they are a well built unit. it is a tractor and i do use it as such, but that is not my idea of well built or design. any body else know of the transaxle breaking. by the way the shop foreman said if the diff. lock sticks that could of been the cause. just a fyi.

Never heard of this before.

 

[BrierPatch]

by the way the shop foreman said if the diff. lock sticks that could of been the cause. just a fyi.

This makes me nervous. The first time I used my diff. lock on my 2620 it stuck. Only had about 10 hrs on it. I will have to have my dealer look at this.

Thanks for the fyi,

 

[Bob_Young]

Hard to overlook a sticking diff. lock. Makes the tractor almost impossible to steer...in 2WD anyway. Maybe 4WD can mask the problem. If so, it's another reason to use 4WD only when needed.

I think they all "stick" some when under load. In some respects, differential braking (applying brake to the spinning rear wheel) is preferrable to diff. lock; but I know it's tricky to do the way Kubota has their HST controls set up.
Bob

 

[hdbikercouple]

with a bx2200 it turns with the diff.lock engaged. easy to miss you got to watch the inside rear wheel to see if t slips. and they do not have indepent rear brakes. so you use the lock when in need of more traction.

 

[escavader]

havent heard of one breaking before ,that i can recall.What was the task you were doing ,when it broke?
ALAN

 

[hdbikercouple]

loading loose dirt with the loader. did not use the diff. lock any time that day.

 

[grossgary]

this won't make you feel any better but the issue at hand is if this is a quality issue or an anomaly. i think you'll find Kubota has raving reviews, which played a part in buying the machine to begin with.

that being said, there's no vehicle or tractor ever built that has never had one major failure on at least one unit. with that philosophy, you can't own any machines or vehicles.

 

[WALT]

Re: Bullet proof BX
As promised, here is the rest of the story:

I picked up my tractor from the dealer on 24 Dec. 2002, just in time to plow the 9" snow that fell on christmas day/nite.

While the rear of the tractor was apart, I advised the dealer to also inspect the differential lock, which was not engaging.

The total bill for repair was $1304.00
This included the transmission case:$390.00
The differential lock was in pieces, and needed replacement. S-UDT, seals and O-rings added up to an additional $225.00.
The labor was $650.00, of which the dealer gave me a break, and charged 10 hours labor. I would imagine the job took 2x that time, as every part of the rear of the tractor had to be removed.

The silver lining in this fiasco is that the same work would have had to be done to repair the differential lock, and that is now repaired as well.

Due to my experience, be careful when engaging the lock. Hold firm pressure on the foot pedal, while slowly engaging the hydro pedal, and you will feel the diff. lock engage. Release the lock pedal when traction is restored.

To finish this tale of whoa, I removed what is now a $1300 eye bolt from the skid plate, and reattached the rear hold-up chain, using a 3/8" repair link through the original eye bolt hole.
Upon inspection, this set-up works fine, with no ridgid piece to damage the parts your are trying to protect.

I hope you can learn from my engineering mistake, not repeat it, but protect your tractors vunerable underside.

Looking forward to better luck in 2003

HAPPY NEW YEAR

hdbikercouple:

I broke the transmission housing with my skidplate, as posted above. When this occured in 2002, I had 396 hours time on the tractor. When the transaxle was split & torn down, the differential lock mechanism was found in pieces, resting on the bottom. It had not found it's way into ruining any other parts.
The dealer & I guessed that I stepped on it too hard, with the tire spinning and broke it. I now have 1330 hrs. on the tractor, and gently engage the diff. lock lever when needed.
Practically all of the tractor items broken by me can be traced back to some error on my part.

WALT

 

[grossgary]

hmmm, another instance of it breaking. watching thread.
the diff lock is this a center differential (not sure if the manual trans have a center diff?) or rear differential lock? is it available on the HST and manual models?

 

[art]

I've watched too many people engage the diff lock with wheels spinning which is a no-no! Haven't seen one fail in front of me but have seen them broke.

 

[Ed Jones]

This happened to mine just this past Sunday. I didn't know what caused it but after reading feed I believe this is what happened to mine. You can't find a trans axle and the case is $4500.00 now. I am going to look at a complete BX tomorrow and they are asking $4500.00 for the whole tractor and it does run.

well with 635 hrs. the inside pins broke, then got in the main gear and did some other gears then put a hole in the bottom of the housing. I stripped the tractor down to get to the transaxle and took it to the dealer. appr.$1900.00 plus change to fix. the shop foreman said about $3500.00 if they would of done the whole tear down and install. i bought kubota thinking they are a well built unit. it is a tractor and i do use it as such, but that is not my idea of well built or design. any body else know of the transaxle breaking. by the way the shop foreman said if the diff. lock sticks that could of been the cause. just a fyi.

ne

 

[RaydaKub]

There's a guy on Facebook by the name of Stan Beech who had the pins break on his BX25. He took it all apart, then put in new pins that were larger. Had to machine out all of the holes that the pins fall into as they engage. As I recall, there are 4 pins and they are 10mm diameter. He put in pins at 12mm. But I don't hardly touch mine anymore based on his story.

 

[jonsstihl]

Putting larger pins in isn't necessarily the best solution it will only weaken the part that the pins are pressed into. sometimes the wheels have to turn a little for the diff lock to engage but the trick is to make them turn slowly. ramming and jamming only breaks stuff.

 

[rScotty]

I guess the moral of the story is another advantage of 4wd. Since you have to stop the tractor - and the rear wheels - to engage the diff lock, might as well just put it in 4wd instead.

 

[RaydaKub]

I guess the moral of the story is another advantage of 4wd. Since you have to stop the tractor - and the rear wheels - to engage the diff lock, might as well just put it in 4wd instead.

Too late. I'm already in 4WD before I try the diff lock. Except as we all know, 4WD really is only 2WD until you use the diff lock, which then gets you into 3WD. There's no lock on the front diff, so it does what it wants.

 

[jonsstihl]

we might as well also talk about ballast when we talk about diff locks. It makes a huge difference. My B7800 often needed the diff lock when driving through my woods until I had the tires filled then I was rarely using the Diff Lock.

 

[5030]

If you bother to read your supplied owners manual, it plainly states to NEVER engage the different lock when either tire is spinning. On my M's, I have a locking rear and FRONT differential and I never engage either with the wheels spinning, not that I use them often because I don't but they are there if needed.

 

[jonsstihl]

you have to spin the tire to get the diff lock to engage, the trick is you have to do it slowly. to line up the pins in the diff lock so they engage. a slight down pressure on the pedal until you feel it engage then you can go full speed on the HST.

 

[5030]

All well and good but neither of my tractors are HST. HST don't work for me at all and you are correct about engagement. Gently to allow the pins to engage. My front axles are the same deal, pins.
In retrospect, I would have preferred a clutch driven limited slip but obviously, Kubota thought otherwise.