I am looking for peoples take on a situation, so I opened up the chain drive box on a 1845C, it was full with about 5-7 gal of water, and maybe 1/2 of oil sludge at the bottom. Once fully drained I see what appears to be 20-40 full, and shattered needle bearings in the bottom of the pan from front to back and the bucket oil drained into has tons as well... the machine has been a little weak and slow on that side, but was still driving fine and didnt make any notable noises. Now to me, it looks like the shaft the middle sprocket rides on has gasket sealer on it, non factory given its slightly sloppy appearance compared to the other side. And between how much needles are in the oil, the non factory looking gasket sealer around the shaft, and the fact it was still driving Im inclined to think that the bearings blew out from the previous owner and they didnt clean the pan out... I can take it all apart and replace all the bearings, the unit is 25 years old with 2500 hours on it. But I really dont want to if I dont have to lol. But I did use it for the first time sorta hard digging and moving clay for last 5 hours before took it down, the right tank was full of just water maybe 2 quarts of oily sludge at bottom of water. Just looking for peoples takes on it, I dont see how if it had that many needles break off it could still spin without snapping chains so another reason inclined to think this is an old repair that wasnt cleaned up
I think those needles are from the big gear in the middle of the chain box: Items #26. I would be planning on pulling that compartment apart or at the very least removing shaft #20 to see what damage there is. Find it hard to imagine anyone replaced those bearings and did not clean out the old parts.
I completely agree on the large gear from the middle, only thing that matches it really well. I find it hard to believe that they wouldnt have cleaned out the chainbox, but at the same time I have learned not to under estimate people to take the lazy way approach to doing a repair on stuff. Do you know if shaft #20 can be removed without having to break all 3 chains, the total lack of access to the middle gear has got me imagining how much of a headache its got to be to get the chains back on... and if I could just slide the shaft out, examine it and use a bore scope to see if the bearings were blow out or obviously replaced would be way nicer
How about slacking off the drive chains and then try to shake the drive gear with a pry bar and see if it's got play in it. I would do that first and go from there.
Been a few years since I was into one of those chain boxes, probably 12 to 15 as mater of fact. As I recall the original chains did not have master links, but then how likely is it that those are the originals? Like Bad Tom says start by backing off both the axles so only the motor chain is still close to tight then you should be able to tell if there is a problem with the bearings on that center gear. If it was me and that center gear is sloppy, I would remove both axle hub assemblies and then pull the shaft out of the center gear. I'm thinking you may be able to work the final drive chains off the axle gears without breaking them if they don't have master links.
Thanks for that advice, I did just that and man it had slop in it, tore the entire thing apart and there wasnt even bearing racers left in the sprocket... so new shaft at a minimum and possibly a new sprocket. Have to see if base material is worn out of spec or if there is a sliver of race metal left. At first glance the chains look solid and fine, but is there anything I should look for to make sure they arent in need of replacing given already have it torn apart?
Those chains are usually pretty tough. Guess what I might do is check them by pushing and pulling on them to see if there is slop in the pins and bushings in the links. Are the parking lock pins free and working? some people don't understand how they work and I have seen at least one machine where the sleeves they work in were torn right out of the side of chain box! Yea we had some bad operators at the quarry over the years. Never understood why someone would abuse a machine that saved them so much effort with a hand shovel! Then again I worked for a couple years running a hand shovel before there were skid steers!
Well this was all that was left of the needle bearings, less then a 1/16th inch of metal, and it had this weird cracking all over both of them. The parking brake is still intact, though it was way out of alignment sitting a good inch deeper in then it was suppose to so it would stick and the sprocket could wiggle instead of being locked in
but inside of the sprocket seems to be shot, I could hone it out, but Im inclined to think that doing so would run the risk of removing to much material and leave needle bearings to not be pressed in tight enough to last without moving/sliding so ordered a new sprocket and shaft
Well that sucks! Not sure what a new or good used gear would cost. One thought would be is there a good machine shop near by that does not charge an arm and a leg? Just thinking it may be possible to bore the bad area out and press in a sleeve and then bore that to fit the needle bearings. Would be worth a trip to some place and see what they say
Also not to wish bad luck on you but I would be tempted to take the other side apart to at least inspect, both sides were probably treated the same by previous owner.
Yup lol, literally doubled the order for all bearings to do a full replacement on both sides, last thing I want is to put it all back together and have the left side fail in 50 hours. Case wanted $650 for the sprocket, but I found a new one on sale for $160? at tractorparts asap so went with them for those, but ordered OEM bearings, coming from the sawmill world I've become very wary of aftermarket chinese bearings, one of the few things I'd rather pay extra for US, German, or Japanese
Around here at least I dont know of any machine shops that survived the pandemic that don't charge $100-200 an hour for anything. If I had a lathe thats what I would have gone for as the teeth looked to be in great shape