Wet brakes vs dry brakes

TimberHole · Mar 12, 2019

I have a JD 950 that is leaking oil into one brake drum. The book calls for pulling the final drive to replace the seal. While searching the net tonight I found an old thread where a guy claims he filled the cavity half way with oil and converted one of these machines to wet brakes. Will pads that are designed to run dry function correctly in an oil bath? I wouldn稚 think so but I don稚 have any experience with wet brakes.

DLTTrekkers · Mar 12, 2019

Seal can be replaced without removing finaldrive .
Remove brake link.....then brake actuator....then nut that holds drum inplace . Now remove drum....if stuck....drill and tap drillholes ...now use bolts to jack drum off its splines.
Now remove seal.

Texasmark · Mar 12, 2019

Wet and dry comparisons....my Fords.....3910 is wet, the other two dry. Every time I go to use one (pretty seldom now) they squeal because the cast iron drum rusts between usages and i have to grind the rust off. No biggie, just get it rolling and hit the break pedal a few times. Other thing is dry require adjusting, rate depends on how much you use them and how hard. Wet are disc and don't require adjusting.....grab much better too.

WranglerX · Mar 12, 2019

If its a external drum, I don't see how you can convert it to wet, but my knowledge ends at the thought of wet brakes being internal to final drive (hydrostatic) ....

Dale

DK35vince · Mar 12, 2019

TimberHole said:
I have a JD 950 that is leaking oil into one brake drum. The book calls for pulling the final drive to replace the seal. While searching the net tonight I found an old thread where a guy claims he filled the cavity half way with oil and converted one of these machines to wet brakes. Will pads that are designed to run dry function correctly in an oil bath?

No. The dry brakes won't be worth spit riding in oil.
Far better off simply fixing the seal.

ovrszd · Mar 12, 2019

DL Meisen said:
If its a external drum, I don't see how you can convert it to wet, but my knowledge ends at the thought of wet brakes being internal to final drive (hydrostatic) ....

Dale

You can't. Misunderstanding.

TimberHole · Mar 13, 2019

DLTTrekkers said:
Seal can be replaced without removing finaldrive .
Remove brake link.....then brake actuator....then nut that holds drum inplace . Now remove drum....if stuck....drill and tap drillholes ...now use bolts to jack drum off its splines.
Now remove seal.

Good to know. I wondered if the seal comes out towards the drum but the book says pull the drive. I think I’ll pull the drum and give it a go.

As for converting to wet, it didn’t seem like a feasible idea or the shoes would still perform saturated with oil as they currently are. I was surprised to find some old thread where a guy claimed he drilled the cover for plugs and filled the cavity thru these holes. Maybe his idea of good brakes is different than everyone else’s. Not sure.