Broken left front wheel assist?

[npaden]

Okay,

I've always had leaky seals on my front axles on my L4200. I keep the oil checked pretty regularly and put kitty litter on the floor of the barn. Not worth the several hours of time to replace the seals.

Yesterday I started to use the tractor 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 FEL 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.

So what do you think? Is this something that I can repair myself? How much would something like this cost to repair at a shop?

Thanks in advance for any input or advice.

Nathan

 

[RobJ]

Sounds expensive. Shaft moving and the wheel not.

Taking it apart is easy, but you know better than we about your mechanical skills.

Keep us updated with pics. It seems I've read this sort of post before.

Rob

 

[Yankee Clipper]

If you are sure your wheels are torqued to the wheel flanges, check the four wheel drive shaft coupler.

There is a splined coupler on both ends of the four wheel drive shaft. This goes through the center of the engine crankcase / pan. Remove the two shield retaining bolts (one each end) and then the cover will partially collapse. As you collapse the metal cover, you can see the couplers on each end. Use a drift (after cutting the safety wire) to drive out the two roll pins. Then slide the couplers onto the drive shaft and the whole business will come down easily.

You will likely find the one on the front end (by the front axle) has stripped out or partially stripped.

You likely can get a new coupling and install it yourself. Use some moly grease on teh splines to help it last longer.

Good luck.

 

[npaden]

A preliminary run throgh the parts diagrams looks like a worst case scenario of about $750 or so in parts if I have to replace everything up to the front differential on the left side. There is one individual gear that is $182.45 and the front axle itself is $177.16, but other than that most parts are just $30 - $50. I hope that it is just a few individual gears that have a tooth broken off. I could get by as cheap as $100ish in parts just replacing the seals and a few of the smaller gears.

I'm going to try to pull it apart tonight and see what the damage is.

I'll keep you updated.

 

[npaden]

Well there was plenty of oil left in there so that wasn't the culprit but there was some pretty decent damage done. It looks like a bearing failed to begin with and then the bevel gear looks like it went next along with the final pinion gear. Those 2 parts run over $250 by themselves and would have needed to be replaced regardless once I heard the popping noise because the popping noise was the bevel gear slipping on the final pinion gear. Since I ran it a while after that there was some more damage on the cover and it looks like the safe thing to do will be to go ahead and replace all the bearings in the entire front axle. Mandatory replacement parts total $483.71 + shipping.

There are 2 parts that are borderline on replacing. The front axle itself at $177.16 has a very tiny bit of play with one bearing on it but otherwise looks to be in good shape. The other part is the entire axle housing itself at $230.00. The axle housing just has one little spot on the inner hub that you can see has a little wear, but when you put a bearing in you can't get it to wobble any by hand. Those 2 parts come to $407.16 together. I have a friend who is a John Deere Industrial Machinery mechanic and he helped with the tear down and said that the borderline parts would be replaced if it was one of his customer repair jobs, then he said that if it was his personal tractor he probably wouldn't replace them.

Now I have to make up my mind if this is a $500 repair job or a $1,000 repair job.

Any thoughts or other comments? This is a fairly tired 12 year old tractor that I purchased used and it seems to have had a pretty rough life before me. I'm debating spending the extra $ and then having something else breaking on it.

Thanks, Nathan

 

[RobJ]

said that the borderline parts would be replaced if it was one of his customer repair jobs, then he said that if it was his personal tractor he probably wouldn't replace them.

I have worked in 2 industries and have used his school of thought. Rule one is repairing a customers engine you don't cut corners. It may be a 10 hour a day machine and I don't want to take a chance on a "come back". I might show it to him and let him decide then note it on the work order. Rule two is it's mine and I'm cheap OR I know I'll only put a few hours on it a week and can watch it closer. So I'll save me some money.

Good Luck,
Rob

 

[npaden]

I ended up ordering one of the borderline pieces and not the other. I think with shipping it is going to end up running into a $750ish repair job. My mechanic friend said that if I could get the parts by tomorrow he would help me put it back together so it was worth the nearly $100 extra to get it all shipped next day. Most of it is coming from Dallas with just the $5 per part line item drop ship handling surcharge, but one bearing is having to come from Ohio so that one ends up with a $5 handling drop ship charge + overnight shipping.

Having my tractor back up and running on Wednesday when it broke on Sunday evening will be great though, I have a bunch of work lined up for it!

 

[KennyV]

Just wondering if everything went back as expected? KennyV.

 

[npaden]

Somehow we ended up missing 1 bearing so we didn't get it all back together on Wednesday. My friend helped me with the hardest parts on Wednesday but I finished it yesterday. I don't think I would have been able to do it by myself. 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!

I took a few pictures and will post them soon. Nothing too exciting.

 

[npaden]

Okay, I got the pictures uploaded.

Here is the axle before anything was done. You can tell by the built up dirt and grease 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.

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.