My front Axle almost came off!!

[RobJ]

Nice repair job, Rob.



What is the diameter of your pivot pin?

Got to be about 2" or so, I'm still at the office. 1" is very small IMO.

 

[texasjohn]

Great photos, thanks! Nice repair, good welding job, IMHO. Great you maintained your awareness and figured out something was wrong and analyzed it. This is the first failure of welds that I can recall relative to Kubota tractors... really rare.

 

[RobJ]

Great you maintained your awareness and figured out something was wrong and analyzed it. This is the first failure of welds that I can recall relative to Kubota tractors... really rare.

All that fun as a teenager then 6 years of pulling wrenches. Yep I get into someones car or other machine and instantly analyze the problems they never knew they had. That's the blessing, The curse is they always say "can you fix it"?

Yeah I think that's a poor place to fail. FYI this tractor did have the smaller wider turfs on it for the first 1200 hours or so. Hard to say how long its been broke, I've had it a little over 2 years.

Rob

 

[john_bud]

Rob,

The original pictures look like the factory welding was on the light side. Your's are not! I did see one with bubbles in the weld. Did you not get all the grease out before welding? (I do that too)

jb

 

[RobJ]

Rob,

The original pictures look like the factory welding was on the light side. Your's are not! I did see one with bubbles in the weld. Did you not get all the grease out before welding? (I do that too)

jb

You are right JB, very light especially on the back side. Even looking where it is rolled under I didn't see much weld. And the front side was cracked and the bead on the side holding was lifting.

I might have a bubble or 2 especially on the side I had to fill. That's about 4-5 passes to get it good. I did use a wire brush on a 7" angle grinder before.

The pin size on it 1 9/16" give or take, probable metric.

 

[dfkrug]

The pin size on it 1 9/16" give or take, probable metric.

That's a good size, esp for a 2WD tractor. I have not seen any structural
weld failures on any of the tractors I have owned, and most of them
were former rentals.

That is prob the last time you will have to have your pivot apart, since
your repair looks robust.

 

[plowking]

I'm surprised that axle isn't a forged piece. Lot of stress on one pivot, probably should be doubleframe or gusseted. My GC2310 already had pivot pin,bushings, o-rings replaced. The pin goes thru the axle housing and is lubricated by axle oil. If it wears bad enough the o-rings can leak, mine had about 1 1/2 -2 inches of play front to back. The pin on my tractor isn't adjustable for axle play like on larger tractors. plowking

 

[diyDave]

Rob good fix, one I've had to do before on various makes/models. As to the grease fitting, I think the back half has a square plug that could be replaced with a metric fitting, but I would just coat all moving surfaces with never seize, and re-assemble.

 

[Ductape]

Yikes ! I hope you got it exact before you welded it........ just a degree or two off, and you could end up with a terrible shimmy at highway speeds !

 

[wushaw]

Yikes ! I hope you got it exact before you welded it........ just a degree or two off, and you could end up with a terrible shimmy at highway speeds !

Now that's funny LOL