While driving my 25 year old, 850 hr B2710 out to retrieve a load of firewood from the wood shed it suddenly lurched to the front right as the tire rolled away. Fortunately I was going very slowly and the FEL bucket was 10” from the ground. When I got off, I could see a nubbin of the front axle protruding from the gear casing and the axle flange portion attached to the inside of the wheel. After removing the geared portion of the front axle from the gear case and the flanged portion from the wheel I could see a few outer radial cracks and a rusted outer peripheral rim at the site where the axel sheared off. Over the years, I’ve hauled a lot of very heavy sections of trees from the site of a fallen tree to my log splitter. This is often been a trip of one to 2 miles on a gravel road. My assumption is that when cruising back to my place with a full load, every time I hit a bump the loaded bucket would transmit a sudden tremendous force on a narrow point of the axel. With time this caused the radial cracks followed by rust and the eventual shearing of the axle. With a cursory Internet search, I found about six B and L Kubota owners reporting the same shearing of the front axel. I've replaced the right side and will do the same for the left, but part is currently backordered, meanwhile driving very slowly with bucket near the ground.
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